BS: Cellphones are shite.

Subject: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:07 PM

They play annoying little tunes while you are sitting in a restaurant or trying to watch a movie. They irradiate your brain cells silently. They explode. They cost big bucks to use. They invade quite places. They cause traffic accidents.

Cellphones are shite.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Peace
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:09 PM

However, if you skip them just right on a lake, they go far.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Rapparee
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:09 PM

Mine's set to vibrate so it doesn't make any noise. I keep it in my pocket. After it rings I generally lie back, hold my cell phone, and have a cigarette.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Bill D
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:10 PM

not mine...I only turn it on when I'm expecting a call, or MUST make one. I don't feel like I 'need' to be 3.4 seconds from everyone I know at every instant.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:12 PM

The very idea of it is a nightmare...

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Peace
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:15 PM

"Mine's set to vibrate so it doesn't make any noise. I keep it in my pocket. After it rings I generally lie back, hold my cell phone, and have a cigarette."

"The very idea of it is a nightmare..."

Well, it's a heckuva lot more convenient than waiting for the washer spin cycle.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 10:20 PM

No, I mean the idea of being 3.4 seconds away from contact with everyone who knows me...

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Once Famous
Date: 29 Dec 04 - 11:03 PM

Hey, once upon a time I had to look for a pay phone on my way home from work to call ahead to pick up Chinese food to bring home. I had to be sure the stupid thing worked and I had the right change.

Fuck that.

I'll take the cell phone any day.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: number 6
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 12:21 AM

Yes, they do have annoying rings, as a matter of fact even land line phones have annoying rings. I detest the idea of camera phones. I don't think they are that expensive at all. But, as MG said they are very convenient. I'll keep mine.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: LadyJean
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 12:27 AM

Mine got stolen on Christmas Eve. How's that for loathsome? I bought the thing because I wound up in a house with no place to install a phone, and I needed one. Now, I'm out $90. I'm also out a phone that lost power when I was talking to the gas company, and nagged me about minutes. It's that minutes thing that really got to me.
I HATE CELL PHONES!

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Peace
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 02:21 AM

And while you're at it Jean, congratulations on the article that was published in the Pittsburg-Post Gazette on December 29. Tha article was entitled "Midweek Perspectives: The home fire still burns" and it's real good.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 09:09 AM

They're convenient once you get used to them, I suppose. I have fortunately never gotten used to them. Thus I am free of cellphones.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 09:33 AM

My wife gets wrong numbers on hers. She carefully explains that this isn't the right number. Then the callers pushes "redial" and she's not as pleasant.

Mine is alwasy turned off in church, in medical facilities, in concerts, and in other inappropriate places -- even though it vibrates rather than "rings." If I must make a call while driving (or if I receive a call when driving) I pull over and stop -- I want to die with my boots on, not my seat belt.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Barbara Shaw
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 09:37 AM

One reason I have it is so my elderly mother who lives alone can reach me if she needs to. Another is to summon help from the car if necessary. Another is to keep in touch with family when we're traveling without having to search for a payphone. Another is so people (kids, husband) can find me for important matters that might come up and I can find them. I don't use the thing for chats or casual conversation, and people who do can be very annoying, besides being pathetic. People can use what's good about new technology with good sense or they can use it in much the same way they live their lives. The technology is not "shite" but the use of it can be.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Rapparee
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 09:46 AM

1. I can't imagine using a cell phone as camera -- the resolution sucks.

2. I can't imagine using a cell phone to surf the Web -- the screen's miniscule and the price is outrageous.

3. I can't imagine why in the world I should available for contact all day, every day -- I like silence and privacy too much.

4. But I can imagine reasonable uses for my cell phone, and I try to keep it at that.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Once Famous
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 09:50 AM

My teen sons have them.

It's worth it to when they call me and say. "don't worry, Dad. I'm at so and so's. I'll be home in an hour."

How do you put a price tag on that?

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Kim C
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 09:54 AM

Well, that's one of them double-edged swords, innit?

