Onward, Luddite soldiers

[kiya]

So I seem to have a cell phone.

I've spent a while programming numbers into it (brooksmoses's home number, erispope's pager, my brother's cell). I spent a while longer pounding on it until it vibrated instead of making noise (though there was a bit where I was shouting at it for playing the New World Symphony faster than a largo, and an incredible bemusement as an electro-beepy version of Stars and Stripes Forever set off my S&SF reflexes).

It has a little screen. When it doesn't have anything better to do, it shows a panda walking (down and to the right).

Or, as oneironaut put it, I have a tamagotchi that happens to allow me to talk to people who are far away.

(Am I the only person who can't help but think of 'tamagotchi' as if the last syllables were the I-think-Yiddish word that I've generally seen used to mean 'thingy'?)

Comments

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Heh. Another one bites the techno-dust... I'm still marching along without a cellphone... but it seems like I'm the last person I know still a cell-virgin, so to speak.

That doesn't mean I'm averse to wireless -- we're using 3 different wireless data protocols in our Arctic field experiments this month -- just the electronic-leash aspects. (Carrying or wearing leashes and collars of whatever sort isn't my kink ;-)

[kiya]

Well, Brooks and I are going to be travelling without necessarily having set plans, and so the 'contact while wandering around' feature seemed useful.

Kevin figures we can drop our long-distance bills with the thing. He has a leash for work already.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

ooooh, yes. our cellphones have been hugely useful for at cons, for example. (vibrate mode is your friend. did i mention that?) it makes finding the people you promised to have dinner with, for example, much easier.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Work keeps trying to buy me one... it is getting harder to create excuses, compared with five years ago.

[kalmn.livejournal.com]

That doesn't mean I'm averse to wireless -- we're using 3 different wireless data protocols in our Arctic field experiments this month -- just the electronic-leash aspects.

i look at my cell phone as giving me more opportunities to do the "i don't want to talk to you, i don't want to talk to you!" dance. they come with caller id, you see.

also, i find it enough more useful to be able to call people from whereever i am to make up for the leash aspects.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

Hmmm... I feel obliged to talk to anyone that calls, except telemarketers and collection agencies. And there are still payphones...

[jinian.livejournal.com]

There are others of us who don't want leashes.

[brian1789.livejournal.com]

(nod of solidarity)

[avram]

"Tchotchke"?

[kiya]

Oh, thank you. I've been frustrated for the past hour and a half or so that I couldn't spell that.