Tried answering my mobile phone today. Here's an interesting thing about my mobile phone: it takes going through about 26 prompts in order to answer a call, but you can dump a call with just one (usually accidental) push of the button. Isn't that great? If I'm on the phone, and I received another call I'd like to answer, it goes something like this: answer call? Switch to answered call? Talk to person whose call you switched to and/or answered? Are you sure? No, I mean REALLY sure? Like, you know, sure-sure? OK, here they are....ha! Not really, I'm not convinced you really want to have this conversation. You do? Honestly? OK...but I think you're making a mistake...plus, I think you borrowed his leaf blower last fall and never returned it. But go ahead if you like, but you'll be sorry. Plus the guy's kind of a dick. Oh, you'd like too anyways? Still? OK. Answer call? Switch to answered call?
You get the idea. But if you want (or not) to dump a call...one push of the button is all it takes and it's "SAYONARA MOTHER FUCKER! I'll talk to you in Hell!!!!!" Usually, this happens by accident, and as I'm attempting to re-dial the person whose call I just nuked, they're trying to call me back, and I have to go through the 26 prompt torture session to again try and retrieve the call. They then again get dumped and this Danse Macabre continues ad infinitum. This made me ponder just how smart these so called "smart" phones are going to get, since they seem to be able to determine just when somebody is actually worth talking to. Maybe you won't even be using them and they'll start up unexpectedly as they sit in your pocket and start talking to you. For instance you'll be at the store looking at a shirt and your phone will suddenly say "Dude, please tell me you're not considering buying that shirt...I mean, what are you going to match it with? Parachute pants?" Or you'll be at a bar, drunk out of your mind, chatting up somebody and your phone will start up with "Really? Has your life gotten so bad that a sweaty encounter with this troll seems like a good idea? Hey, while your at it, since you seem so Hell bent on demeaning yourself, why don't you go ahead and take a dump in the potted palm in the corner while singing 'Dont Cry for Me Argentina' at the top of your lungs, then walk away with your pants around your ankles and state to the bartender "Keep the change". As you can see, the phones of tomorrow will be smart, as well as sarcastic AND passive-aggressive.
Was watching TV and saw what was the two most perfect, and true to life scenes I have seen in some time. One was this guys little soliloquy about how his friend is always running late because "When you're constantly late, you never have to think. All you can keep in your mind is the aggravation of the traffic and traffic lights that you feel is making you even later for your destination. It keeps your mind occupied. When you're early and relaxed, your mind wanders, and you're forced to look in your rear view mirror and wonder who you really are..." Fuckin A. Not bad. I saw a lot of truth in that. The other scene was this 40 something guy who has this intense and philosophical encounter with his teenage daughter's ex-boyfriend. He feels like he has given this heart broke lad some important life tips, and maybe, just maybe, connected with him in a way that is going to serve the "not yet quite a man" well as he continues with his life. He then walks away and stands in his yard, pondering and savoring the experience...and has a look of a man who may, in fact, be reflecting back on his own bitter sweet youth. Then a sprinkler explodes and a geyser of water erupts into the sky. Reality sets in, and the bullshit necessities of life quickly snuff out his "win". I thought to myself "Holy shit...that was....perfect." Anyways, that was the truest slice of life I have seen on TV in quite some time. Who knows? Maybe next time the show will show somebody taking a dump in a potted palm...and I know I will have found a new show for me.
Showing posts with label mobile phones. Show all posts
Showing posts with label mobile phones. Show all posts
Monday, January 4, 2010
Saturday, January 10, 2009
Can You Hear Me Now?
Lately I have been driving up and down Northern California. A lot. Naturally, as I do this, I occasionally talk on the phone…if for no other reason than to keep me entertained as I log mile after mile. Interesting thing about today’s “modern digital technology” is this: it’s shit. Apparently, driving by a foothill 13ft above sea level is enough to kill a phone call. Hell, I think a blade of grass just a wee bit too close to the roadway can make a call drop…or two mosquito’s screwing mid-air and flying through the signal path would do it as well. Why is it we can control a robot on the face of fucking Mars 50,000,000 miles away without much trouble at all, but a consistent cell phone call from I-5 near Tracy is like getting a woman to admit she’s wrong (i.e. damned near impossible). Why don’t the cell carriers just piggyback their signal onto a Mexican language radio station? Because God knows those evil bastions of drunken polka music come in clear as a bell even if your car was driving behind Mt.-fucking- Everest.
