Everyone seems to...
...have a cell phone today except, of course, me. I didn't know that everyone was quietly grabbing cell phones up as I was minding my own business and trying to teach myself how to operate a VCR. After all, so far, most people don't have things hanging off of their faces to let you know that they just obtained a cell phone. And, a card carrying cell phone addict looks pretty much human at first glance so it took a while for me to notice that I was entering the twilight zone. I was about to become the last living person without a cell phone.
It's sort of scary but you can learn to live with being the last human without 24/7 cellular contact. There are others of my kind but they are currently living out their lives in nursing homes, a long, long way from the world that we are now living in. My compatriots are all still living in the 20th century. A few of them are aware of the moon landing, but none of them have ever heard of a video, much less a cell phone.
As one of the few remaining cell-less human being's, I feel that I should say something before I lose the ability to type/think coherently/or discern between nice and poor manners. You know, I realize that many of you learned to speak on the phone when you were short and at home. That could mean many different things to many different people. If you grew up in a stoic, Irish house like mine, you knew what it meant to "SHUT THE HELL UP!" But in my ex's family of Chicago Italians, that sentence has never been spoken. Those people were so loud and obnoxious that my milk dried up when I visited them with my new daughter.
I believe that I overheard a Chicago Italian last week on a Marta Bus in Atlanta. The bus was about two thirds full but all you could hear was one lone male speaking on a cell phone. My stern look at him muffled his annoying self but before that glare, I had to listen as he droned on to his friend about things that easily could have been discussed after he finished his trek home. None of that conversation was the type of info that was life saving or even time saving.
Just so that you guys know, there was a time when it would have been considered extremely rude to sit near a person and speak out loud to another person, leaving the original person out of the conversation. Apparently, just using a telephone alleviates the manners required of a person. My right to a peaceful bus ride has just been superseded by the right of another to speak on the phone wherever his ass may be. How did that happen?
You should also know that there was a time when life and reality was what you could see and touch. It wasn't sent to us in the form of microwaves so we had to interface with actual faces. It was a long time ago, but I do remember it. There were time schedules and other's needs that had to be addressed. If you wanted to watch The Brady Bunch, you had to sit down in your living room at 7 PM on Friday night. If you missed it, you had to wait another week to see Marcia and Greg and you had to wait about 6 months before you could see the episode you missed. There was always something to look forward to and since you didn't have that many options at one given time, you generally had a bit more time and energy with which to consider social obligations.
Today the options are overwhelming. With a small hand held appliance we are closer to the rest of the world than we've ever been but somehow our daily interactions with other humans are cut down quite a bit. And to whom do we owe our social graces...the people who are actually around us or the people to whom we are connected by electrical device?
I guess it really doesn't matter what the people around us think, most of them don't know our names and won't ever see us again. That's what makes it possible for people to go grocery shopping in their pajamas. No wonder they want to hide behind a cell phone. But you know what? We can still see them, can't we?
How interesting that the very thing that is supposed to keep us closer nowadays...the cell phone, can be just as efficient at cutting people out of our lives. Cell phones have Caller ID and the people whom we would rather avoid are relegated to the voice mail box, never to be spoken to again. How does one break through the cell phone/blood-brain barrier if the owner of the number doesn't want to let you in? If you were to call a number a few times and get no answer, would it be considered stalking to follow up with a knock on the door? Concerns like that will stop most people from trying at all.
How odd that I have changed nothing and yet the people with whom I speak have all changed the manner in which they speak to me. The tell me that they weren't able to leave a message and then I feel as though I need to justify my lack of newfangled gadgets. As it is, I must explain that my number is a land line and therefore I can't be reached at all times. If that doesn't make a person feel hesitant by itself, the lack of ability to leave me a message is terribly disconcerting.
Unlike the microwave oven that sits on my kitchen counter, I shall not give in to the constant societal pressure to reach out and touch every single person or their voice mail. My father once complained that I had no answering machine. I explained that I didn't want one. Then, after he bought me an answering machine so that HE could leave messages for me, he complained that he didn't like my pre-recorded greeting. Assured that I could not please anyone and was going to waste no further time trying to do so, I took down my offensive greeting and unplugged my answering machine. If you want to call me, you have to call when I'm at home, otherwise you won't be able to speak to me. But, my vow to you is that I will never leave you to speak to a machine. If you call enough, eventually you will get the REAL ME to answer and then we can actually have a laugh or two. The worst thing you can expect from me is no answer at all. But that just means that I'm walking through the grocery store and minding my own business...unless there is someone next to me who is speaking so loudly that I have become a part of their business for a moment...and that I'll answer the phone when I get home so you can just do what your grandmother did, call me back.
