But they’re Not Cool any more. Back in the days when a cell phone was the size and weight of a brick and you could stand it upright on a restaurant table, they were considered to be cool by some severely inadequate people. But today, it’s cool not to have cell phone.
Like me. To quote the hilarious E-Leash ad, it’s a “way to stay at the beck and call of anyone and everyone on the planet 24 hours a day” That’s not cool. That’s for what I would call “losers”, except that’s not a cool thing to do either, so I won’t.
Man, I am totally with you. I can’t stand having the phone ring in my own house, I sure as hell don’t want to take one with me everywhere I go. I leave the house specifically so people CAN’T get in touch with me.
I was once in a grocery check out line behind a woman. The entire time, and through the check out and pay process, she had a cell phone pressed up to her ear. It was suspicious because she never said a word into it. When her groceries were paid for, she put the phone in her purse.
WTF???
The whole point seemed to be “Look at me, I have a cell phone”. Like anyone cared.
Teens seem to have a new craze: Cell phones that light up like Christmas trees as they play their annoying little rendition of Bye Bye Bye or whatever. It’s especially cool to see one of these Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Mothership looking things go off in a movie theater. There is NO WAY these things aren’t supposed to look “cool”.
Well, there are some occasions where a cell or pager is appropriate. For example, I expect my doctor to be available if I need him. The nursing homes my father services expect him to be available if they need him (and they often do). Heck, I expect Airman to be available this summer. The best and easiest way to accomplish that is via cell phone, because I certainly don’t expect any of them to have no life. Well, maybe Airman, but not my doctor and certainly not my dad.
My father thinks it’s ok to recieve a cell phone conversation while sitting at a resteraunt. Every time he does this, I ask him to leave the table and go outside or go to the foyer. Typical responses: "It’s rude? Says who?, “I don’t feel like it”, “It’s too <adjective> to go outside”. Whenever he does this, I look down, embarrassed.
“Teens seem to have a new craze: Cell phones that light up like Christmas trees as they play their annoying little rendition of Bye Bye Bye or whatever. It’s especially cool to see one of these Close Encounters Of The Third Kind Mothership looking things go off in a movie theater.”
TEENS have a craze?!? I have had for a few years now the absolutely basic “Model T” phone that seemingly every cellular company gives out as part of the basic package, and it both lights up and plays a tune when it rings.
*It lights up because sometimes you’re in a noisy place and it helps to be able to tell VISUALLY that it’s your phone ringing, as opposed to someone else’s or random “bleeps” in the Muzak. When I’m on the train, often the only way I know my phone is ringing is because I see it light up.
*It plays music for the ring because that particular model of phone is EVERYWHERE (example: three of the four people in my office have that model phone, and NOT company issued), so a basic ring somewhere like a train would cause several people to have to check their phones. Of course, some songs are more popular than others (why “Ode to Joy?” Do you presume your call will be joyous?), but it DOES help in knowing whose phone is ringing and whose isn’t.
“There is NO WAY these things aren’t supposed to look ‘cool’.”
See above. A rational reason for a phone that lights up and plays a tune when it rings. I don’t give a god damn between here and Timbuktu whether my phone is “cool,” but I find the light and music to be a USEFUL tool – AND it happens to be one that I didn’t even knowingly choose when I got my cellphone.
The commercial with all the women yelling “egoiste!” out the window was designed for you! YOU can’t imagine a good reason for something so there IS no good reason for it. :rolleyes:
“Stupid fucking people.”
Pot. Kettle. Black.
And, not addressed to you in particular: will someone who talks about “frivolous” phone calls explain who among all the governments of the Earth, the gods above it, or the devils below it granted you the authority to decide that a call I or anyone else makes or receives, so long as it’s in a normal voice and done in a place where speaking in a normal voice is customarily allowed, is or is not bloody well fucking “important” enough?!?! :mad:
I bloody decide when a fucking call is important enought to disturb me.
See, there are certain instances, places, gatherings and what not, where a phone call should neither be made nor taken. A classroom is one of them. There, any call that does not relate to the life or death of a human being is ‘frivolous’ and can wait to be returned.
See, there are 30 or so of us in the classroom. We’re concentrating on algrebra. I suck at algebra, and I want to do well in the class, so I’m concentrating pretty hard. When the gaddamn phone rings, it breaks that concentration. I’m in the middle of the calculation, and now I’ve lost it. I need to start the problem over again. So, unless the caller is ringing her to tell her that her children are on fire, it’s fucking frivolous.
I sat 3 seats down from the woman in my orignal complaint tonight. As soon as her phone started to beep, I asked her to turn the phone off. When it beeped again, I was more insistant. “Lady, PLEASE turn the phone off!”
“It IS off” she claims. She looks at me as if I am a terribly rude person. Oh, the irony.
“Phones that are turned off do not ring” I inform her. When it beeped again, I shot her a look that would have killed her if she had a soul.
During the break, as we pass easch other on the quad, she shoots me a dirty look. Again, I am an asshole because I was rude enough to complain about her being an asshole. She didn’t come back after the break. Thank God.
So, lets review. If you are in a classroom, a church, a theater, or anywhere silence is needed for the majority of those attending to get the full benefit, all calls are frivolous.
Because if you’re waiting on a life or death call, you shouldn’t be at a class-church-theatre-whatever. And if you recieve a call at one of the formentioned events, you are an asshole.
Could have been me checking messages. I check for messages at home and work fairly frequently – from the grocery store, the train, restaurant bathrooms, whatever. My son’s school and afterschool program regularly use my home and work numbers to leave messages if he’s ill or whatever. Sure wish they’d just use the cell number, but I digress.
