Your Favourite Phone Sucks
January 17, 2006
Goddamn if I don’t hate mobile freakin’ phones.
Mobiles used to be fine. Bleeping, kermit-green-screened Nokias which actually emitted ringtones that sounded like ringtones, not the latest Sugababes single reinterpreted as 80s Casio-goth-synth. When having Snake on your phone was an awesome, mindblowing extra feature.
And now what do we have? Blurry cameras which take useless drunken photos of your mates and have become the new millenium version of waving your cigarette lighter at a gig. Java games you wouldn’t normally be caught dead playing on your PC, yet happily shell out $7.50 for to play on your phone (I mean, you can buy second-hand NES and MasterSystem games for less, and they’re actually GOOD). Handsfree speakers with the thoughtless volume of a sports stadium’s PA system, so everyone thinks they’re a contestant on The Apprentice running around the city with an incredibly important life, barking commands into a phone being held a two full metres away from their ear.
ALL I WANT TO DO IS MAKE AND RECEIVE CALLS. Sometimes, if I want to continue to develop early arthritis, I might be fucked to tap out a dinky little text message. These are the only two functions I want from my phone.
Now, I’m not one for blatant product placement, but this is the precise reason I love the idea of Vodafone Simply. It’s just a pity the phones being offered look like arse, but hey – it’s better than carrying around an overpriced phone shaped like a lipstick, or a dildo or whatnot.
There’s only one extra feature on my current phone that I initially dismissed as a stupid gimmick, which has since proven to be bloody useful: a torch. Mostly because it means I can scavenge clothes from our floordrobe (ie the permanent pile of clothes that’s gathered as a result of our mutual laundry-related laziness) in the morning without rousing Adam from deep sleep, to get my key in the door at night, or to find stuff we’ve stacked away under the stairs. Or to put in my mouth and gaze at my tonsils for hours, or turn on directly pressed against Adam’s eye for fun. (And subsequent running away from impending doom).
Still, I’m determined not to give up my phone until it actually physically dies. The relentless pressure to “upgrade” is such a freaking waste of perfectly good old phones. If it still fits in your pocket, you can read the screen and everything works fine, you’re a loser fashion slave.
Coming up next: I rage endlessly against flavoured food while intermittently screaming that there’s nothing wrong with bran.