The cell phone is a handy thing, but it can be abused and overdone. The thing to remember is this, though - you never know what another person's reason is for having a phone, or a beeper. When a device goes off at an inconvenient time, it's easy to think, "what an inconsiderate sod." But you don't know what's going on in that person's life, and they might have a good reason for having that instant-contact device.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Once Famous
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 10:26 AM

Exactly, Kim. But some of our "friends" here are just so judgemental and society square pegs.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Kim C
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 11:12 AM

The other thing is, is it really worth your energy to get peeved over a stranger's use of a cell phone? You're never going to see that person again. Save your time & energy for things that really matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: GUEST
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 11:27 AM

Well as a single female, driving alone alot at night coming back from late night gigs, and sometimes having to go through not so great parts of town, or out on lonely county roads...........I consider a cell phone an essential piece of safty equipment. I recently had a tire blow out on a highway in East St. Louis Illinois. Really did not want to be changing a tire there at two in the morning. Quick call, help arrived changed my tire and I was SAFELY on my way. To you an annoyance, to me.......a saftyline.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: SINSULL
Date: 30 Dec 04 - 10:46 PM

I got one for work but then I quit the job. Now it's off mostly because I hate being annoyed by phone calls. I check it periodically for messages...every four or five days. I have another year on the contract.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: LadyJean
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 12:17 AM

When you are going to call your sister up and bark "Happy Birthday" into her answering machine, a cell phone is no end useful.
Some years back I encountered a flasher on Forbes Avenue in Squirrel Hill.
It was Saturday evening. Squirrel Hill is a big Jewish area, and the orthodox and Chasidic families were all out in their best. I didn't think they needed to see the poor guy's willie. (No I don't remember if it was circumcised.) So, I found a pay phone and called the police and gave them a description.
If I'd had a camera phone I could have snapped a picture, and passed it on to Pittsburgh's finest.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: RangerSteve
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 07:08 AM

When I'm visiting family members, I call ahead to let them know my ETA, and twice I used it to call AAA when my car broke down. It stays in my car and I've never given the number to anyone, in fact, I don't know the number myself. They have a purpose, especially when you live in a place where pay phones are almost non-existent.

But damn those F-ing idiots who are so wrapped up in their cell phone calls that they don't even notice a police car with lights and sirens going, or they do notice, but can't be bothered to pull over, after all, they have somewhere important to got to, and it's not like they're the ones that need the police, it's someone else that they probably don't even know, so who cares. God Damn self-centered Yuppies.

OK, I'm calmed down again.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Peace
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 07:12 AM

We were in town responding to a structure fire. Fire trucks are BIG. They are either red or yellow (on our department), and they have lotsa lights flashing, and air horns, and different siren noises. We can wake up people four blocks away. So, why doesn't the turkey in front of us know we're there? WHY?

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Rapparee
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 09:43 AM

Just run over him, Brucie. Gently nudge his rear bumper with the truck. Or...is it a pumper with a water cannon? Best squirt guns in the world, water cannon....

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Amos
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 10:05 AM

Martin G has the truth of it when it comes to parents. My daughter is in college, living alone in a far city. To be able to reach her with certainty and for no charge (because of the Sprint plan we use) is priceless.

Dang, that's TWICE I've agreed with him!

:>)

A

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Little Hawk
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 10:25 AM

Heh! Well, I had a feeling that this would stimulate a variety of interesting views on cellphones, and besides....I had to come up with something that Sir jOhn from Hull had not yet officially labelled as "shite".

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: GUEST,leeneia
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 03:02 PM

Of course there are good reasons to have a cell phone.

Nonetheless, I would like to criticize something I am seeing more and more as a person working in retail. And that is parents, usually mothers, who are relying on a cell phone to keep tabs on children who were obviously too young to be left home alone. If something really goes wrong, the cell phone is no substitute for a caring adult.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Peace
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 03:08 PM

Cell phones have resulted in emergency responders getting faster notification of scenes needing their assistance. They have also made it poossible to respon much more quickly to scenes that are misunderstood by the caller and which are actually not in need of assistance. Like most things I guess: ya take the bad with the good.

I truly dislike cells being used by drivers of vehicles while the vehicle is moving. I think law should require that they pull over and handle the call, and that way maybe we get a few fewer calls.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Bert
Date: 31 Dec 04 - 04:51 PM

They're great, Ive got three. One for me one for wife and one for daughter. Unlimited calls (Well actually 10,000 minutes a month)between the three phones plus 800 minutes to other numbers for less than my land line used to cost.

And it's in my pocket whenever I need it. I set it on vibrate only most of the time and turn it off when I go to a song circle or open mike.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Big Al Whittle
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 06:10 PM

Do you remeber that mobile phone Napoleon Solo had in the man from UNCLE. A sort of wrist band and a car aerial cameup out of it. What a good job they never caught on.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 06:28 PM

What I want to know from Little Hawk is "Have you moved to Hull"?
Your use of the word sh.... seems to be becoming prevalent in your vocabulary so have you moved? TO HULL?
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Cellphones are shite.
From: Leadfingers
Date: 01 Jan 05 - 07:31 PM

I dont give out my mobile number either - It lives in the car and is strictly an emergency device , or a 'I'm by the Bus Station - Where's the venue for tonights gig?'
And in UK it IS illegal to use a hand held phone while driving !