From somewhere out there in the Twilight Zone.
Just for the heck of it, I'm posting a typical email scam here so that anyone who hasn't seen one will know what they look like. I'd be surprised if anyone was so naive as to fall for this stuff but I've been surprised often. Since this guy seemed more afraid of exposure than anyone else, I thought that I would adopt that old adage about what sunlight does to scum:
Hello Meg Broderick
How are you? I located you through an agency that helps seek people by their email. Thank you for your response to my mail.Please read carefully as I am going to explain in details why I mailed you.I am sure you are not actually related to this person because I have since carried out a search on his actual extended family ties,which have been to no avail and hence my contacting you.
I had to contact you to solicit your assistance in accessing funds belonging to my late client. I want you to consider the details so you could understand the reasons I need your co-operation.I am giving you my word that all information passed down to me will be kept CONFIDENTIAL.
My mail to you is a matter of last resort because of the circumstances surrounding this claim.My client,Robert Mark Broderick was an oil merchant and he had oil dealings around Europe and Africa. He died in 2000 at 54 along side his wife, Maria, 46, and their only daughter, Katharine, 11.
He lived most of his years here in the U.K,though he travelled often.I served as his private attorney for the last eleven years preceding his death, just after the birth of Katharine.Robert migrated into England a long time ago as an orphan.After the death of my late client,I was informed by the finance company to search for members of his extended family to put up a claim or who could be so represented as managers or trustees for his deposited funds with them which stands due to the fact that he died with his immediate family members.
After preliminary efforts of search that came to no avail,I was given an ultimatum to look for some one to come for the claim or have the funds liquidated and made unserviceable in accordance with existing laws,since it would be assumed that no member of his family was alive.
However,it might interest you to know that after a thorough investigation in the finance company,I found out that some staff of the company are currently planning to divert this fund in their selfish interest and only want to use the excuse that since I am not able to locate any member of his family to make the claim,the money should be made unserviceable and that means reverting the fund to the Government while the company retains a percentage of it.
After unraveling their plans and professional consideration on my part,I decided to look for some one credible,with the same last name with my late client, to apply for this claim,since I have at my possession,legal documents relating to the claims and which can only be provided by my chambers since they have since been with us.
I feel and know that you will be able to make this claim SUCCESSFULLY because of your last name which is the same as that of my late client's.Also I would not want the company to be aware that I contacted you first in order to prevent them from going into much investigations on who you actually are.This can put the success of this transaction on the line.
This is a deal I am offering you and I want you to be rest assured that this is legal with no risk involved, since all the legal documents that give you the right to make the claim is available,though I cannot release them for your perusal now for security reasons until I have attained your confidence.I am taking my time to explain all these to you now because I want you to see the reasons why my name should never be mentioned any time you are discussing with the personnel of the company and why this transaction has to be kept really confidential in order for us to be able to achieve our goals without doubts.
NOTE that if they request to know how you came to know that your family member (Robert) had such an amount of funds with them and who contacted you,which I am not sure they will ask, but in order to be on the safer side,be confident to tell them that the extended family discovered some documents in his archives showing that Robert lodged such funds with them and that is why you have been sent by the family to contact the bank.Further deliberations will be held on this as we proceed.
I do not want to jeopardize the success of this transaction which means so much to me at the moment.So you have to give me your word and assurance that you can go ahead with this and also acknowledge that we have to keep it discreet.
Please note that the mode of sharing upon completion of the transaction and release of the funds will be 50% for me,40% for you and 10% for expenses that might be incurred during the course of the transaction.
If you have gone through this mail and you feel it is well understood,get back to me so that we can start planning the process of accessing and securing the release of the funds.Thank you.
Paul Stanton ESQ
Phone:+447024053546
...have a cell phone today except, of course, me. I didn't know that everyone was quietly grabbing cell phones up as I was minding my own business and trying to teach myself how to operate a VCR. After all, so far, most people don't have things hanging off of their faces to let you know that they just obtained a cell phone. And, a card carrying cell phone addict looks pretty much human at first glance so it took a while for me to notice that I was entering the twilight zone. I was about to become the last living person without a cell phone.
