********************************
OVER-PEEPED PEOPLE
********************************
Here's one for you! We got SMART PHONES "for Christmas"---unfortunately smarter than we, though my wife is a techie...but that's another story.
It's the cacophony in our house, nowadays, that I want to discuss. (Our house is so electronic that I fear it glows in the dark!) Some lady, I am told, wrote a bit on Facebook on this very same subject, but let me assure you that I beat her---this article has been jelling for a week.
There is a history in my life regarding phones. I hate them. When I retired from my second career in 1996, a career in which I loved my clients but was deluged with phone calls---day and night, early and late (it was insurance)---I said: "I never want to get another phone call!" You see, the phone was always ringing. Not cool attractive ring sounds, either.
So for years we had just rudimentary run-of-the-mill cell phones, mainly for the wife to call me from out there when she ran out of gas, or whatever. Truth is, I never turned mine on, except to occasionally make a free long distance call. Nobody called me....and that was fine. She knew to call me on the "land line."
But the wife likes electronic gadgets, and who was I to vote against something nice for her, though our phone budget would have fed one of those Dust Bowl families very nicely. So we got our new smart phones shipped in from Verizon. We discover something new about these little marvels every day!
The really neat and exciting thing about these phones is that they have a "menu of rings." You can go to a page or pages of rings and forever be done with the plain old ring. You can get harps, marimbas, orchestra, sci- fi, telegraph, bongs, dings, crickets, ducks, dog barking, motorcycles starting, and even a train whistle (which I leaped on for my incoming email sound--yes the phone connects with your computer!) There are so many rings that you can select a different ring for each friend--Ed, Joe, Tom, Mary, etc. That way you'll know who is calling.
OVER-PEEPED PEOPLE
********************************
Here's one for you! We got SMART PHONES "for Christmas"---unfortunately smarter than we, though my wife is a techie...but that's another story.
It's the cacophony in our house, nowadays, that I want to discuss. (Our house is so electronic that I fear it glows in the dark!) Some lady, I am told, wrote a bit on Facebook on this very same subject, but let me assure you that I beat her---this article has been jelling for a week.
There is a history in my life regarding phones. I hate them. When I retired from my second career in 1996, a career in which I loved my clients but was deluged with phone calls---day and night, early and late (it was insurance)---I said: "I never want to get another phone call!" You see, the phone was always ringing. Not cool attractive ring sounds, either.
So for years we had just rudimentary run-of-the-mill cell phones, mainly for the wife to call me from out there when she ran out of gas, or whatever. Truth is, I never turned mine on, except to occasionally make a free long distance call. Nobody called me....and that was fine. She knew to call me on the "land line."
But the wife likes electronic gadgets, and who was I to vote against something nice for her, though our phone budget would have fed one of those Dust Bowl families very nicely. So we got our new smart phones shipped in from Verizon. We discover something new about these little marvels every day!
The really neat and exciting thing about these phones is that they have a "menu of rings." You can go to a page or pages of rings and forever be done with the plain old ring. You can get harps, marimbas, orchestra, sci- fi, telegraph, bongs, dings, crickets, ducks, dog barking, motorcycles starting, and even a train whistle (which I leaped on for my incoming email sound--yes the phone connects with your computer!) There are so many rings that you can select a different ring for each friend--Ed, Joe, Tom, Mary, etc. That way you'll know who is calling.
Note the paragraph above---a "dog-barking" ring. NOT! Well, I guess it might be an appropriate ring for our neighbor across the fence (if we phoned each other), since for years he has had barking dogs in his megaphonic backyard---all night barking-- when he spends the weekend at Bluewater, and his dogs add to our cacophony and keep us awake. No, not a barking-dog ring, thanks.
I must admit to loving these sounds---and carrying my phone around in my shirt pocket, though I still never get phone calls---I love that train sound announcing emails, of which I get a lot. People come up to say: "Hey, are you getting an email...or is that a train in your pocket?!"
