I hate talking on cell phones. My hearing isn't great (I've asked doctors about it and been told that it's fine, but I complain about not being able to hear stuff a lot more often than most people seem to) and I spend a lot of cell phone conversations faking understanding of what's being said.
I'm upholding my half of the landline to landline conversations.
effin
Why? Though it had never before occurred to me how similar that was to 'elfin', so thanks for that.
1- I wonder about this as well. Doctors tell me my hearing is fine, but I disagree. I can hear really well--very, very quiet noises--when I'm in a quiet environment, but I seem to have a lot more trouble than everyone else I know differentiating sounds-- following a conversation in a crowded room, or hearing the tv when there is a lot of background noise. I can "hear" the noises fine, but I can't understand anything that's being said -- it seems to get lost in the general buzz.
Cell phones too.
Pink and blue?? Sorry but that's just not the type of ass I fuck.
I have the same problem. I listened to a lot of heavy metal using headphones in high school (every morning, delivering papers on my 10-speed, in the dark--how I wasn't killed is beyond me).
That's me, and it annoys the crap out of me. There are few things I hate more than background music in bars. If I want to dance, I'll go to a club. If I want to listen to music, I'll wear headphones or buy concert tickets. I'm in your damn bar to talk to people, and you're making it unnecessarily difficult.
I've never even listened to loud music much.
But, but, LB, loud bar music is a social lubricant. A jukebox doesn't have any place in LB-fun?
See, I don't get that. If I can't hear what people are saying, I get nervous and hostile. Not a social lubricant from my point of view.
Now, it's been established that I'm not fun, and the level at which I have trouble hearing is quieter than for most other people. I still hate background music.
I think LB has made it explicit that fun doesn't have any place in lb-fun.
Pwning, on the other hand, does.
There must be time-stamp separation for pwnage, especially given your close connection to the site.
Did SCMT really just accuse LB of pwnage-fraud?
FWIW, I saw LB's comment in one load of the comment window, and didn't see Tim's until the next. I say Pwnage.
#10, I think the problem is "loud". Non-loud music would be an even better social lubricant.
Persoanl lubricant would be an even better social lubricant.
16: You will see Tim's load when you're good and ready, and not a minute sooner.
I have both serious congenital actual hearing loss and what is called "comprehension loss" defined perhaps as the ability to distinguish sounds or pick sounds from a group...discovered in years of testing in my youth. They, at least in my case, have different physical causes: auditory nerve damage and loss or lack of finer elements in the inner ear, respectively.
Good work, Ogged. I was thinking about getting a cell phone, and now you've just pushed that back by at least a few months. Long-term Ogged observers will note that we have yet another opportunity to breed discontent in his soul by playing on the conflict between (a) love of gadgetry and (b) love of authentic and attentive human interaction. Shouldn't the low sound quality and its effect on human relationships make cell phones Ogged's ice cream in public?
What bugs me are "below the fold" blog entries. It's OK if they're fairly rare on a blog, but if they're commong they make a blog just too annoying to read. A prime example is the Washington Monthly's Showdown '06 blog, and Open University is pretty bad about it, too.
I just pick up the phone and say, "Get your ass over here." All is well with my soul, Labs.
Seriously, is there some reason cell networks haven't been upgraded to landline-equivalence by now?
(Asked the non-tech.)
22: I like the rhetorical effect of the below-the-fold bits at languagehat.
The below-the-fold bits of languagehat I have yet to witness.
24: yes and no. It's pretty hard to make a wireless network as stable as a wired one. On the other hand, current state of the US networks is nothing like what is possible. This is partly due to low population density, and partly due to markets trying to find a maximum accepted pain solution.
Aren't wireless networks a lot better in Europe? And isn't this the fault of Chicago?
27: Yes. And Yes. Or of MCI and Sprint, depending on who you believe.
27: yes, and even better in Korea, from what I've heard. As to fault ... that's a bit murky due to a lot of blame game going on.
Hey! You link to a post of mine that's about GIANT DILDOS, and all you can do is complain about some stupid icons sprinkled into the template?
What's the matter with unfogged anymore? Jaded much?
What's the matter with unfogged anymore? Jaded much?
Don't look at me, PZ, I didn't pick that particular post by accident. But the folks around here don't hold up their end, ya know?
What's the matter with unfogged anymore? Jaded much?
Let's all talk about the regions of the US in which this use of "anymore" is to be found.
Or rather, let's identify those regions.
And now there are claims that cell phones render men sterile. Clearly a nefarious plot to conquer the universe. By those aliens that PZ doesn't believe in.
