Electronical Gizmos

[xoxoxoBruce]

My Twitter won't Tweet
Things are spiraling out of control. I think I have become lost in a world of electronic madness.

One of my sons informed me this week that my cell phone has become obsolete and I must head down to the Cell Phone store and get a phone that is contemporary with the time.

I pointed out that the fancy Razor/Slim line phone with camera built in that he made me trade my perfectly good flip-top Motorola cell phone for two years ago still works perfectly fine. Well, except for the camera thing.
Never could figure that out.. Even the few times I actually did take pictures I couldn't figure what to do with them and gave up.

That is except when I would push the wrong button and take a video of the ceiling or my feet.

Seems the issue is that I am unable to text with the tiny little 3
character buttons. "Hi, son," would come out looking like, "Gh Qmo." My grandkids have even spoken to my wife about Poppa's crazy text messages. Give me a break. Whatever happened to actually talking on a phone? Isn't that what they were invented for?

They want me to get one of those phones that you can turn upside down and sideways and has a typewriter keyboard with keys about one-eighth the size of my pinky finger.

One of my four sons is a realtor whose real occupation is fly-fishing. "Way to go, son."

Or in text language, "Xbz um Io, rmo."

We were floating the Yakima River in his guide quality drift boat south of Ellensburg , Washington . We were miles from anything remotely resembling civilization. Rock canyon walls were on either side of us. Bear with me as I try to explain this strange thing.

His "Blackberry" rang. It was blue and I asked him why it wasn't called a Blueberry.. He shook his head with that 'dealing with an elder despair' look I get a lot these days. It was another realtor who called to say that the sellers he represented had agreed to my son's client's changes and he had the signed documents in hand.

My son told him to FAX the papers to his office and he would get them signed and Faxed back, to close the deal that morning. A minute later the phone rang and he hit a few buttons and looked over the FAX, now on the Yakima River with us.
He then called his clients and told them he was Faxing the papers to them to sign and asked them to FAX them back to his office. While he was waiting,he hooked into a fat rainbow and was just releasing this 22 inch beauty as his phone rang again with the signed FAX from his clients.
He called the other realtor and told him he was sending the signed papers back by FAX. The deal was closed. He smiled and just said, "You are a little behind the times, Dad."

I thought about the sixty million dollar a year business I ran with 1800
employees, all without a Blackberry that played music, took videos,
pictures and communicated with Facebook and Twitter.

I signed up under duress for Twitter and Facebook, so my seven kids,
their spouse, 13 grandkids and 2 great grand kids could communicate with me in the modern way. I figured I could handle something as simple as Twitter with only 140 characters of space.

That was before one of my grandkids hooked me up for Tweeter, Tweetree, Twhirl, Twitterfon, Tweetie and Twittererific Tweetdeck, Twitpix and something that sends every message to my cell phone and every other program within the texting world.

My phone was beeping every three minutes with the details of everything except the bowel movements of the entire next generation. I am not ready to live like this. I keep my cell phone in the garage in my golf bag.

The kids bought me a GPS for my last birthday because they say I get lost every now and then going over to the grocery store or library. I keep that in a box under my tool bench with the Blue tooth [it's red] phone I am supposed to use when I drive. I wore it once and was standing in line at Barnes and Nobles talking to my wife as everyone in the nearest 50 yards was glaring at me. Seems I have to take my hearing aid out to use it and got a little loud.

I mean the GPS looked pretty smart on my dash board, but the lady inside was the most annoying, rudest person I had run into in a long time. Every 10 minutes, she would sarcastically say, "Re-calc-ul-ating" You would think that she could be nicer. It was like she could barely tolerate me. She would let go with a deep sigh and then tell me to make a U-turn at the next light.
Then when I would make a right turn instead, it was not good.

When I get really lost now, I call my wife and tell her the name of the cross streets and while she is starting to develop the same tone as Gypsy, the GSP lady, at least she loves me.



To be perfectly frank, I am still trying to learn how to use the cordless phones in our house. We have had them for 4 years, but I still haven't
figured out how I can lose three phones all at once and have run around digging under chair cushions and checking bathrooms and the dirty laundry baskets when the phone rings.
The world is just getting too complex for me. They even mess me up every time I go to the grocery store. You would think they could settle on something themselves but this sudden "Paper or Plastic?" every time I check out just knocks me for a loop.

I bought some of those cloth re-usable bags to avoid looking confused but never remember to take them in with me.

Now I toss it back to them. When they ask me,"Paper or Plastic?" I just say, "Doesn't matter to me. I am bi-sacksual." Then it's their turn to stare at me with a blank look.

Have a nice weekend.
Old Ned

I can relate, Ned, yes I can.

[TheMercenary]

I can relate to a degree. I tend to learn the boundries of the electronic devices around me to the degree that I need them. I don't try to figure out all the stuff on the 6 cordless phones on the house, I can always ask my wife if I need to know more. I know that my Blackberry can do much more than what I currently use it for, but I don't need it or use it that much so I don't bother to learn it. I can always look it up if I need it. But you know on vacation or when trying to get away, I leave all that stuff behind. Including the computer. The only thing I bring is a digital camera. The rest I can do without.

[Undertoad]

I'm doing everything I can to not be that guy... who has a grandkid who wants to keep in touch (fictional?) and won't do it...

GPS is tremendously useful, getting very cheap, and takes five minutes to learn. Even if you turn the voice off and don't use the navigation, it's a constantly updated map of where you are.

[TheMercenary]

Yea, I am just learning that on my BB. I am a bit paranoid about the whole tracking thing. It is a double edged sword. At least I can turn it off I want, you know, if I ever changed professions and became a serial killer or something.

[xoxoxoBruce]

I'm getting tired of people who stop in the middle of the fucking intersection to argue with their GPS, or just read the map. They're as bad as cell phone drivers.

[Glinda]

I'm with Old Ned. I don't have/do any of that stuff, and don't want to.

The only reason I've got a cell phone because my parents insisted I have one when traveling (I used to spend half of each month on the road), and I didn't even buy it; they did. It's a Tracfone - pay as you go. And that in itself is a problem, because you have X amount of months to use up the minutes you've purchased. I use the phone so rarely that I have to buy more months (which come with even more minutes that I'll never use) in order to keep the stupid thing activated. Mostly, it sits in my purse doing nothing (because I never turn it on).

As for the Tweet thing - I don't get it. Why do I want to know what everyone in the world is doing this second? Why does anyone feel the need to share that info?

Tweet: I'm sitting at my computer.

Tweet: I've just lit my third cig of the day.

Tweet: The next door neighbor is doing something in his yard.

Tweet: There's a fly that's annoying me right now.


I mean, really. WTF?

[xoxoxoBruce]

Yeah tracfone, my brother gave me one for Christmas. Came with 150 minutes/1 year. Took 3 minutes to set up the account and a year later expired with 147 minutes left.

[Undertoad]

I agree that Twitter is overkill -- so far.

[Clodfobble]

During the beginning of the election riots in Iran, Twitter was so useful in getting information out that the state department specifically asked Twitter to postpone a system upgrade they had had planned for that weekend. Like most technology, most people use it for retarded forms of entertainment, but it can be critical in the right circumstances.