Blinded by the White

Cell Phone, cell phone, why have you forsaken me?

It feels like yesterday (ok, it was June 10th, 2005) when I completed the first successful flip of my new flip phone. There’s just something about the rush of sliding your thumb slightly between the two ends of your cellular device, and with a quick flick, the gadget flies open in a uber-techno dazzling move of…telecommunications. You just feel cooler with a flip phone. Sure, you’re not going to do anything cooler that maybe order a pizza, but there’s still something incredibly top secret about using one.

Maybe if it were a top secret pizza…

Yes, I’ve got my trusty Motorola to the side of my keyboard here today, and it would be pleased to know that I’ve dedicated yet another post to discussing it. Of course, it cannot hear the words I am lamenting in its honor – personally, I’m annoyed by those who read aloud what they are typing and I shall not join their ranks. And with my recent bout of verbosity, there’s no way this will get sent to my phone via a text message, either. That would cost at least 30 bucks, and if we’re throwing that kind of cash around, I might as well order a top secret pizza. Of course, my phone is no idiot – it understands my voice commands, so maybe if I flip it open it will be able to read the words right off my computer screen. Cellular cognizance – it’s possible right. Perhaps it could work…

…if my phone wasn’t legally blind.

That’s right. My phone is blind. No matter what speed, angle, or direction I flip it open, it’s ability to see the outside world is gone. Instead of helpful icons, I’ve been left with the equivalent of digital snowstorm. Nothing but white screen.

The problem with a white screen is this: you know everything that the phone is functionally capable is in complete working order; you are just not allowed to witness it work. A blue screen would inform you of the problem, and explain that you’re screwed. A black screen probably means your battery’s dead. A green screen is an opportunity to do some cool CGI stuff. A white screen? Simply hopeless.

I guess it’s not so bad – after all in olden times, phones didn’t even have screens. Their functionality was simple. You press some buttons to dial, listen though one end and talk through the other. End of innovation. And this would be a fine way to treat The Great White Hope, except that technology has taunted us with other features, features I’ve grown accustomed to both using AND viewing.

TEXT MESSAGING – For anyone who is in the business of sending me text messages, I thank you. If you haven’t seen a response or reaction from me, however, now you might know why. Since the audio on the phone isn’t broken, I know when someone has sent a text, I just can’t determine who it’s from and what it says. So I just make stuff up in my head. (That said, thanks Joe, I’m going to love the Flyers season tickets you bought me and text messaged me to tell me!)

DIALING – It has been well-documented that you have no idea what anyone’s phone number is. We’ve become overly addicted to out cell phones, so much that we have no idea what sequence of digits will connect you to anyone these days. Since I can’t actuall see my contact list, I do have a backdoor to my addiction – speaker phone. Yes, for some reason, if I put my phone on speaker phone and click on what I remember to be the Contacts key, my phone will say each person’s name in the creepiest computer voice imaginable. And yet, it manages surprisingly well to nail nearly every name. Viehweg, Arsenault, Maugham – it gets them all. Well enough to forgive its “Strud Mellor” and “Jahzen Andersen.”

So if you call me and I sound a little off, don’t take it personally. I’m just trying to figure out who the hell I’m talking to.