The mow-bile phone

So you know how the world is all about opposites and contrasts and all that good stuff? And how even if you have a good thing people will find a way to use it for their own evil purposes?

Examples:

Internet
Good things: Email, my blog, online shopping, Wikipedia, vast hoards of information at one's fingertips
Bad things: Child pornography, spam, hate sites, email forwards about sick children in Guatemala named Angela who will be made well if you keep forwarding this email

Television
Good things: Educational and cultural programs, great shows like House and Malcolm in the Middle, really funny commercials
Bad things: Eroding decency standards, 99.7% of all reality tv, and the kind of cable where there's actually nothing to watch on any of the 72 channels, but you think there must be, so you keep flipping through the channels like a mindless zombie for two hours until you realize that your eyes are so dried out you can no longer blink

And last but certainly not least . . .

Cell Phone/Mobile
Good things: ability to contact people in times of emergency, text messaging, free long-distance
Bad things: people knowing they can contact you at all times, the "Hey, I can drive, talk, eat, and shift at the same time" mentality, hearing the ringing of the phones during movies, plays, and church, the legal process and jail time that ensues when one beats to death people whose phones ring during movies, plays, and church

Today I found a new one to add to the cell phones list. First off, they're so darned technologically advanced with the mobiles over here. (Yes, my American brothers and sisters. I rolled my eyes in the beginning but now I must say it is true--theirs are way cooler than ours.) So let's say that a sweet eccentric elderly gentleman pulls you aside after church to brag about his grandkids. In the normal world, this would consist of him telling you that he has x number of grandchildren, possibly including information about names and ages. If he's really committed, he'll pull out a wallet and flip through a couple of pictures. Still though, you're looking at maybe 5-7 minutes tops, which a proud grandpa is certainly entitled to.

(Editor's note: There are different rules for a proud aunt showing off pictures of her darling niece. I'm pretty sure that people are willing to look at those pictures for 12-14 minutes, because she's just that precious.)

Here though, here an EEG can pull you aside, whip out a cell phone, and flip through seven hundred million pictures of his grandkids. Not only that, but you get to see all the other pictures in the phone too--the ones of the pets and the neighbors and the random children that aren't even related to the sweet EEG. Also, because these things apparently conceal a memory stick that should by rights dragged along behind the user in some kind of trailer, there are also several minutes of sound files and video footage. And you get to see it all.

Lucky, lucky you.

Posted in: England