Thursday, November 18, 2010

love a gadget-lover and the gadgets'll grow on you

Tonight after I left work, I stopped at my parents' house for a little couch time with my mom, some aloo bhaaji and chapati and an episode of Sasural Genda Phool from like two weeks ago (yeah, I'm behind). And I left my phone there.

I cannot describe to you how immensely odd that is. Tomorrow I will be sans alarm clock (the one we have is really complicated and can do dual times, but I don't get it), as well as communication with anyone via text or telephone. Worst of all, I can't watch an episode of Leverage or listen to a This American Life podcast or play Angry Birds on it tonight while I'm trying to fall asleep. Sad, I know.

The funny thing is, originally I was the last person in my group of friends to get a cellphone.* I was resistant to having a "homing device" after a bad experience with being forced to carry around a neon pink pager and then interrogated as to why I did not respond within the "acceptable 20-minute window" by a crazy ex. Yeah, that pager is now an algae anchor at the bottom of a lake in my parents' neighborhood.

When I finally caved and got a cell, it was never the latest model. I always went for a very small, functional piece that didn't necessarily have fancy ringtones, a color screen or do pictures. Even though I'd been dating my gadget-phile Jonathan for several years I had a pretty old-school functional phone. But then he got an iPhone. He started showing me new and exciting ways it could change my life. And dag-gummit, it sure did.

So here I am at the computer, reading and commenting into the wee hours of the night because I'm not completely sure how I can get myself to fall asleep without that dang phone.

*Technically I was the first one to have a cellphone: A Zach-Morris model for use only during emergencies driving to and from Champaign, so I never really used it, thank God.

4 comments:

Syar said...

I've had three phones in my life: that Nokia brick everyone had, a Motorola clamshell (back when clamshells were the "in" thing) I won in an MTV competition (!) and my current phone, a Sony Ericsson I got for 700 Malaysian ringgit 4 years ago that still functions. I'm torn on the whole iPhone thing. Enough people have gotten it and been really smug about it that has put me off owning one (no offense, guys) because no matter what you say, I *will* hate the player AND the game. I think I'll just wait until my current phone well and truly kicks the bucket and then succumb to a ridiculously huge upgrade.

Jon said...

I truly created a monster when I got you hooked on your iPhone. I'm not sorry about it. Not one bit.

Syar: it's a slippery slope. Once you go to a smartphone, you really can't go back. I can almost live without a computer because of my phone. It is amazing. it fits in my pocket and it is always with me. I blog from it. I email from it. I twitter from it. I play games on it. I do my banking on it. I listen to music with it. I take pictures with it. I text with it. I watch sports on it. I get directions from it. I find everything with it. It's actually pretty scary how many things there are apps for. The biggest problem? Withdrawal when it is unavailable to you for more than 5 minutes. And it doesn't have to be an iPhone. My sister has an Android phone that works just as well. Oh yeah, and occasionally, I make calls with it.

cadiz12 said...

i hated the player and the game, too, syar. until i got drafted. and now i'm too busy on my phone to hate myself.

neena maiya (guyana gyal) said...

OK, I so want a smartphone now. When I wake up in the middle of the night and can't sleep, that phone would be perfect. Either that a light I can clip on to a book. But I think the smart phone would be more fun.