Thursday, August 23, 2007

Ring tone madness

Colour me old-fashioned, but I just don't get ring tones for cell phones. Why would you possibly want to listen to only the first 2 or 3 seconds of a Britney Spears song before having to answer the phone and miss the rest of your supposed favourite song? Hell, why would you want the world to know you like Britney Spears? Are you just begging to be labelled a social outcast? I read a joke on a blog today where the guy suggested he never gets around to answering his phone because he likes the ring tone song too much to interrupt it. Then there's the sound effects. I hear ducks quacking, chickens clucking, wookies roaring, and other assorted sci-fi, animal and bodily function sound effects emanating from peoples' phones. The unfortunate thing is - the people who own these phones tend to leave them on unattended - they never seem to be around when the phone......... quacks or farts or makes that annoying wookie sound. So the rest of us have to put up with the ceaseless din.

I know......... the idea behind personalized ring tones is that you can differentiate when it's your phone ringing versus the person next to you. Except that I don't see a lot of evidence to prove that's working very well. Even when the death-metal ring tone goes off, I still see people scramble to look on their waist, in their purse or pocket or backpack for a brief instant - as if somehow the ring tone fairy played a practical joke on everyone and replaced their docile cell identifier with the offending sound.

So wouldn't it be nicer if we all just had ring tones that sounded like what they are....... a ringing phone? It's what I have. I have no doubt that when I hear a ringing phone going off near me - it's my cell phone. I bet I'd still be able to tell it was mine if everyone had a ringing ring tone too. Besides, I really don't need the whole world to know I like Abba....... [awwww shit!]

Cartoon from soundslikeaphone.com

2 comments:

Jim said...

But Karl?.......Does your mother know? ok ok bad joke hehehe

junebee said...

Actually, my cellphone ring DOES sound like a phone - the old fashioned kind where the little mallet alternated between 2 bells. Everyone who hears my phone says "what the h&*$ was that?"