I fvcking *was* you, and I gave it up to do something more interesting

[alexsarll]

"We're a nation of lazy so-and-sos," David Noone from Intervoice said. "We put the numbers in our phones so we can call a friend at the touch of just one or two buttons and we certainly can't be bothered to write them down in an old fashioned address book."
Isn't this the exact same form of 'laziness' which was decried around the invention of the written word, by people used to an oral tradition and aghast that the young folk weren't memorising entire epics anymore?
Why do some people insist on making the exact same stupid claims as the morons of centuries past? You know the ones - 'this new art form is not proper art', 'the end is nigh', 'our society is in a state of moral decline'...you could hear any of these at any time over the last 2,500 years, minimum. And on each and every occasion they were the bullsh1t whining of neophobes.

(While I was writing the above, I received about 25 blank text messages from someone repeatedly triggering their unlocked mobile. Even for me, with my alphabetical vulnerability to such attacks, I think this is a record. I am sure this provides some crowning moral about the linked dangers of lacking historical sense and an inability to cope with modern technology, but the bzz bzz bzz noise is still in my head and rather impairing my ability to form coherent thoughts)

Comments

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

I actually put my own number in my phone as "A" so that this wouldn't happen again. I am breathing sweet sighs of relief now.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

I don't loathe moibles because of their address book overruling functions, I hate them because they take over one's life, because of all teh stupid f#cking ringtones, because of their contribution to the truly appalling txt msg spk...

-x-

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

On reading that, I immediately checked my mobile even though I have an imaginary friend called Aaaaaaaaaaaa

[tiny-tear.livejournal.com]

i created fake entried for aaaaa and zzzzz so this won't happen!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I believe you were until now the worst offender. What made that one worse was that it happened while I was in one of those vaguely seedy hybrid remainder bookshops/sechs shops, and so the vibrating crotch could easily have been misinterpreted.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

You are both examples to us all. Mine has a temperamental lock but I still think I am, to date, innocent.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Complaining about new-fangled slang: centuries old. Much of the language you use was once considered guilty on such counts.

Complaining about new means of communication taking over one's life: goes back at least to the telephone and telegraph. Has certainly been applied to the Internet too, and you use that enthusiastically.

Complaining about stupid fvcking ringtones: actually, on this one I'm hard pressed to disagree.

[juliet]

[backs up Treo]

I would be really very fvcked if I lost my Treo (well, OK, if I lost it & the backup at the same time), given that it contains address book, diary, todo lists, random other lists, interesting notes, etc etc. I mean, I'd still have all my email/LJ contacts, so it wouldn't be a *total* disaster in terms of losing contact with people, but it would be a Serious Trial.

[contemplates likelihood of both Treo & laptop, which holds backup, getting nicked at the same time]

Actually, possibly I should start making an offsite backup at the same time as backing up onto the laptop. And I should get better about backing up my email & suchlike, as well. I'm saving up for an external HD to backup the whole laptop disk onto - on the grounds that my MP3 & photo collections would be another Great Loss.

It certainly *is* true that I used to know a lot more phone numbers by heart when I had to dial them every time. The only ones I now know offhand are my parents' number (it's been the same all my life), my own mobile number, our landline, & Pete's & Ben's mobiles (those two I deliberately learnt, so I can contact 'em in phone-broken/lost/leftbehind-type emergencies). I don't think this is *bad* per se, but I do think that it's a good idea to have a couple of emergency numbers in your head.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

i dnt knw wt teh fk u r cmplng abt. ntg wrng wth tlkn lk this.

[gregjames.livejournal.com]

some people can twitch their eyebrows and wiggle their ears, you could ahve made a similar excuse.

[publicansdecoy.livejournal.com]

I step away from the internet at 5.30. In the dark days when I used to have a mobile, there seemed to be no escape!

I don't mind most slang, I just dislike txt msg spk because it is specifically associated with mobiles, which I dislike. Certainly, I won't deny that language will and should be constantly evolving though.

-x-

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Although I am vehemently pro-phones, I suffer ACUTE EMBARASSMENT from ringtones, even when I have what people consider to be a halfway decent one, so my ringtone is always turned off and as a result I have to rely on those, ahem, good vibrations to get the message across. Generally I can tell when I'm expecting a call so can be looking out for it, and unprovoked calls, well, seeing the "missed call" thing makes me feel popular!

As for the mangling of language by txt spk I can only approve. BBY GLLSP to thre... oh bvgger.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

innocent isn't a word i would normally associate with you, but hey...

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I still know a few numbers, either from pre-mobile days (I still know my parents' old number, not that it's any use now) or because if I'm at work I will use my mobile as an address book but make the calls on my office 'phone.

I do copy my numbers to my tatty old address book (though not as often as I should, and it's very disorganised these days) but, though I am religious about saving old mails &c, I only ever have one copy of them (whether hard, on gmail or whatever). I suppose that might contain an element of fatalism.

[tubewalker.livejournal.com]

I tend to set my ring tone to the blandest possible to cause minimum offence. Languages that can't adapt to being manhandled by the proles become static, fixed and eventually dead. I like the fact that our language at one end of the scale full of rules and regulations about 'correct' usage and on the other jam packed with rich slang and colloquialism. Txt msg spk is ok, so is Dickens.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

But they make really nice smoothies with intermittently amusing labels!

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

Yes, you are singlehandely rewiring English in a way txtspk cld nvr hope2match

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

... which can also be used as BOMBS.

[rentaghost31.livejournal.com]

so, what you're saying is that you're smooth and intermittently amusing?

[atommickbrane.livejournal.com]

Actually with the advent of the "Crazy Frog" mobiles have either jumped the shark or rewritten the life aquatic to their own rules, I'm undecided. But I fookin' hate the Crazy Frog anyway.

[tiny-tear.livejournal.com]

i did this after I called my friend Arls for about 10 minutes while on the bus... That month's bill make me create these fake numbers!

[perfectlyvague.livejournal.com]

I believe it all started when my bottom called you from a taxi in Oxford.

A crotch that played Life on Mars and lit up blue might be even more suspect, but I guess that's just my phone.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

I have conflicted feelings over Dickens...but they're not directly relevant.

I too tend to go for a basic 'ring ring ring' tone rather than an inadequate synthesizer's bathetic attempts to play a popular tune. I don't like encouraging repeated failures, whether on the part of a person or a technology.

[barrysarll.livejournal.com]

And, as it happens, your crotch. What are the chances, eh?

[angelv.livejournal.com]

My sister text-spammed me once. She had £9.80 on her phone, and texts cost 10p. Guess how many texts she sent me?