King Nine to Firefly wrote:
The conversations I've heard from people on cellphones are inane.  What important conversations do people have that they need one?.

I've got one for you - with a twist that makes it downright bizarre, to my thinking:

After the devastating tornadoes in Indiana, there was a story on a news broadcast about a woman and her two children who sought shelter in their basement. The mother threw herself across the children just as the house collapsed on them. The children were saved, but the woman suffered a severed leg and other major injuries.

Her husband was interviewed also. He said that he was at work, but knew his wife was in terrible trouble when she stopped texting him!!

OMG (as they say these days)! If I'm cowering in the basement with a tornado bearing down on me and I want to communicate with my wife, I certainly wouldn't waste time tapping out a message on a tiny phone screen and waiting for her to fumble a reply. I'd have her on the phone screaming my last thoughts to her.

Oh, and did anyone watch the Academy Awards show? When the cameras panned the audience, at least one-quarter of the people were either staring at their crotches, or else they were texting/tweeting instead of watching the stage.

NewWorldKam wrote:
I don't see anything wrong with anybody choosing to live their life without technology. The only thing I have a problem with is when they announce this in a condescending manner, thinking that they are somehow superior to those who do choose to allow technology more into their lives.


The oldsters in our crowd might remember an episode of The Dick Van Dyke Show titled "I'm No Henry Walden." Rob and Laura are invited to a literary party honoring poet Henry Walden (Everett Sloane). Rob's the only comedy writer in a room full of poets and novelists, and it appears that he has been invited by mistake, since the hostess ( Doris Packer) constantly refers to him as "Mr. Petroff."

It's been years since I've seen the episode, so I don't remember exactly which of the effete snobs was talking to him, but Rob says, "I write for TV." The fellow stares blanking for a moment, then replies in a Hah-vahd accent, "Oh. . . I don't own a television machine."

I always think of this when I run into one of the people Kam's talking about.