Consumed By A Sudden Cellular Natal Nightmare

I have come to “hate” the (not so) smart android telephone devices! The “convenience is not worth the trouble when things go south with the “device”. Thinking about using that landline plug I see in one of the rooms in my house, even though they were recommended by AARP, which is generally a “senior-friendly” advocacy organization. In this case, they might want to redress, I guess.

I now hate the “smart” phone and am old enuff, seasoned enough to remember when we didn’t have to rely on these damned devices.  So, this night culminated in many weeks of the latest Android sent to me by Consumer Cellular, an “IRIS Connect”, which was supposed to solve my problems.  NOT.  From day one, the “apps” would shut off immediately after I tried to open them.  The phone…would also shut down immediately after I tapped or pressed the side things to “open” it – and many, many times did I endure this since the Fall when they sent it to me.  Frustration unbounded!   So, Consumer Cellular is sending me a replacement after sending me a “Galaxy” device, which I did not want?  OMG…we made a “deal” I am to send it back and when they get it, they will send me another IRIS Connect that, supposedly is NOT another lemon. 

Meanwhile…and I kept my part of the bargain, repackaging the “Galaxy” and they did send me a Priority label to return the damned Galaxy.  You know what intervened, though?  The IRIS Connect android I had complained about further deteriorated to the point that I threw it on the floor tonight in disgust and frustration tonight. 

Now, on my birthday, I have NO communication device, except my laptops and my music.  Who knows when hideous Consumer Cellular ‘s “replacement” dumb phone device will arrive, going forward in 2024. They, as my telecommunications provider, are soon to be replaced.

Any suggestions for better a and more reliable telephonic communications company platform in “the future”, which are more friendly to we “seniors” who are not “slow” yet and keeping on, Keeping ON? (in other words, if and when I tell someone my true age, they almost drop-dead in disbelief).

**************************************************************************************************************

On one more crazy-kwayzee note, for the first time since I’ve owned my property did I come out in the back yard and see friggin’ deer in my yard!  They didn’t have antlers and I quickly chased them off and went into my moth ball stash, to dissuade any future encroachments by them thangs. WTF? Its friggin twenty degrees out?  If I was a gun guy hunter, it would have been a field day, I think! lol  “No animals allowed”!  Can’t they READ? 

I

Book Preview: “Conflicting Conveniences”

“Damned smartphone!” lol

Pet Peeve number “5,000″…

Remember this?

My first “cellphone” and,

At least it did not intrude on my mood!

Neither did it remind me;

Harken to those days of sanity.

If you were born prior to 1989 you are saved;

Who can keep count these days?

Don’t you hate it when you text someone,

Then they call you right back before you finish?

If you wanted to TALK to them,

YOU would have called in the first place!

Or Don’t you get annoyed when

You are calling someone,

Their voice mail comes on and,

Just as you are wrapping up your voice-mail,

That person is CALLING you,

Without even having listened to your voice-mail?!

You could have just tex’d them!

What’s the use in their outgoing message?

I feel then like I should have hung up on myself!

Silly smart-phone configurations perpetuate,

Conflicting communications with intrusive settings,

Unfocused communication in the middle of calls!

With options to opt-out of the conversation,

Says Alexander Graham Bell,

“What the hell?”

Let us only hearken back to a Virgin who

Was my first lover;

Of flip cell phones.

I sent her a score of indigo flowers then ago,

When this instant communication didn’t happen

And a lonely “Blackberry” was the IN thing.

Even our cool beans President had one!

With the lack of annoyance,

He made leadership non-intrusive fun.

I’d rather hear your voice;

Email, sms/text or talking?

When I was a DJ on 98.7 KISS FM,

Our slogan slug line was,

“More Music, Less Talk”.

Today, it would be

“More texting, Less talk”.

