What the Computer Ate

Just a quick note to finish up the thoughts in my TV philosophy post, now that I've gotten over the loss (twice!) of my earlier musings, which were swallowed repeatedly by the Net or cyberspace or server error. Naturally, by thus becoming irretrievably lost, those writings have instantly become brilliantly formulated and beautifully written and are guaranteed to never be matched by me again. And don't you just hate when that happens? With great technological tools come great technological headaches and lovely unexpected glitches.

Back to Battlestar Galactica: It's a great show. Yes, it's fiction and science fiction to boot. Yes, the characters are not real – except that they are rendered in such a way, with flaws and foibles, strengths and soft spots and all the variations on a character theme that to the engaged viewer they do become real. The show grapples admirably with difficult issues that have relevance to our lives now, both on personal and public levels. Under what circumstances is it acceptable to break principles? What is the relationship between the personal and the political? How far can we bend or break the rule before we loose something important of ourselves?

These are questions that need to be asked and explored. And Battlestar Galactica gives us a forum to do so. So here's to one of the few good shows on TV, and something I really enjoy. Can't wait 'til season three.

Cell Phones

Currently, I do not have a cell phone. 

There, I said it. It occurred to me that I should have prefaced this declaration with something along the lines of: Confession! or Today in Ripley's Believe It or Not: Individual in Washington DC found to possess no cell phone! Thousands text their friends in disbelief. But I thought that it would be best to be upfront, as it were, and just spit it out. I do not have a cell phone.
Now, this is a circumstance not entirely voluntary on my part. I used to have a cell phone but it's gone now (complicated story, 2-year family calling plan, ill-fated relationship, 'nough said). Admittedly, I was reluctant to get one in the first place, and had to cajoled into the store. I do not like cell phones. Most of the time I can barely understand the person on the other end, I find them uncomfortable to hold, I do not want to be available at all times, and most of all I am entirely uncomfortable with holding my private conversations out on the street. That's just wrong.

I have this idea, I think it used to be widespread once, that private conversation should remain so. I for one am not interested in having the people sitting behind me on the metro listen in on how my day was or how I totally agree that my friend's boss is an idiot. So when I did have a cell and I did get a call, I would try and lower my voice so as not to be overheard. And that of course means that on the other end there's someone going What? constantly. Which means, I have to repeat myself at slightly escalating levels of volume, correlated with an increasing sense of frustration and a rapidly increasing embarrassed self-consciousness.

And you wonder why I don't like cell phones.

Now, I agree that they can be very useful for finding your friend in the crowd at Screen on the Green, or  alerting your father that the plane has been delayed 2 hours due to wind and you'll be late for dinner. But for normal, what-were-the-test-results, how-much-do-you-miss-me-right-now type of conversations, well I still want to say Get a room with a landline.

I've spent almost 3 months without a cell phone now and I find I do alright. Yes, you have to plan a bit more, and sometimes you spend 20 minutes waiting for your boyfriend to meet you at the Zoo gates, only to find that he was right behind the damn lion all the time. But overall I could probably live without a cell phone just a bit longer.

And yet, I'm looking at calling plans and phones and, however reluctantly, I will soon join the ranks of cell phone users once again. Want to know why? Because not having one at this point is making me self-conscious. And that's what put me off those phones in the first place.