Showing posts with label texting. Show all posts
Showing posts with label texting. Show all posts

Wednesday, August 25, 2010

You to Wolverhampton

Texting is a whole new language. It has all but dispensed with the wonder and virtue of the vowels instead now crowding the tiny screens with over confident consonants wrestling with meaning.

Older ... some might like say wiser but let's face it, we're probably just pedants ... wrestle with the new technology to ensure the vowels have a place on the tiny screen. I struggle with not being able to find apostrophes and commas. But I will not abandon the Good Ship Vowel. See will never be 'C' for me. You will never sink to the new 'U' lows that have befallen the textual machinations of the young more hurried texters.

Predictive text has a mind of its own. Less agile or chubby fingers cause all manner of textual chaos when texting in a hurry. You becomes Wolverhampton (a useful word in the New Zealand text lexicon) and sex is only a stroke away from pew. In haste, a number of nonsensical messages have been greeted by bemused friends who usually ring back to find out what the message was, hence negating the use of this cheaper form of communication.

When I bought my last mobile phone, the shop assistant asked 'What would you like to use your phone for?' I replied truthfully, 'Making telephone calls.' I nearly had to resuscitate the poor thing. I may be able to multi-task but I don't always want my 'things' to be able to do the same. It's just all too confusing.

Ah Technology ... gr8 if nt a bt flmmxng.

Sunday, May 10, 2009

Dis-appointment

Firstly, there was the mailbox disappointment. When opening it only produced a moth or bill, the heart sank just a smidge. With the advent of the answer-machine (because they were whirr-gigging machines whereas robotic blips now bleep out your disappointment) came the crashing ego-whack when you returned home, after two days visiting Nana, to find there was only one message left and that was somebody trying to sell you life insurance. Not only reminding you that you have no friends but it didn't matter anyway as you'd probably be dead soon so there'd be nobody at your funeral. Oh well, less to spend on egg sandwiches and asparagus rolls.

It's bad enough not getting snail mail but technology has gifted us an array of disappointment deliverers.

Now, mobile phones offer disappointment at your fingertips, 24 hours a day. That text you'd been waiting for... and waiting for... and waiting for... was obviously been sent to the wrong person. How many texts can you send before you're deemed a stalker and have a restraining order slapped on you? Should you conclude with a x or a xox or just your name ... or ... should you lose the vowels or ride high in the saddle of the grammar pedant? Questions posed and answered in a thousand different ways... all in your head.

The internet through your computer portal offers you an abundance of disappointment and disillusionment. The empty cyber mailbox. Doh! Or worse, full of inconsequential cyber detritis which serves only to remind you that you live in a world that has all the depth of a gnat's puddle. Who really cares if you only have seven friends on Facebook, and that figure includes an Ethiopian stranger?

And that one email where you compared your boss to a syphilitic despot was the one you hit reply all to. The intended sole recipient informing you of your career-dunking keystroke before offering to help you pack your career into a small brown box. Very kind, but asking you if you'd mind leaving your Elvis mug as a keepsake... blooming cheek!


Of course, it's gets better. Spam is not oft-wished-for missives and more annoyingly, it's hard to pass off Mi Knob or E. Normous as a good friend. They sound like jolly good sorts though, as they assure you that your partner 'won't need a magnifying glass to see your instrument'. Then there's Rod Hard who boasts that 'it will be hard to hide your bulgy pride' after you've knocked back a couple of his con-cock-tions. Indeed.

So now you have no friends... are nearly dead and have the added disappointment that you lack a penis. Even if you were fortunate to posess one, it would be too small to operate in the over-inflated world. And then to enable you to operate it with your head held high, and I supsect your member in a sling if the photos are anything to go by, you'd need to pop little pink pills for your partner to be satisfied during your 'couch adventures'.

It's all quite exhausting.

With all this talk about appendages to be proud of, I look down at our new family member. Sammy, a scruffy tabby, looks up at me adoringly. I can only cross my fingers that he can't read because his little man was lopped off without much ado and I certainly do not want to be responsible for his lamentations at this loss.

I've got enough to worry about already.