Curious

Better re-phrase that Dave.

Dial-up through earthlink. I had walmart connect before and hated it! Earthlink's speed suits me fine and I never get a busy signal or kicked off.

Did anyone ever imagine that we would be paying hundreds of dollars just for communications in the home?

This message was edited May 13, 2007 8:35 PM

Interesting. Do you know what speed you get??

Sometimes I'm willing to pay hundreds per day not to have to communicate with anyone in my house.

Connection speed is 28.8 kbps but it has the earthlink accelerator which is stating at the present an average speed-up of 2.8 times whatever that means!! But web pages load up quickly and so do any pictures that I view. With the walmart connect, pictures would take almost 5 minutes to load!! Although I got alot of chores done while waiting!!!

Yes, Dave, my husband's name is Jack.

Victor!!!!!!!

Sorry!!

No! Shhh! Don't tell Darius, Victor! LOL!

I for one think that it's worth paying for the communications we have today. It's really amazing that I can sit in my office in CT and "talk" with people all over the country - all over the world, for that matter. Pretty cool. I think now I use my computer more than my phone. I have family far and wide, and it's cheaper to e-mail and IM than to call on the phone.

Although I agree, Victor - sometimes it's worth even more to have people NOT communicate, lol!

Dee

My students are AMAZED that I do not own a cell phone! I don't even set up the voice mail in my office. If you want to reach me - it's by computer.

If I had the funds, I would have a lovely English butler to answer the door and say "Madam is indisposed." I dislike feeling I have to be at the beck and call of anyone.

For those who do use cell phones, has Miss Manners established appropriate and thoughtful ettiquette regarding their use in public? I know some restaurants have little booths where diners can have their cell phone conversations away from the dining area. That way other diners are not annoyed by people shouting into their phones. What good are these phones anyway if you have to shout into them. Besides, only land line phone conversations are private - unless the line is bugged of course, but I am not important enough for that LOL

I don't have one either, Seandor. We may eventually get one since we do like to travel and it could be a life saver for us or others.

Tin Can & String

Cell phone free here but I do have a cordless LL at home so I can stick it in my overalls pocket when I garden. I can even get calls at my neighbor's house across the street. One of the things my students will remember about me from this semester is that I make them turn off their cell phone when they get to class and make a BIG fuss if one should ring during class. The school gave me voice mail and I don't use it. Ya gotta come to class to see me.

My DH and I are thinking about getting rid of our cellphones. We are getting tired of the bill! We don't use more than 100 minutes a month! And most of that could be used on a landline! Gotta say getting tired of being in the store standing next to someone and they just start talking so stupid me thinks they might be talking to me and they have a bluetooth stuck in their ear! I find this more with adults than teenagers. I miss the days when you were standing in line you could chat with your 'neighbors' in line. Now it's I'm not talking to you can't you see I'm on the phone?! Funny, your hands are still on the cart!!!

A cell phone really is a necessity these days. They are certainly abused - while driving, forcing other people to hear dumb conversations, etc. I never do anything like that. I use nowhere close to my monthly minutes. Have thousands of rollover minutes. But I honestly don't know anyone under about 50-ish years old who does not have one.

Whew - I'm over 50-ish!

Good - you keep my 'observation' intact!

The first time I saw a woman in a supermarket, talking a mile a minute, I thought she had serious problems. By the time she was at the checkout line I saw the ear phone. Good grief!

Yes - now it's impossible to pick out the psychos.

cable.

I am guilty of owning a cell phone, I do not use up my minutes per month but it is a necessity for me to have. I have a handicapped son with a severe seizure disorder, if he's w/me and needs medical attention I can call. If he's with someone else and im not home, they can call me on the cell. I refuse to give out the # to anyone but his doctors, family members, and people who help me care for him. The first time I got a phone call from a sale's rep. I went ballistic on him on how he got my #......he never did call back!

I don't think you are "guilty", I think you are prudent. You are one of the people who should have cell phones.

pixie, I'm the same way. The only people who have my cell number are my kids, my mom, and my DH - and DH is constantly nagging me because my phone is never on, lol! I leave it on when I'm out and the kids are home alone and there's no other way to reach me. Other than that, it's off.

Personally, I don't want to be available to just anyone at all hours of the day and night. Call my house and leave a message.

