Am I the only one who fundamentally doesn’t understand the allure of ringtunes?
It used to be that phones actually rang. There was a bell that alerted you to the fact that somebody was calling and needed your attention. Then one day the powers that be decided that an actual bell wasn’t needed, that the alert noises could be produced electronically. Then the electronics got more and more sophisticated, until finally cellular ringtones and MP3s are virtually indistinguishable. In the span of five years, we’ve gone from bleeping renditions of La Coucaracha to WWE World Champion John Cena exclaiming “The Champ… Is… Here!” from the vicinity of your groin.
Yes, this situation is an improvement from the days when you could have any colour phone you like, as long as it was black, but surely the gee-whiz factor of these new ringtones is starting to make us forget that these are, you know, ring tones? As in, for notifying you that someone is trying to call you on your phone, rather than make music erupt from your pants? And, yes, there is some advantage in having a distinctive ring tone in a room full of people carrying cellular phones, but c’mon, there’s limits.
Well, my Nokia, at least, gives me the option of a realistic sounding old telephone, a setting they blithely call “Nostalgic”. Sigh. Gone are the days when a telephone just rang.
Not that I should complain. My cellphone is simply on “vibrate”.
We’re in Lincoln, now, preparing to head out to the Holy Family Shrine tomorrow for a mass in memory of Wendy. On Sunday, we’re likely to visit Vermillion to see the great-grandparents. It may be a little while before I can access the Net again, so expect some intermittent blogging in the immediate future.
Vivian slept in an actual bed here in Lincoln — a cute “little girl’s” bed that’s just like a real bed, but built to her proportions. We didn’t even have to hem her in with pillows. She was the absolute cutest thing in it. She’s starting to try to climb out of her cribs, so something similar might be in her room sooner rather than later. This way, she doesn’t have nearly as far to fall.
It’s amazing to see how much she has grown in the last month, not just the last twenty. She has become a lot more verbal and a lot more adept at grown up things. Looks like she’s skipping the booster seat at tables because she wants to sit as the grownups do. And she’s perfectly capable of drinking from a cup. The only reason we keep her in her sippies is due to her propensity to upend her cup when she’s done, regardless of how much liquid is left.