header image
« Snakes on a plane and at the vet
Fallen Idol »
[ # ] Telephones
May 7th, 2006 under Daily life

I have been obsessed with getting new phones for some time now. I really like phones. I’d like a restored old rotary phone a lot. Something like:

I also want a new slick cell phone. But I can’t commit to a cell phone plan, so I use a pay as you go phone, which makes me feel a little like a drug dealer. The company I use doesn’t have cool phones. Though I just checked and like this one a lot:

Hmm.

Anyway, at home I have this phone problem. We only have one working phone jack and I won’t pay PacBell nee SBC nee AT&T to come out and put in a new one. I just won’t. So we got these things called instajacks which transmit the phone call through the electrical line. Stupid ass piece of electronica.

Then we got given a double phone, but it doesn’t have an answering machine. So we have this weak ass phone with an answering machine plugged into the instajack. I talked Honey into buying it at Target a couple of years ago. The hand-me-down phone works fine as does its little slave phone. But the Target pos is 1) hard to hear on, 2) has an answering machine that you can barely hear, and 3) interferes with our home wireless network.

Now that I mention our wireless network, I guess I should fess up that I bought a router at Staples for $40, spent all of one day trying to get it to work, including calling Sly, who knows more about computers than anyone I know, though he does have a shirt that says something like “I won’t help you fix your computer.” Fed up, I then returned the router and went over to the Apple store and dropped $200 on an Apple airport. This was all so we can have a notebook in the living room. To check the woot. And so Honey can surf from the couch. The airport does match the iMac. And the iBook.

So finally after Honey was talking to her friend for the second time and had pos Target phone make the notebook’s connection die, I came in here and bought a new phone system. Here it is:

It got good reviews at Amazon. Of course because it’s all electronic, it won’t work when the big earthquake hits. That’s what I need the rotary for.

Do I think this will end my obsession? No. But it may abate for a while.

Now about that cool cell…

Read the Comments

[ # 253 ] Comment from scout [May 7, 2006, 10:32 pm]

You’ve been obsessed with phones the entire time I’ve known you. I’d likely be just as happy to have the one phone hooked up to the one working jack, prolly because I don’t much like talking on the phone, which may be the result of my not having many long-distance friendships, or it may be because I’m socially retarded.

At any rate, you have many more long-distance friendships than I do, as well as those inconveniently out-of-state parents, so I understand your desire for telephonic happiness. And I very much approve of both the phone system purchase and the rotary phone urge. Whatever makes you happy sets me free.

[ # 257 ] Comment from bryduck [May 8, 2006, 1:08 pm]

Rotary phones are fine for answering, but not so nice for dialing. One simple slip of the finger and you have to patientily dial all the numbers all over again. Not convenient at all, regardless of the cool factor, especially if that one phone number you need to dial is “911″. I’m happy not to have to deal with rotaries ever again. I am looking out for a functioning donut phone, though, to replace my 25 year old one . . . Visit Our Site

Write a comment