I'm still between derision and resistance with the cell phones.

Twitter hates America, you know.

I've been paying a bill for a cell phone I've misplaced for about six weeks now. I hate the damn thing and don't use it.

Of course you don't, you've misplaced it.

I didn't before misplacing it. The batteries had generally run down. Stupid machine.

I like my Blackberry, on the other hand. Mostly I just hate phones. Landline, cell phone, I hate them all.

I hate the damn thing and don't use it.

And your life hasn't suffered a bit, has it? Much like Emerson's no relationship thing, everybody only thinks they need their cell phones. The smart ones eventually realize how much freer they are without them.

Landline, cell phone, I hate them all.

Marry me.

7: The thing is, it doesn't come up all that often, but I have to have a cell number to give people at work. On any specific occasion, I can say email me, or my phone's not working, or something, but saying I just don't have a phone is unacceptable.

8: We could start a commune! Get Buck and Roberta into the idea, rip out all the phone lines... Damn, there went Buck. He lives on the phone.

He must not take up much space.

Roberta hates that I won't carry a cell phone.

"What happens if I go into early labor?"
"What happened the five million years before cell phones were invented?"

7: no, no, you missed the point. The trick is to a) get rid of your land line because you don't need it with a cel phone, and then b) leave the cel phone turned off.

I think the answer to that is "Leopards ate her", which doesn't really help your case.

The Orangutan on the other thread should be posting his doings on Twitter. You don't really oppose thumbs when texting.

Luckily, leopards are pretty scarce on the ground here in central North Carolina.

And you successfully fought off the wolfpack.

Panthers, the Eastern version of the mountain lion, which hangs on in the Everglades, filled that niche, and will again some day soon.

7 the no-relationship and the no-phone policies go hand in hand. However, when travelling you really do want a cell phone. On the way to the 2005 meetup I spent about 40 minutes in the NYC airport unable to contact my ride.

16: Thin on the ground, thin in the air, just generally pretty trim...

Also, I hate cellphones and don't own a working one. (I have one I activate every December when I'm traveling, but that's it.)

But what's great about cell phones is that you don't need to answer them. Turn off the ringer, let the message go to voice mail. If you want to return the call you can.

I like my cell phone, but Twitter looks silly. Much sillier than conversing with strangers in little comment boxes.

Emerson pwned.

"But what's great about cell phones is that you don't need to answer them."

I'm still holding out against a cell phone, which all my friends take as a personal insult against them. I even like the phone. When I am home and can focus on talking to far away friends.

The 'tiny little camera allowing you to send people pictures' part of cell phones is a good toy, if you like that sort of thing, but I mostly don't. I can think of a couple of occasions on which it's been entertaining, but less than ten over all.

when travelling you really do want a cell phone.

Yah. Especially after you don't see the front wheel is in a patch of oil when you grab a handful of brake.

What convinced me to get a cell phone were all the friends coming in from out of town who refused to make definitive plans to meet up. "Oh, call me when you get into the neighborhood, I don't know where I'll be exactly," they'd say. And then I'd spend $1.75 in change in a phone booth, just to get their voice mail. Infuriating.

27: Yup, that's what happened to me. And then I realized I'm hardly home anyway, so why bother with a phone line. Best of both worlds.

Jesus, it's the old folks home around here. Not only are you having an "I hate cell phones" conversation, you're having the same "I hate cell phones" conversation you've had five times already. Ogged: holding you in contempt!

I was much happier with phones in general when I realized that they exist for MY convenience, not that of the caller's. Don't feel like being interrupted? Don't answer. Problem solved.

Twitter does look stupid, though. Surely you concede that much, ogged?

29 - Really, people. Let's try hating on IM or MySpace or Twitter or something.

29: LizardBreath: Waving my cane ineffectually in your direction.

There's so much hate to go around! Why waste it!

An admission that shocks people in my social circle: I've never downloaded a TV show or movie over BitTorrent.

see what others think bout twitter...i personally dont get it. THUMBS DOWN!

http://www.thumbwarz.com/index.phtml?snum=-1&sterm=Twitter&sims=-&apost=

34: horrors!

