On Aug 24, 2004, at 4:53 AM, Gary Nunn wrote:
Unfortunately, unlike email spam, the cell phone browser messages beep at you until you read them or dismiss the notification. They have a captive audience.
Actually no they don't.
Remember life before Windows XP was released? Return to that era.
Place your cellular in the driveway and carefully, cautiously, back your vehicle over it, several times, even if -- ESPECIALLY if -- it (the phone) belongs to your employer. (If you lack a vehicle or employer, drop the phone in the toilet. If you lack a toilet, why the hell do you have a cellular phone, you idiot? Learn a few things about priorities before you get back into the welfare line.)
Presto. You're living in Warren's Cellular-Free World of Yesteryear. (Actually ca. 2000)
You'll discover life in here is good. No inane conversations comprised solely of "I'm at the grocery store … where are you" Hello? Hello?" No interruptions at movies or _Magic: The Gathering_ games from people with "urgent matters" such as "your newspaper's lying in the rain on the driveway." No, and I mean absolutely no, "emergency" calls from ANYone that cannot be handled by an answering machine, calls such as "the print job is running late and won't be delivered until next week" -- something over which you have no control anyway and so, strictly speaking, you did not need to know about immediately, "immediately" meaning halfway through _Finding Nemo_.
There is almost no personal contingency for which cellular phones are nearly totally unsuited. Those idiot devices have had millions redefining what "contingency" means -- and they are nearly all dead, dead wrong.
The few times cellular phones served a real contingency purpose to the common man have tended to be wrenching tragedies, such as when last messages to loved ones were left by doomed WTC victims or phones were ringing on the bodies of the victims of the Madrid attacks of early '04 as rescuers carried them away, the phones' rings from relatives trying to call and see if their loved ones were all right.
Ultimately, when you get to tacks, you gotta admit the damned things really aren't that useful.
Do yourself a favor and pull the plug now. The grass is not just greener on this side of the pasture; it's also calmer, much *much* quieter, and there's a hell of a lot less bullshtuff.
("Oo, my boss makes me … I gotta for work…" Really? How did your position's work get done in the pre-cellular era? You'll actually be fired for refusing to carry a cellular 24/7 without overtime compensation? If so you signed a rotten employment contract, friend, and will do yourself a favor by finding a job where you are treated as a human being, not a permanently on-call answering service.
(Of course if one's sole purpose in having a cellular is ego gratification, one will persist in carrying them. And if such is the case, one needs to fess up and stop whining about how "awful" one's life is.)
Whew! That was fun!
-- WthmO
Why men should not drive while using cellular phones: You can't steer when you're trying to handle TWO tiny devices. --
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