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At long last...

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Riverthalos
Post subject: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 3:58 pm
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Recognition for people like me: The Cell Refuseniks.
Quote:
But there is also a smaller subset of adults who resist cellphones simply because they do not want them. They resent the way that ring tones, tiny keyboards and screens disrupt face-to-face conversation. They savor their moments alone and prize the fact that no one knows how to reach them.
Yep. I am that selfish and that unimportant. I am not a bigshot of any kind nor am I responsible for much of anything. I don't need to be reachable and I like my space. Also, cell phones drive me up the frakking wall, across the ceiling, and down the other side. I hate how they give up on you. I hate how they distort voices. I hate how connections get wonky so everything turns to fuzz. I hate the size too. They're tiny. How can anyone bear to yap on those things for more than two minutes without a headset?

But my favorite bit:
Quote:
The painstaking plans that people without cellphones must make to navigate the world show just how dependent the rest of us have become on our phones.

Ms. Mboya always picks a time and a landmark to meet friends and carries quarters in case she has to use a payphone.
Painstaking?? That's PAINSTAKING???

You will never find a more pathetic planner than my husband and yet neither of us has a cell phone and both of us somehow managed to successfully naviagte the murky waters of courtship and dating all the way to the part where we said "I do." It's really not that hard. Just pick a spot and show up. Everything beyond that is soft. And if you have a phone card, you don't need quarters.

S did get himself a phone in case something happens while he's out on his motorcycle. Sometimes he even remembers to charge it and take it with him. I'm holding out completely - the one or two times a phone might have been handy for me I was in a place where there was no reception. :blackeye:

I hereby quit the planet. I'm taking my husband and my pets with me. See yaz on Mars or something.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 4:02 pm
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Sam, Anna, and I will be joining you :D

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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 4:37 pm
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Woohoo!

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yovargas
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 5:10 pm
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Weirdos.


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Estel
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 5:11 pm
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I have a cell phone. It doesn't work outside Gibraltar, and in Gibraltar, I don't need it. My £25 prepay card lasts me over a year. It makes a very handy alarm clock though, and a timer for when I cook, plus it's got a calculator on it.

It's the timer that's most useful though, cuz I can carry it with me, so I don't miss it and burn things :blackeye:


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Riverthalos
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 5:35 pm
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I don't use timers at home. I get my fill at work. There's only so much beeping and dinging and ringing and combinations thereof my mind can take.

The worst is when a labmate sets a timer, wanders off, and then the bloody thing goes off while they're not around and keeps going off for a solid minute, at which point it shuts up but keeps marking time. The tones on those things are designed to be really annoying and hard to ignore and scientists are basically conditioned not to ignore timers anyway, but you can't shut it off because the labmate needs to know how much time elapsed (seriously, stopping someone else's timer is a hanging offense). So usually we go hunt the miscreant down. Or glower at them when they come back.

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laureanna
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 9:12 pm
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Actually, some of us from the Neolithic got along without a cell phone for about 50 years.

Now that I have a cell phone, most of the calls I get are from my daughter, when she goes grocery shopping with me, and we get separated, and she can't be bothered to walk up and down the aisles looking for me.

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Holbytla
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sat 24 Oct , 2009 10:29 pm
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Hmmm.....

There was a time in the past that I didn't have a cell phone and ended up walking 3 miles at 3 am after I had broken down on the highway.

Then, also in the past, I talked and txted a few times a day.

Then I didn't.

Then I did again.

Then I talked and txted for 6-8 hours a day.

Now I txt and talk for maybe 30-45 mins a day. Yeah maybe 15-30 mins.

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Lord_Morningstar
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sun 25 Oct , 2009 12:39 am
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Holbytla wrote:
There was a time in the past that I didn't have a cell phone and ended up walking 3 miles at 3 am after I had broken down on the highway.
The main reason I carry a mobile when I go out. Driving an unreliable car for a year or so taught me the value of having one, and I was a holdout before that.

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Ara-anna
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sun 25 Oct , 2009 1:57 am
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I have a pre-paid cell phone, el-Cheapo. I hate them, but I have this one in case my kids have an emergancy. Soon enough I will be cell phoneless again. I hate them. I hate people talking on them while driving. I hate them in theaters. I hate them in resturuants. I hate them with green eggs and ham.

If I had the choice of throwing all the cell phones in Mt. Doom or the Ring in Mt. Doom....well it'd be the cell phones.

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Sun 25 Oct , 2009 6:16 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
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They don't bug me in the least. Now that my daughter is older, I like the fact that she has one, and she can reach me if she needs to. I like that I can check in on her with a text and not bug her too much. If she wants to take her sister or some friends and wander down to the park, I don't mind. If she's babysitting, I know she can reach me if she has a problem or question. For me, it's not a matter of importance (because I'm not), it's a matter of safety and, yes, convenience. I'm not apologizing for that. ;)

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MariaHobbit
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Mon 26 Oct , 2009 6:44 pm
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We got rid of our land line years ago, and only use cell phones now. It's particularly useful on our place when one of us is out of earshot of the other- we can just call. Or if I'm out on the tractor baling hay and the shear pin on the baler breaks, I can just call it in and my husband comes driving out to fix it. Saves lots of time when time is critical.

And they were massively convenient in raising teenagers, as well as the free long distance feature.

It's not so fun when you are the only one in the house and you've misplaced your cell phone- and there's no land line available to call the cell phone to make it ring :oops: .... but that's the only downside I've seen yet, besides the crappy sound quality--- and that's rampant in new land line phone systems lately anyway. We had to return our new land line system at work because the handsets were too cheap and weren't adequate. The phone company exchanged us for an older model with better speaker systems. That's just wrong. :nono:

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LalaithUrwen
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Mon 26 Oct , 2009 6:58 pm
The Grey Amaretto as Supermega-awesome Proud Heretic Girl
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Yes, I was very, very sad when our landline phone died recently. It was quite old (at least 10 years), but it was of an excellent quality--good speakers, large enough to be held comfortably between your ear and your shoulder, etc. It had been dropped, the antenna broken off (& put back on with duct tape), and all of that, but it was still awesome. I finally had to give in and replace it, and our new phones don't quite suck but they're not great either. :( It's hard to hear on them, for sure.

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Jude
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Thu 29 Oct , 2009 2:24 pm
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CBC article: Guard cellphone number like credit card: experts

The following bit was a revelation to me:
Quote:
While it's not as common in Canada, in Europe, cellphone numbers can be used to pay for small services, like parking and restaurant bills, said Grant.
Is that true? How many of you do that? It just seems crazy to me - a cellphone number is something you give out to people so that they can keep in touch. Of course, I knew that it could be abused if it falls into the hands of a telemarketer - but I had no idea that a number was used as currency :Q

It just sounds absolutely insane to me :scratch:

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TheEllipticalDisillusion
Post subject: Re: At long last...
Posted: Thu 29 Oct , 2009 3:44 pm
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I used to resist cell phones. I got through college without one (much to my friends' chagrin), but at 22 I got a phone from my aunt. I haven't really used a landline since and have kept my cell phone number for around 5 and 1/2 years. When I started working freelance in theatre (which I may be returning to during my school breaks) a cell became necessary to secure work. I'm hoping to avoid text messaging. I'll hold out as long as I can.

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