Also, to a link to my post from Crooked Timber, I found this really interesting post about how Twitter is bad for our brains. It has charts so it must be true.

Can one get a macro that alternates between sending "In" and "Out" at a frequency of one's choosing? I can see some amusement value in that.

Why do I still like Friendster? It's such a clean, well-lit ghost town. It was so neat back when people's friends were their actual friends, and you could see the connections. Ah, the early middle oughts.

I had never heard of twitter before this post. Does this count as a curmudgeonly admission?

I'd join a social networking site for anti-social people. Besides Unfogged.

40: yes. you've lost your edge.

41: It's been in beta for years.

Also.

I meant, also.

you're having the same "I hate cell phones" conversation you've had five times already

Time for the shiny, new "I hate Ogged" conversation.

Especially after you don't see the front wheel is in a patch of oil when you grab a handful of brake.

Or when the moron you're lanesplitting next to doesn't do a visual check before changing lanes and knocks you down. Bonus: your girlfriend sitting at home gets a phone call from a random stranger and then hears you yelling "AH FUCK, MY ANKLE" in the background.

I liked the isolatr faq.

OT: They sure make figuring out online English train schedules harder than it needs to be. I want to go from Oxford to Derby on Friday. Is there some nifty way of figuring this out that I haven't figured out?

Ogged, anyone else -

Any recommendations for books about the Iran-Iraq war? I'm just finishing up the Mustache of Understanding's surprisingly good (my take is that if he still remembered the insights in this book, and applied them to his column, it would be about a squillion times better; it also does feature, to a small degree, his annoying metaphor tic, and to a larger degree his passing on the anecdotes of others tic, though the second one doesn't seem to hurt it) first book, and finding it odd that he hardly mentions said war which is taking place simultaneously with a lot of the events in the book.

Never mind: found an easy one.

Huh, good question, w/d. I haven't read any books about it. I agree about Friedman's first though; it's good. Maybe Jackmormon can help?

This page? Or is it useless in some non-obvious way?

No, I haven't read any books on it specifically. I'd like to, though.

No, but that one's plenty easier than the 3 I tried before my earlier comment.

Maybe this one, w/d? (I haven't read it.)

56. Actually, I think I'll read the other one in the header, Before European Hegemony. But then again I like that kind of stuff.

I first heard of Twitter yesterday morning, which must give me a narrow margin of credibility. I still don't get it, though, which takes it away.

This is amusing, though.

Half of the people are confessing to having sex. How sad.

I had never heard of Twitter. I am on both Friendster and MySpace, though I loathe MySpace. It has none of the exclusivity that made Friendster snobby and great. I guess that's why people love it. You can't use Fster to market your shitty band.

Or, it must be owned, your good band.

Facebook is still fairly exclusive, though not as much as it used to be.

I am on both Friendster and MySpace, though I loathe MySpace.

It's entertaining, in a "hey check out the freakshow" kind of way. But then again, I only have an account so that I can get messages and such from my little sister. If I was actually trying to use it to meet people I'd probably loathe it too.

re: 49

CharleyCarp, If you are in Oxford this week and fancy meeting for a coffee or something (I can't make any prospective Patrick's Day thing) ...

Further to St Patrick's comments -- ttaM and I clearly read at breakfast -- I can't make London, but if you are near Cambridge ... Since you're visiting Derby, this is obviously a work trip.

ps, a more useful email address is obtained by combining "seatrout" with "gmail" and dot com in a way that is obvious to a human intelligence.

Good point re: email address. there's a working email address linked from my name now ...

Werdna, ttaM, emails to follow.

I have a cousin who lives in Derby. I don't know why she picked that city; she grew up in Samoa.

34: Hey, I've never downloaded any music from the internet.

You know you're spending too much time at Unfogged when former Sen Alan Simpson gets a giggle with "Is there a 'gay' Farsi?"