It's sort of scary but you can learn to live with being the last human without 24/7 cellular contact. There are others of my kind but they are currently living out their lives in nursing homes, a long, long way from the world that we are now living in. My compatriots are all still living in the 20th century. A few of them are aware of the moon landing, but none of them have ever heard of a video, much less a cell phone.
As one of the few remaining cell-less human being's, I feel that I should say something before I lose the ability to type/think coherently/or discern between nice and poor manners. You know, I realize that many of you learned to speak on the phone when you were short and at home. That could mean many different things to many different people. If you grew up in a stoic, Irish house like mine, you knew what it meant to "SHUT THE HELL UP!" But in my ex's family of Chicago Italians, that sentence has never been spoken. Those people were so loud and obnoxious that my milk dried up when I visited them with my new daughter.
I believe that I overheard a Chicago Italian last week on a Marta Bus in Atlanta. The bus was about two thirds full but all you could hear was one lone male speaking on a cell phone. My stern look at him muffled his annoying self but before that glare, I had to listen as he droned on to his friend about things that easily could have been discussed after he finished his trek home. None of that conversation was the type of info that was life saving or even time saving.
Just so that you guys know, there was a time when it would have been considered extremely rude to sit near a person and speak out loud to another person, leaving the original person out of the conversation. Apparently, just using a telephone alleviates the manners required of a person. My right to a peaceful bus ride has just been superseded by the right of another to speak on the phone wherever his ass may be. How did that happen?
You should also know that there was a time when life and reality was what you could see and touch. It wasn't sent to us in the form of microwaves so we had to interface with actual faces. It was a long time ago, but I do remember it. There were time schedules and other's needs that had to be addressed. If you wanted to watch The Brady Bunch, you had to sit down in your living room at 7 PM on Friday night. If you missed it, you had to wait another week to see Marcia and Greg and you had to wait about 6 months before you could see the episode you missed. There was always something to look forward to and since you didn't have that many options at one given time, you generally had a bit more time and energy with which to consider social obligations.
Today the options are overwhelming. With a small hand held appliance we are closer to the rest of the world than we've ever been but somehow our daily interactions with other humans are cut down quite a bit. And to whom do we owe our social graces...the people who are actually around us or the people to whom we are connected by electrical device?
I guess it really doesn't matter what the people around us think, most of them don't know our names and won't ever see us again. That's what makes it possible for people to go grocery shopping in their pajamas. No wonder they want to hide behind a cell phone. But you know what? We can still see them, can't we?
How interesting that the very thing that is supposed to keep us closer nowadays...the cell phone, can be just as efficient at cutting people out of our lives. Cell phones have Caller ID and the people whom we would rather avoid are relegated to the voice mail box, never to be spoken to again. How does one break through the cell phone/blood-brain barrier if the owner of the number doesn't want to let you in? If you were to call a number a few times and get no answer, would it be considered stalking to follow up with a knock on the door? Concerns like that will stop most people from trying at all.
How odd that I have changed nothing and yet the people with whom I speak have all changed the manner in which they speak to me. The tell me that they weren't able to leave a message and then I feel as though I need to justify my lack of newfangled gadgets. As it is, I must explain that my number is a land line and therefore I can't be reached at all times. If that doesn't make a person feel hesitant by itself, the lack of ability to leave me a message is terribly disconcerting.
Unlike the microwave oven that sits on my kitchen counter, I shall not give in to the constant societal pressure to reach out and touch every single person or their voice mail. My father once complained that I had no answering machine. I explained that I didn't want one. Then, after he bought me an answering machine so that HE could leave messages for me, he complained that he didn't like my pre-recorded greeting. Assured that I could not please anyone and was going to waste no further time trying to do so, I took down my offensive greeting and unplugged my answering machine. If you want to call me, you have to call when I'm at home, otherwise you won't be able to speak to me. But, my vow to you is that I will never leave you to speak to a machine. If you call enough, eventually you will get the REAL ME to answer and then we can actually have a laugh or two. The worst thing you can expect from me is no answer at all. But that just means that I'm walking through the grocery store and minding my own business...unless there is someone next to me who is speaking so loudly that I have become a part of their business for a moment...and that I'll answer the phone when I get home so you can just do what your grandmother did, call me back.
From somewhere out there in the Twilight Zone.