Why, yes, I do have some Scots/Irish ancestry on the paternal side, coming up through Pennsylvania and Appalachia, into the midwest, homesteading in Iowa, and finally in my grandfather's generation settling in the Pacific Northwest. It could have been dredged up out of a wide swath of Yankee states.
I first heard that usage of "anymore" in 1969, from a guy who grew up in LA and Oklahoma.
If cell phones really made men sterile (preserving potency), I'd devise a special carrying pouch for mine just so it would be even closer to my balls.
37: An interesting idea, ben, but then you'd probably walk around wearing one of those bluetooth earpieces, thereby rendering you unfuckable and a loser.
So my childlessness would be overdetermined?
Anyway, you're wrong to think that I'd have any compunction about reaching into my pants to retrieve the bally phone if I got a call or wanted to make one.
my childlessness would be overdetermined
Yeah, this is what I was getting at. And on second thought, you should definitely be leaving the phone in your pants and taking/making calls on speaker phone. The deleterious effect on your balls would almost certainly be increased when the phone is on a call. So: if you can find a partner who doesn't mind that you talk into your crotch from time to time, then maybe your plan would work. Do report back, please.
Better yet, post photos to the Flickr group.
Oh and "deleterious" s/b "desired" I suppose, since you want the effect to happen and don't consider it harmful.
Laughed out loud at combined effect of 37-40.
My phone is a slightly older pocketpc, and it does spontaneously reboot (and go back to thinking it's 2004) every freakin' time the battery drains, losing all my data, so that I've actually gone back to memorizing friends' phone numbers. I will say, on the other hand, that sometimes it is loud and clear as hell--like, too loud. Like everyone in the room can hear the other side of the conversation, and we're not even on speaker phone loud. Not always, but sometimes. And with an earbud, it's often extremely clear.
I keep hoping that when I buy a better cellphone, the sound quality will improve. Don't anyone disabuse me of this hope, please.
I've had no problem with the sound quality of my cellphone. Other people have apparently had trouble hearing me, though, ever since I put my phone through the wash a second time.
40 - Whatever. He still owes ME a report.
36 is profoundly weird. that it passed without comment, 'till now, lends credence to the Theory that we hereabouts are jaded.
What's so weird about 36? Oklahoma and LA are hardly core positive-anymore territory, but it's a pretty widely (albeit thinly) spread west of its home Midland region.
I think it's odd that #32 singles out the positive use of "anymore" rather than the rapidly-emerging use of "much" as a passive-aggressive way to point out somebody's personality flaws. I've been hearing positive "anymore" all my life, but just in the last couple of years it seems like people are constantly saying things like "Forgetful much?" "Angry much?" "Project much?". Where did that come from?
I was assuming that Emerson's friend was one of the Okies who came out to LA when the family farm dried up.
You don't think it's weird to remember when you first heard an expression as unassuming as the one in question, and especially when it happened 37 years ago?
Not if you made a big whoop of it at the time.
I've been hearing positive "anymore" all my life
That's because you're from Pennsylvania. It's actually pretty striking to people who come from places where it isn't common. (This also serves as my answer to 52.)
Where did that come from?
It was popularized by Heathers; I don't know how common it was before then or what its ultimate origin was.
I suspect that Heathers just made up a lot of slang so plausible that people started mimicking it, but I have no real basis for saying this. Great paté, mom, but I gotta motor.
It peeves me when people write "effen." Jesus, what are you, five? Say "fuck," already.
59: Is that picture file saved as "grungehoax.gif" to indicate that these are/were not real slang terms?
Say "fuck," already.
Generally, B, I find the tone of my own blog congenial.
If cell phones really made men sterile (preserving potency), I'd devise a special carrying pouch for mine just so it would be even closer to my balls.
Aaaah! We have a child-free person amongst us!
Heathers remains one of the great achievements of the 20th Century.
That's because you suffer from stereotypically male inflated self-esteem.
OOh, the dolphin! I feel all special now.
I find it very sad that there is no way the movie Heathers could be made today.
Cell phones just peeve me generally. At the end of next month, I'll have made it to 38 without ever owning one, so now I'm pretty determined to go the distance.
69: the Times demanded an apology from Frank and his fellow editors -- Huh? What wrong had the Baffler done them? If they wanted to seek an apology they should go to Megan Jasper, right? Who I should think would laugh at them.
Hah. 49, and I don't own one.
Somehow, though, I've ended up paying the monthly bills for three of them (dang rascally teenagers.)
70: I find it amazing the Heathers was on TV yesterday.
On Lifetime.