[…to be continued to fix it…”]

Please, No Camera Phones At My Wedding! At The Reception, Watch Out for The Limbo Bar

ONCE upon a time, everybody did not have a camera and a phone on their person all of the time…

Yesterday, I had this conversation with a businessman/restaurant owner who is getting married soon. We were talking about distracted driving and how everybody having a camera these days is not a good thing! He expressed that “no cameras and camera phones will be allowed at the ceremony, period.” Even his mother in-law asked could she use hers “if she turned off the flash?” Again, “absolutely not.” He wants all attendees to “be present in the moment”. Nice. I was recalling a very special moment in time from before we all had cameras on our devices and wishing I had a video or camera-phone photo of it, wistfully and acknowledging that the pictures are all “up here” (pointing to my brain), when he said, “No! So many of us take pictures these days on our devices and never look at them. You have and save the best memories of special times or even bad times, when you are present, in-the-moment and have to remember with your mind.” It is Pravda! So True!

On the other hand, at his wedding reception, all the usual picture-taking will be allowed, of course.
He just wants people attending the most important part, the Ceremony, to focus and remember it without distraction. It should be legislated that phones and cameras are banned from our vehicles and many other daily activities, in my opinion (IMO).

A classic example is below and from an email that I found while going through some more of my relocation boxes. Sent a decade ago, it seems more relevant than ever now (except that we don’t have to wait for pictures to “come back”). Watch out what you do at a party, because you never know who has a camera [now almost everyone] and who can blast your faux pas onto the worldwide web!

(Now she’s “in-the-MOMENT”!)

As Marvel comic books’ Stan Lee used to say, when I read them as a teen, “‘Nuff Said“. (however, feel free to leave a comment)

Making Man Obsolete Ourselves

At the time and with more unabated oil in Gulf of Mexico [these modern-day oil barons “have gotten away with too much for too long” a colleague told me yesterday]; a future “ocean” without fish, edible or otherwise, long time air pollution which led to changes in our climates; too many gadgets and devices leading to  less sleep and increased distraction (especially while driving our vehicles – people who “text” while driving are road hazards no matter how “good” you think you are) and slower reactions to what is basic and true to our interpersonal relationships and species as a whole.   All of this makes me want to write traditional letters on PAPER even more and opt out of Facebook (it is useless, ISFAICS).  I still value my LAND line more that the mobile celly device. We were a better ilk without all of this “instant communication” and until we can scramble and unscramble our bodily molecules in order to transport ourselves aka the Star Trek “transporter room”, I’m feeling it all less and less.

Human technology enthusiasts and inventors are increasingly advancing the Robots and machines who will make Man obsolete by the next century at this rate. Convenience is ONE thing, Big Brother intrusion is totally another.  “Sheepole” is a phrase I read the other day on The Scholarly Kitchen’s blog comment page, 17

and describes those among us who just follow blindly every trend, fad or gadget like the zombies in “Night Of The Living Dead”.  “A ‘fembot’ might be nice,” I think to myself on these lonely bachelor nights, “but I worry that ‘it’s’ robotic vagina might short-circuit and trap my real penis in a love-lock that I might have to call the electronic EMS to embarrassingly extricate my chewed member from!”

. 

I’m glad I didn’t become the classroom teacher I thought I’d be while in college, because I’d want to punch a kid’s lights out if another cell phone went off while I’m trying to articulate the cleverness of Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales.  Yes I’ve heard all the arguments by (especially) mothers who now can keep in  constant contact with their young-uns, but I always come back the “one” : didn’t my generation and those prior to survive without an electronic leash pressed to the ear?  I offer that we became more independent and stronger for the lack thereof as well – but nobody wants to hear that, it is all about convenience, convenience, convenience!!  And these modern parents still  worry about them just as much if not  more because of the play-by-play factor, so what is the advantage? Arrggh!  In yester-year, some things were better left to play themselves out unbeknownst to our parents when we got home.  C’mon, I know you can “testify!”

I am increasingly having that “this the beginning of the end of the world” conversation with people.  Have you had it?  If not, well I am glad you stopped-by for a wake-up call as at the rate things are desintegrating both naturally and having been advanced by “man”, I doubt things will be tolerable for Human Beings one-hundred years from now, few real people outside of government and chilly corporations will have jobs, making me glad I will not be around for the torture – I  already am allergic to enough stuff as it IS!  I could continue, but not now; why beat a dead transistor…or circuit board…or whatever they used yesterday before it became obsolete and  smaller today, to death?

 pickhitt: Relationships are still better enhanced by telephone communication rather than emails whether the distance is short or long; I will admit that Skype makes me feel like one of The Jetsons and is a great “next best thing to being there” innovation. D-Uh??