Anyway, I have a theory, and it’s predicated on the typical human being a complete and total gullible dumbass…so I have a hunch it’s probably correct. It goes something like this: the new ”digital” mobile phone technology is a scam. It doesn’t exist. If I understand things right, the theoretical beauty of a digital signal is that its signal strength shouldn’t matter…unlike the old cell technology. In other words, since digital is just a binary language that’s interpreted by a microchip, how strong the signal is shouldn’t matter. Either the information is there to be understood and relayed, or it’s not, no matter how strong or weak. So, a signal at 1 percent should work just like a signal at 100 percent, since either way the information is there to be interpreted. Now, the old “cell” technology very much depended on signal strength and that’s why calls would fade in and out, and be staticky, and all that nonsense. But you know what? I get a lot of that with the new technology. In fact, a lot of my calls go like this:“Can you hear me? No? How about now? I can hear you just fine…can you hear me? Wait…ok, now I can’t hear you…do you hear me? Ok, you can’t hear me now? I still hear you. Hello? Hello? Ok, there you are…wait…you’re staticky…no, I don’t take fish oil. Oh…you ditched the foil! Got it. Yeah…that self sealing plastic wrap is pretty cool. Hello? Hello?”
Anyway, most of my conversations contain a version of this dialogue about 75 percent of the time…and yes, I have discussed plastic wrap on the phone f.y.i. In fact, I think that's why new "smart" phones have so many features on them now (and yes, I have one too), because they want to distract you with bright lights and gimmicky bullshit to get you to forget the fact that the phone call quality STILL SUCKS ASS. But I digress. I think our new phone technology is just the same old technology we’ve always had, it’s just that the corporate robber barons renamed and repackaged it as a ruse to charge us more for the same old crapola service we’ve always had. And because it’s labeled “digital”, which sounds hella sexy, we practically come in our pants to cut them that check…because we’re stupid. This renaming the same turd sandwich we’re always forced to eat by marketing fuckwads is nothing new, and it’s been around for, well, forever. Snake oil salesman for lack of a better explanation. As a matter of fact, if you ever see the words “New”, “Premium”, “New and Improved”, “Exclusive”, “Ultra”, and yes,”Digital”, you can be pretty sure you’re getting screwed…and just like getting screwed, it’s always gonna cost ‘ya eventually…BIG TIME (you know…either financially, or in another little piece of your soul being destroyed). Can you hear me now?
Anyway, I have a theory, and it’s predicated on the typical human being a complete and total gullible dumbass…so I have a hunch it’s probably correct. It goes something like this: the new ”digital” mobile phone technology is a scam. It doesn’t exist. If I understand things right, the theoretical beauty of a digital signal is that its signal strength shouldn’t matter…unlike the old cell technology. In other words, since digital is just a binary language that’s interpreted by a microchip, how strong the signal is shouldn’t matter. Either the information is there to be understood and relayed, or it’s not, no matter how strong or weak. So, a signal at 1 percent should work just like a signal at 100 percent, since either way the information is there to be interpreted. Now, the old “cell” technology very much depended on signal strength and that’s why calls would fade in and out, and be staticky, and all that nonsense. But you know what? I get a lot of that with the new technology. In fact, a lot of my calls go like this:“Can you hear me? No? How about now? I can hear you just fine…can you hear me? Wait…ok, now I can’t hear you…do you hear me? Ok, you can’t hear me now? I still hear you. Hello? Hello? Ok, there you are…wait…you’re staticky…no, I don’t take fish oil. Oh…you ditched the foil! Got it. Yeah…that self sealing plastic wrap is pretty cool. Hello? Hello?”
Anyway, most of my conversations contain a version of this dialogue about 75 percent of the time…and yes, I have discussed plastic wrap on the phone f.y.i. In fact, I think that's why new "smart" phones have so many features on them now (and yes, I have one too), because they want to distract you with bright lights and gimmicky bullshit to get you to forget the fact that the phone call quality STILL SUCKS ASS. But I digress. I think our new phone technology is just the same old technology we’ve always had, it’s just that the corporate robber barons renamed and repackaged it as a ruse to charge us more for the same old crapola service we’ve always had. And because it’s labeled “digital”, which sounds hella sexy, we practically come in our pants to cut them that check…because we’re stupid. This renaming the same turd sandwich we’re always forced to eat by marketing fuckwads is nothing new, and it’s been around for, well, forever. Snake oil salesman for lack of a better explanation. As a matter of fact, if you ever see the words “New”, “Premium”, “New and Improved”, “Exclusive”, “Ultra”, and yes,”Digital”, you can be pretty sure you’re getting screwed…and just like getting screwed, it’s always gonna cost ‘ya eventually…BIG TIME (you know…either financially, or in another little piece of your soul being destroyed). Can you hear me now?
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