Monday moaning

It's late Monday afternoon and while I don't have anything in particular to say, I do have thirty minutes to kill and I could use the practice tyoing, I mean typing. So bear with me while I meander around for a few minutes (28 now) .

Todays topic is/are cellphones. I've had one of these suckers for five years now and just recently I learned how to use the T9 word function for text messages. I know, I'm an old fart and probably shouldn't be "texting" (it's a young persons' thing after all) but sometimes texting is way more efficient than making a call. It's quick, it doesn't require small talk and you don't have to answer a lot of qualifying questions. If you are a post-50 who never took the time to learn T9 word, do it now and your life will improve overnight. Well, almost. I still have to teach my wife how to read text messages - but that's another story.

Cellphones are in the process of becoming information devices and not just communication tools. It's no longer good enough for your cell to deliver calls from the same old lady who gets mad at you for not being the number she thought she dialed (personally, I think she thinks I'm hot), no, cellphones have to provide CONTENT. One of the latest conceits from our friends at Anheuser Busch, (and they're serious) is to provide you the opportunity to download their latest Super Bowl commercials to your cellphone at no cost to you. Who wouldn't want that? Well, me for one.

I get enough content from every other conceivable source. I don't need videos, movie trailers, sports scores, porno (well maybe porno), instant replays, MSNBC, CNBC or any of the thousands of other things available. But I do understand cellphone providers' dilemma. With very little effort (and I mean VERY little effort) they could be just like BellSouth.

Several of my very close relatives are retirees from this august institution and for that reason alone I will grit my teeth and pay my BellSouth bill every month and hate the stupid bastards there who, because of either conceit or narrowmindedness, refuse to come up with a competitive business plan. I'm sure I'm not the only one who thinks it's stupid that I can call my son's Chapel Hill number on my cellphone for no additional cost on my cellphone but have to pay for a long distance call on my house phone. I gather that no one at BellSouth has a television so they probably don't see all those commercials from Vonnage and Time Warner offering broadband phone service for roughly half the cost of the most basic BellSouth home service.

Dear BellSouth, please consider the fate of General Motors and Ford and put all those bright minds of yours to work thinking up something that Sprint and Verizon (who used to be just like you btw) already figured out that will blow our socks off. Please. Do it for my relatives, do it for your children. Do it for this great nation of ours.

Sorry folks, didn't mean to excoriate BellSouth like that but who knows what might come out when you're free-associating. And while I'm at it, Suncom, you don't get it.