No, the guy didn’t have this actual conversation but isn’t being on your cell phone while using a urinal quite enough? Seriously, just wait TWO MINUTES. Ew.
Posts Tagged ‘cell phone’
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I was on the subway and yes there was a woman playing Tetris on her cell phone in the worst way possible, not trying to get Tetrises. I’d try to surreptitiously look over without being too obvious to see if she ever changed tactics. The only reason it seemed that her pieces reached the top of the screen was because she was a crappy player not because she was going for Tetrises. As a die hard Tetris fan this was excrusciating to watch.
This is actually meant two ways. On one hand I can’t stand dealing with financial things because I know very little about how it all works and get a headache trying to think about them. On the other hand Citibank clearly outsources their phone service like all the other mega corporations because the guy who answered for the most part had good English but also was fighting a bit of the Indian accent so I didn’t even understand everything that he was saying. But I’m not one of the dicks out there who will get angry at the phone service person because their English isn’t very good so I just kept on saying no thanks until they ran out of things he was obligated to say and then I hung up. Though the last thing I said was “No thanks that will be all.” To which he replied “Is there anything else I can help you with tonight?”
I was ranting about this briefly to my friends Tuesday night. As far as I know there’re at least two forms of cell phone software for entering in words quickly so that you can press buttons once instead of having to press 1 three times to get a “C” or pressing 6 three times to get an “O.” There’s the T9 and Verizon has this iTap system which is what my phone has. The thing about the iTap system is that there isn’t a dictionary where you can just enter in words you want stored or be able to see the words that you’ve added to it. In order to enter words you have to spell it out very slowly with its awkward interface.
Anyway, I figured out early on Verizon didn’t take it upon themselves to program swear words into the dictionary. This I wasn’t surprised about, I was only happy enough to enter then in manually myself. Though just the other night I was going to use a certain choice word only to find that it’s now not in the dictionary anymore? Did they actually program the phone to get rid of those words after a time specifically? Or does it only store so many words? I can’t imagine either being true, especially in light of the other recent discovery which I find even more offensive.
That discovery being that several chatspeak terms were pre-programmed into the phone when it was sold! I abhor the use of chatspeak in almost all forms. Only ones I occasionally use are “brb” (be right back) and “ttyl” (talk to you later), but even those I use very seldomly. I’d NEVER use rotflmao (Rolling on the floor laughing my ass off). Completely appalled I looked up a chatspeak page on Google to see what other words were stored (I don’t use it much so I needed a guide to see what other crap they stored in my phone).
I found the following other phrases which I know I never used, who knows how many others there are.
cya (see you), cul8tr (see you later), gtg (got to go), imho (in my humble opinion) and l8r (later). Oh, and they also had rofl in addition to rotfl which is the same thing really. So either Verizon has some teenage girls in charge of their iTap technology or when I wasn’t looking some teenage girl decided to enter all this into my phone without me knowing. Either way, it’s kind of a disturbing thought.
I think it’s a universal thing that the only people these god damn walkie talkie cell phones don’t irritate the piss out of are the people using them. Seriously, what is the benefit of using a phone in this fashion? Why this desire to broadcast to the world how incredibly inane your life is? It’s not like it’s easier to use the phone that tway, if anything it’s more work because you have to press a button and move your hand up and down from your ear.
But seriously WHY DO PEOPLE USE WALKIE TALKIE CELL PHONES??? WHY?????????
I bet the guy who added that functionality to the cell phone didn’t tell his friends he’s the one who did that.
EDIT: A friend of mine told me that the walkie talkie mode doesn’t use air time. It makes a whole lot more sense now, but it’s still annoying as all hell.
This is the thing that happened to me when I went to see Mission: Impossible 3 this past weekend. The guy text messaging two rows down dwas annoying enough, but the annoyance the guy to my right provided was more like Chinese Water Torture. Sort of slower and more insidious in some ways. His deal was that his phone was set to silent, but instead of ringing it had a little green light that would blink every couple seconds or so. I tried to block it from my view, but it just kept on going. I think the person called twice and that’s why the guy picked up. But I was able to see that it was indeed an unknown caller. He didn’t end up talking to them. I don’t know why, whether or not it was a wrong number or they cut off or what. At least it didn’t ring anymore after that. When the hell are movie theaters going to implement that cell phone blocking technology?
So the ending to the story of the lost cell phone isn’t actually all that interesting, but there are a few tidbits that are rather amusing. This person had custom ringtones depending on who was calling. He had “We are Family” playing for when anyone in his family called. His mom called, his brother called and his grandmother called too. I only answered it twice before I realized this person gets a lot of phone calls. Plus I gave him my number so I figured he would’ve called that.
Most amusing of all was how long it took his mom to realize it wasn’t him. I kept on saying “No no, your son lost his cell phone and I’m the guy who picked it up for him.” To which the response was “No, Marcus, THIS IS YOUR MOTHER.” That phone call took much longer than it should have. He didn’t end up calling until around late afternoon the following day but we made the exchange and parted ways.
Yay good karma for me.
Yes, I fully realize I’ve probably just drawn the most spacious taxi cab in all the world so don’t bother pointing that out.
This happened to me this past weekend when I was taking a cab from Williamsburg to Park Slope. Apparently no cab drivers know how to get to the BQE from Williamsburg. First one I took a while ago got really lost, but nicely stopped his meter around the usual cost for pretty much anywhere I take a cab to my place. The one for this weekend didn’t take as long but still had to ask for directions from another driver. So anyway around when I’m home I hear this obnoxious cell phone and think it’s the driver’s, but then I realize the floor is vibrating and I look down and had a conversation that started roughly like the one in this comic. The cab driver seemed very uninterested when I mentioned someone left his cell phone there. Who could blame him really? He probably hated me already for driving from one part of Brooklyn to another.
You’ll have to wait for the conclusion to this story because I can squeeze out at least one more comic idea from this one.
It could just be me and my crappy phone, but this happens to me occasionally and it’s really annoying. Basically as soon as I’m done listening to my voicemail I press 7 to delete it, but every so often it doesn’t seem to register on it that I actually pressed 7, which makes the voicemail system continue with its shpiel. No matter how many times I press 7 at that point there’s no way it’s going to delete the message without me hanging up and re-calling the voicemail upon which I’ll have to listen to the message yet again and press 7 to delete it. Maybe it’s my crappy phone, maybe it’s their stupid system, I don’t know.
I’m just as guilty of this as anyone I observe doing this. Checking your cell phone for messages when you exit the subway is almost exactly like obsessively checking your email during the course of the day. It’s fun to feel wanted and emails, voicemails and text messages are just one way in which you can indulge in that feeling. Someone should videotape people exiting the subway and immediately checking their cell phone, or calling someone before they go into the subway.
This reminds me of the shot from “Shaun of the Dead” which I thought was brilliant, in which they have the montage of how normal people can be like zombies in their everyday life. Specifically, the shot of the people at the bus stop simultaneously taking their cell phones out of their pockets to check what time it is. I love attention to details like that.
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