Just for the heck of it, I'm posting a typical email scam here so that anyone who hasn't seen one will know what they look like. I'd be surprised if anyone was so naive as to fall for this stuff but I've been surprised often. Since this guy seemed more afraid of exposure than anyone else, I thought that I would adopt that old adage about what sunlight does to scum:
Hello Meg Broderick
How are you? I located you through an agency that helps seek people by their email. Thank you for your response to my mail.Please read carefully as I am going to explain in details why I mailed you.I am sure you are not actually related to this person because I have since carried out a search on his actual extended family ties,which have been to no avail and hence my contacting you.
I had to contact you to solicit your assistance in accessing funds belonging to my late client. I want you to consider the details so you could understand the reasons I need your co-operation.I am giving you my word that all information passed down to me will be kept CONFIDENTIAL.
My mail to you is a matter of last resort because of the circumstances surrounding this claim.My client,Robert Mark Broderick was an oil merchant and he had oil dealings around Europe and Africa. He died in 2000 at 54 along side his wife, Maria, 46, and their only daughter, Katharine, 11.
He lived most of his years here in the U.K,though he travelled often.I served as his private attorney for the last eleven years preceding his death, just after the birth of Katharine.Robert migrated into England a long time ago as an orphan.After the death of my late client,I was informed by the finance company to search for members of his extended family to put up a claim or who could be so represented as managers or trustees for his deposited funds with them which stands due to the fact that he died with his immediate family members.
After preliminary efforts of search that came to no avail,I was given an ultimatum to look for some one to come for the claim or have the funds liquidated and made unserviceable in accordance with existing laws,since it would be assumed that no member of his family was alive.
However,it might interest you to know that after a thorough investigation in the finance company,I found out that some staff of the company are currently planning to divert this fund in their selfish interest and only want to use the excuse that since I am not able to locate any member of his family to make the claim,the money should be made unserviceable and that means reverting the fund to the Government while the company retains a percentage of it.
After unraveling their plans and professional consideration on my part,I decided to look for some one credible,with the same last name with my late client, to apply for this claim,since I have at my possession,legal documents relating to the claims and which can only be provided by my chambers since they have since been with us.
I feel and know that you will be able to make this claim SUCCESSFULLY because of your last name which is the same as that of my late client's.Also I would not want the company to be aware that I contacted you first in order to prevent them from going into much investigations on who you actually are.This can put the success of this transaction on the line.
This is a deal I am offering you and I want you to be rest assured that this is legal with no risk involved, since all the legal documents that give you the right to make the claim is available,though I cannot release them for your perusal now for security reasons until I have attained your confidence.I am taking my time to explain all these to you now because I want you to see the reasons why my name should never be mentioned any time you are discussing with the personnel of the company and why this transaction has to be kept really confidential in order for us to be able to achieve our goals without doubts.
NOTE that if they request to know how you came to know that your family member (Robert) had such an amount of funds with them and who contacted you,which I am not sure they will ask, but in order to be on the safer side,be confident to tell them that the extended family discovered some documents in his archives showing that Robert lodged such funds with them and that is why you have been sent by the family to contact the bank.Further deliberations will be held on this as we proceed.
I do not want to jeopardize the success of this transaction which means so much to me at the moment.So you have to give me your word and assurance that you can go ahead with this and also acknowledge that we have to keep it discreet.
Please note that the mode of sharing upon completion of the transaction and release of the funds will be 50% for me,40% for you and 10% for expenses that might be incurred during the course of the transaction.
If you have gone through this mail and you feel it is well understood,get back to me so that we can start planning the process of accessing and securing the release of the funds.Thank you.
Paul Stanton ESQ
Phone:+447024053546
posted by Meg Kelso | 5:44 AM
1 Comments:
According to recent research by Ofcom, 37% of adults and 60% of teens admit to being ‘highly addicted’ to their smartphones, with users checking their smartphones on average, 34 times a day. Additionally, 51% of adults and 65% of teens use their smartphones while socializing with others, and 22% and 47% respectively, confess to answering their smartphones even while on the toilet.
‘Moodoff Day’ on February 26th asks smartphone and mobile device addicts (and those that don’t yet consider themselves such) to spend a morning without their beloved devices.
If you feel you could benefit from a morning without smartphones and mobile devices and want to encourage others to follow suit, go to www.MoodOffDay.org and pledge your support. You can even post your personal experiences of smartphone addiction or upload funny images showing smartphone addicts in action at www.facebook.com/MoodOffDay
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