Celling Out

Through the last few years, if you were to ask me what my pet peeve what fucking pissed me off more than anything was, without missing a beat, I'd tell you: Cell Phones. I've never had one, I've never wanted one. "I don't believe in them...well, I believe they exist..." I'd quip.
But even more specifically, the way cell phones make people act. They're like a skeleton key to complete social retardation. I tend to look at cell phones the way most people look at nuclear weapons, in that I don't believe society as a whole is intelligent enough to deal with them responsibly.

Comic artist extrodinaire Jim Mahfood once wrote a brilliant one-page comic on the phenomenon, illustrating some of the people and situations which make cell phones that much more repulsive.
Check that out by clicking the thumb.


If I had ultimate rule over the earth, one of the things I would do would be to implement a 3-day schooling program one would have to go take in order to obtain their license to operate a cell phone.
All 3 days would be on etiquette. Basic non-cell phone etiquette would be covered first. Restaurant, retail store and public transit etiquette would be heavily stressed. Doing anything on your cell phone while in a movie theatre would be grounds for immediate failure.
People would hate me as their leader, but the world would be a better place.

Even worse is the recent popularity of Blue Tooth headsets. People who are so busy doing super important business like ordering at Starbucks and waiting at the crosswalk to utilize one of their arms. Having a home answering machine, or even a normal cell phone is simply not enough for trips to the grocery store. I'm sorry, but unless you're a brain surgeon, a high powered stock trader, or are in any profession where you can pull off the Jeremy Piven from Entourage/Alec Baldwin from Glengarry Glen Ross thing, you have no practical use for a bluetooth headset. This isn't some Robocop future and you can't purchase cybernetic ears three stores down from a Jamba Juice at the mall. The level of self-important douchbaggery needed to confidently adorn one of those contraptions is off the chart.

So, as a whole, Cell phones are whack.

*sigh*

That said, a little over a month ago, I bought an Apple iPhone.



Yeah, I kind of sold out (or more accurately, bought-in).
But admittedly, as long as I don't become one of those people, I think this gadgets gloriously nerdy ends justify the means. I've always been a fan of Apple's gadgets (though not it's computers, or offputtingly aggressive marketing), and this one is no different. At least thats what I think How I've justified it to myself.

Cool/Pointless things I've done on the iPhone thus far

• GPS'd myself while riding the Go-Train, and watched the dot move like the transitions from an Indiana Jones movie
  
• Bid (and subsequently won) eBay auctions while in the bathroom at work
  
• Searched GoogleMaps for "burritos" while walking to Burrito Boyz, just to giggle when the pin drops on where I'm already headed
  
• Taken pictures of funnily dressed strangers, and then e-mailed them to friends
  
• Given myself an ironicly annoying ringtone
  
• Looked up a YouTube video to settle an argument
  

So, as you can clearly see, it's benefiting my life, and as yet I haven't became a drooling, slack-jawed morons, shouting "YEAH...YEAH, I'M ON THE BUS, BRO. FUCKIN' KILLER! WHERE YOU AT?...WHAT...YO, THAT GIRLS A FUCKING BITCH, GUY." into their phones while on (you guessed it) the bus.

So maybe it's possible to be a calm, responsible cell phone user?
Sadly, I think the ratio is similar to that of gun owners. I don't think the majority of people have the common courtesy to avoid being annoying and rude to others to begin with, and giving most of these people cell phones is sort of like giving a bullhorn to someone with tourette's.