Tried to get a rooster as one of my sounds---you can special order these for a one-time fee of $1.29---not too bad. We did a trial audition of a rooster crowing, and I thought it sounded fake or computer-generated. We rejected it---probably "made inChina
Moving on---let's talk about the OTHER SOUNDS! A while back, we kept hearing a bird in the hall, we thought. Just kept peeping, then quit, then more peeping. We finally figured out that our smoke alarm was needing new batteries. So that problem was solved.
Then our microwave oven makes five dings at the end of every cycle, big loud ones, as if "Listen to me!" What makes it bad is that our coffee pot isn't hot enough, so we have to additionally heat up our cups of coffee, eight of them! That adds up to a considerable amount of dinging! Our toaster makes cheap peeps, not worthy of any electronic device, but nonetheless, adds to the noise. (Probably made overseas.)
I have a portable radio, for which I have lost the instruction book. Somehow it got set to ALARM at 9:47 every night. We finally figured out where the sound was coming from but didn't know how to turn it off. (Umm, why didn't I think of the batteries!)
Our oven has a "bing,bing,bing" timer, and the wife uses it to time the lawn-watering, outside front and back, since our new timers out there failed. So that's more noise to deal with.
When the kids and grandkids were here at Christmas, they all had smart phones. We know that the youth are practically full-time texters and phone callers; all kinds of noises, rings, and sounds were reverberating throughout the house. Not being able to use the muter, I got out my shooting muffs.
I must admit to loving these sounds---and carrying my phone around in my shirt pocket, though I still never get phone calls---I love that train sound announcing emails, of which I get a lot. People come up to say: "Hey, are you getting an email...or is that a train in your pocket?!"
Tried to get a rooster as one of my sounds---you can special order these for a one-time fee of $1.29---not too bad. We did a trial audition of a rooster crowing, and I thought it sounded fake or computer-generated. We rejected it---probably "made in
Moving on---let's talk about the OTHER SOUNDS! A while back, we kept hearing a bird in the hall, we thought. Just kept peeping, then quit, then more peeping. We finally figured out that our smoke alarm was needing new batteries. So that problem was solved.
Then our microwave oven makes five dings at the end of every cycle, big loud ones, as if "Listen to me!" What makes it bad is that our coffee pot isn't hot enough, so we have to additionally heat up our cups of coffee, eight of them! That adds up to a considerable amount of dinging! Our toaster makes cheap peeps, not worthy of any electronic device, but nonetheless, adds to the noise. (Probably made overseas.)
I have a portable radio, for which I have lost the instruction book. Somehow it got set to ALARM at 9:47 every night. We finally figured out where the sound was coming from but didn't know how to turn it off. (Umm, why didn't I think of the batteries!)
Our oven has a "bing,bing,bing" timer, and the wife uses it to time the lawn-watering, outside front and back, since our new timers out there failed. So that's more noise to deal with.
When the kids and grandkids were here at Christmas, they all had smart phones. We know that the youth are practically full-time texters and phone callers; all kinds of noises, rings, and sounds were reverberating throughout the house. Not being able to use the muter, I got out my shooting muffs.
A really funny and true story is this---early on in this drama of the new phones, my wife selected a "starting-motorcycle engine sound." as the ring tone for one of our sons, who likes cycles. One day she left her phone in the den and I in the next room was writing. I kept hearing the motor noise and thought she was trying to start a hair dryer or some machine in the den; then I decided it was our neighbor across the fence, who is wont to always be trimming some bush. Finally, we had a big laugh when we figured it out!
Oh, I didn't tell you that our Schwinn exercise bicycle, purchased in 1976, may have a poltergeist. For no rhyme, and no discernible reason, it's very loud TIMER DING sounds anytime...usually 2 a.m.
Oh, and did I mention the doorbell?
Yes, we are a generation of instant communication. In many ways it is a miracle. I can talk to London
********30*******
BY MIL
1/08/12
Sent from my iPad
BY MIL
1/08/12
Sent from my iPad
No comments:
Post a Comment