Point is, I doubt she was faking a conversation for your benefit. Cell phones are certainly not status symbols anymore - not if a peon like me has one. What makes you think she cared what you thought?
A good friend of mine was standing at the corner waiting for the light to change to cross the street when his ex-girlfriend walked up to the same corner also waiting to cross.
She grabbed her cell phone out of her backpack and put it up to her ear, standing there holding it as if she was listening intently. After about 30 seconds of this …
IT RANG!
This apparently caused her much embarassment and she backpedaled as fast as she could, turning around to pick up the pace, she walked smack into a mailbox.
Perhaps she shouldn’t have tried so hard to be ‘popular.’
I was at a restaurant in Cleveland, a good one too, and the guy at the next table gets a call on his cell phone. The phone wasn’t even up to his ear and the manager was at the table “Sir, we do not allow cell phone calls at the table.”
“See, there are certain instances, places, gatherings and what not, where a phone call should neither be made nor taken. A classroom is one of them. There, any call that does not relate to the life or death of a human being is ‘frivolous’ and can wait to be returned.”
Non sequitur! :rolleyes:
My posting specifically referred to “a call I or anyone else makes or receives, so long as it’s in a normal voice and done in a place where speaking in a normal voice is customarily allowed” In class, or church, or the theater, is NOT an appropriate place for two people to be conversing in a normal voice, and therefore someone making a cell phone call in such a circumstance is being rude and it’s right to confront them.
But conversely, people DO consider it polite to converse in the line at the supermarket, walking down the street, and riding the train or bus. IN THESE CIRCUMSTANCES, it’s nobody’s damn business WHAT the conversation is about, WHETHER LIVE OR BY PHONE, as long as it’s being done in a normal volume.
To be painfully blunt, the person taking a cell call in class is wrong BECAUSE HAVING THE SAME CONVERSATION IN CLASS WITH SOMEONE WHO’S THERE IN PERSON IS ALSO WRONG. Conversely, a person walking down the street and talking on the phone in a normal voice about what he watched on television or ate for dinner is IMHO not doing anything rude or wrong. Why? BECAUSE HE COULD HAVE THE SAME CONVERSATION IN THE SAME PLACE WITH HIS FRIEND IN PERSON!!!
John Bredin, I don’t think anyone is arguing with you. Chill just a bit.
I think Sealemon88 was referring to cellular phones that have clear plastic casing and flashing lights all around them, so when the phone rings it looks like a … well, like a Christmas tree. This is NOT a standard phone.
However, many standard phones do have a single red or green light that flashes when the phone is ringing. That’s not what the poster was referring to. At least, that’s my impression.
I was at the theater last weekend, seeing STOMP (great show, BTW). About ten minutes into the performance, a cell phone rang somewhere in the auditorium.
How rude, I thought. Well, maybe the guy just forgot to turn it off. At least now everyone else will remember to check their own phones, and we can enjoy the show in peace.
Wrong!! I heard three or four more cell phones ring during the show, and the moron next to me was making OUTGOING calls! I wonder what the performers thought, those eight people who were pouring heart and soul into a great stage performance while seemingly half the audience didn’t care.
I have a cell phone and use it frequently, but not in churches, movie theaters, or auditoriums. And while I understand that some people may need a way to be reached in an emergency (babysitter calling to say the kid fell off his bike and broke a leg or something) that’s why they make a “vibrate” function. If people can’t at least partially unplug from their lives for two stinking hours, maybe they should stay home.
Sauron, I think John Bredin ire stems from Ellen Cherry’s earlier post about a woman who had the appalling gall to - gasp! - allow her cell phone to be seen in public, as well as people who - get ready to clean the bricks outta your shorts - make calls in places where they can be seen! Everyone knows that waving a cell phone around is like waving a corn-studded turd. Hide your shame!
I think everyone here agrees cell phones should be turned off/set on vibrate in certain settings - church, theaters, classes, libraries. Some people refuse to turn them off. These people are jerks. World’s full of 'em, they’re not a new breed. I just can’t get upset about people using them, as John Bredin said, in places where it is perfectly normal and acceptable to carry on an in-person conversation - the train, the grocery store, walking down the street. Some people have very loud and/or inane conversations. People also do that while speaking with others in person. What makes doing so on a cell phone so much worse than doing it in person? Is it because you think they’re trying to look important? What does that say about you? I’ll tell you, the phone conversations I have with my sister while I’m on the train home are pretty damn inane, but if I had the same conversation with her in person no one would care. Frankly, if I were trying to look important or cool, I wouldn’t be talking to her about her husband’s holey underwear.
What makes anyone think that the same people who are indifferent enough to your sensibilities to use a cell phone rudely use the phone to look important to you? Other than instances like catsix’s friend’s, I seriously doubt it.
spooje, I was going to write the rant that you did. I was mentioning this thread at work today and a coworker said that she thought that it should be okay to get a call in a place like a theater. “We have to let them do it, it’s a free country and cell phones are legal.” When I tried to explain my position that during a movie or concert or something most of the people are trying to listen, and silence is needed, she just couldn’t(or wouldn’t) understand that sometimes “the needs of the many outway the needs of the few”
I’ll bet that in a few years, big 'ol brick and bag cell phones will be seen as trendy among the black-rimmed glasses hipster crowd. “Old school Motorola, homes …”
To quote the hilarious E-Leash ad, it’s a “way to stay at the beck and call of anyone and everyone on the planet 24 hours a day” That’s not cool. That’s for what I would call “losers”, except that’s not a cool thing to do either, so I won’t.
I have had for a few years now the absolutely basic “Model T” phone that seemingly every cellular company gives out as part of the basic package, and it both lights up and plays a tune when it rings.