...Gee, I think I'm getting curmudgeonly in my old age, lol!
:)
Dee

I don't answer the phone in the house unless I check Caller I.D. Guess it makes me a certified old curmudgeon but I like it that way. I spent years on the phone at work and want to enjoy the phone calls I will take.

I do the same so I guess I'm a (relatively) young curmudgeon. Answering machines and caller ID were made for a reason. Back to work outside!

AYankeeCat, I threaten to make my students dance to the tune of the ring of the cell phone if it goes off in class.

A funny story . . . one day a student who never missed class didn't show up. Another student had his dorm phone number and offered to phone on his cell phone to see if the other student was okay.

Well, the student with the cell phone put the conversation on "speaker" so the whole class - including me could here the student admit he was skipping class and watching a movie with a friend LOL. His friend with the cell phone wisely took the conversation off speaker before student #2 said something he might regret that I hear!

In our public school system, cell phones have been used to organize gang fights, so the school board has banned them from schools. The first time the cell phone is confisgated, the parents have to come to the school to retrieve it, the second time the cell phone is confisgated, the phone is forfitted (spelling?) I assume there is some allowance for special cases, where a cell phone is necessary - like pixie.

My husband refuses to get one, because he believes it is a conspiracy to wean everyone into believing paying for each local call is normal. DH is big on conspiracy theories . . . :-)

Dancing, huh. That might work except for the student whose cell phone moo'd. There is one in every class! I tell them to slap the cell phone owner and I turn my back until I "hear" the slap. That is good at least once a semester.

Do you think there is a conspiracy of conspiracy theorists to make society as a whole more paranoid?

I'm afraid to even think about that one, Cat.

This is all amusing and confusing to me. I'm a tortured, over 50 year old woman on dial up, without a cell phone and without long distance service. If I'm in the garden I don't want to be bothered with the phone. And if I'm here you can't bother me on the phone. I figure if I've gotten this far without a cell phone I can live without one. I may change my mind eventually, but right now it would just be an added expense.

I wish people would stop with the cell phones in the grocery store - they act like there is no one else in the store. I always seem to run into people having a conversation about what kind of pickles to buy. And in the car. I believe that most people have no idea how to drive and when they have a phone in their hand it doesn't help.

Agree with everything you said, but I have one. I have to say, in my unscientific survey, women are worse offenders (in my neighborhood anyway) when it comes to cell phone use while driving.

I once took some students to a conference in Washington DC. At six am, one of the students called a friend to let the friend know she was in an elevator going down to get breakfast. Now tell me, would you want to be woken up with that bit of scintillating (sp??) information???

If I had money to burn, I would buy that device that jams cell phones. I'd have a blast.

We now have dsl and I love it the dial up was so yawn.....

DSL here, and yes I have a cell phone, but no connection....only for the camera part of it....

I would die on dial-up now. I'm so spoiled. Maybe it should be called DIE-al up.

What was the first computer you worked or played on? I had a "Trash 80" in 1981. It was one of the first personal computers - I bought it used from a friend who was studying to be a systems analyst. I had to save info on a cassette tape! Man, have things changed in the past quarter century!

Cable, Vonage, Cell, Pager, the co. I work for pays for my internet (cable) & the pager. I pay for the TV (cable), Vonage & Cell.

Sitting at a stop light waiting to make a left hand turn (four lane road) I watched as a gent in a brand new truck talking on a cell phone rolled into traffic without realizing it. Until, that is the woman in the brand new car slammed into him. This was last week.

I only use my cell for emergencies, and then only after I have pulled off the road and put the car in park.

Shortly after cell phones first became available, they became a necessary tool for most of the realtors in BC. A colleague of DH rolled his car into the Thompson River (like rolling your car into the Conneticut River) and drowned - while answering his cell phone when driving down the highway.

I had a Vic-20 and then a Commodore 64. Cassette and later a floppy drive. I was writing my own machine code. We used TRS-80's in school. I have done a 180 with computers. From writing machine code in hex to just wanting everything to work, be simple and intuitive. I have no interest in how it works anymore. I really want a voice recognition that actually works so I don't have to type.

(silly grin) This is my very first computer...I'm 43...had to be dragged kicking and screaming to buy it....first 3 months I wanted to toss it out the window....now I'd be lost without it....go figure...