I can't show it in public anymore? NOW you tell me!

Will

Steve, why must you always make me cry at my desk at work?

There are plenty of days when I want to cry at my desk, but for wholly different reasons. Then I read your blog, and the crying takes hold of me. Also the shaking. And the covering of my mouth so my co-workers don't hear me snickering.

I will never look at the Bluetooth gizmos in the same way again. Never.

"Is that a Bluetooth device, or are you just happy to see me?"

:-) Genie

Is it just me or does everyone look like a Borg when they wear these headsets.

Driving on Canadian highways in the dead of winter makes one of these devices a necessity - you need both hands on the wheel to steer around the moose - but that doesn't make me feel any less dumb wearing it.

Other than behind the wheel, there is no reason to wear one, for instance, in Home Depot other than making a desperate cry for attention.

Pete

Will:

Oh, you can still show it . . . you just have to be sneaky about it. I would tell you some tricks . . . but that might be weird.

Genie: Sorry about that! Glad to give you a break, from work, though. It'd be funny if the bluetooths got bigger the happier the wearer was.

Peter, you're right. In Chicago, they've outlawed cell phones in cars, so there's a practical reason why one of these things might be needed. Of course, I spend half my life in my car driving back and forth to the suburbs where my son lives, and I still won't wear one. Instead, I talk on the cell phone and when I see a cop, I drop the phone into my lap and start shouting to the person that I'm talking to that I can't hear them but will call them back in ten minutes.

I just can't wear the damn headgear.

Steve C.

Aha, I have always suspected this reason behind the Bluetooth phenomenon. Thanks for making this public, Steve!

And to you guys -- PUT IT AWAY.

Now, now, don't be all full of hate - that's my job.

Women wear Bluetooth ALL THE TIME - you just can't tell because they have hair covering their ears. Surely you arent aruging men are on the horn more than women? (No dispute that we are gadget-lovin' geeks of course)

Once, in a post office, my youngest asked rather loudly "Why is that man's ear glowing?"
I replied "He's talking to the President." Or, at least I *wanted* to.

Want to have fun with the bluetooth mafia? Walk up to em, get their attention, and tell them you want to change you order to a LARGE fries.

They LOVE that.

I am not a blue-toother...but only because the cell phone I own doesn't have the bluetooth technology. I do however wear an earpiece all the time wired to my phone which is usually in my coat pocket or in my purse. It has nothing to do with me being uber-important, because I know that I'm not. It really has more to do with convenience, and not wanting to dig through my purse/briefcase/coat/car for my phone when it does ring.

I'm a talker...I log an insane amount of minutes on my cell when I'm on the road and running errands. I won't even try and justify this. It's just part of who I am. I talk everywhere...I've planned entire PTA functions, vacations, boy scout outings...I've held tech support sessions and caught up with friends (mostly Julie, whom you know)...it keeps both hands on the wheel, my shopping cart or my luggage, depending on where I am.

So this really isn't an annoyance to me, though I've probably annoyed people. My PTA friends have started calling me "Madonna" when I walk into the school wearing it.

I think a better choice would have been the text-message junkies. Now THOSE people are irritating.

Worse than the airport is the two fools I saw the other night on a date, in an upscale restaurant, BOTH with those things attached to their ears. Who were they waiting for a call from that is that important?

Reb--wut u mean? I tk offns!

But really, texting has sure ruined my normally fine spelling---you just get used to dropg unec ltrs like vowls.

Surely we r all going to hell in a hndbskt

OMG. I HATE these bluetooth peeps. I actually bought one when they first came out and it wouldn't stay on my little ear...oh, and when I looked at myself in the mirror, um...I decided I looked like a total borg dork. So, it's in a drawer now. Anyhoo, the biggest reason why I HATE the "bluetooth device o'Satan" is because of this reason: This guy shows up at my grammy's funeral wearing his bluetooth. Yes. He waits in line blabbing away and does all the kissy funeral crap whilst wearing his device! He wore it the entire time. During the ceremony and everything! His phone time was worth more than my poor, dead grammy!

Well, my take on the BlueToothers, Steve, is that they advance a sort of virtual passive conspiracy to prohibit prayer. Most people reading your blog won't understand this (yes? Am I wrong, I hope? anyone?), but my take is that prayer is yet another social media, through which God visits us and makes his will known. Maybe often through accidental events of the day and maybe also through unexpected encounters with other people, like the airport people.

But prayer requires, on our part, conditions that the background buzz make difficult to realize: silence, solitude, stillness, openess, darkness, coolness.

So, with the Bluetoothers and the ipoders, the cell phone users and the procrastinators, the pdf downloaders and the e-mailers, the heavy luggage lifters and the farters and seat-back recliners -- all these people you've identified, on their way some place -- it's always the busy-ness and the distraction. Never the simple protracted moment of consciousness and receptivity, intimacy, connectedness.

That moment is, apparently, impossible to obtain. And never a moment to entertain these questions: On our way where? Distraction from what?

Pat

Steve, Steve, Steve ... I do not wear my Bluetooth to display my manliness (which would be difficult). No, I wear it so when I'm talking to my mom while taxing the kids around, both my hands are on the wheel. I wear it so, as Rebecca mentions, I can answer the phone without digging through all the paraphernalia that accompanies being a mid-level muckity muck with an IT fetish and two kids. And yes, I wear it because, dammit, it allows me to say, "Hey everybody! Look at what I have! Look how cool I am!" Come on ... doesn't it look just a little Borg-ish? (I used to flip open the top cover of my venerable Palm IIIx like a Star Trek communicator, too. I almost cried when I realized I couldn't get another like that, because that IIIx flip cover with the Borg earpiece ... man, I'm having a geekgasm just thinking about it.) I do loves me my Bluetooth.

Except now you just made me realize I haven't used it in a couple of weeks now and I'm not sure where it is anymore. I should probably find it. :\

I take it the guys are fine? ;)

Laurel - I'm cracking up at you right now. I'm a geek and I couldn't text to save my life. I just don't understand how you guys go so fast??? I have enough trouble just getting the names programmed on my phone.

Neruda - I keep forgetting to tell you - I bought my son a "I got a fever and the only prescription is more cowbell" t-shirt for Christmas. He loves it like he would marry it.

Hey, Uncle Fester (that is you in the picture, right?), I hope to hell I'm never so misanthropic or lacking in social skills that I have the time to obsess over such silly things.

I was making mental book with myself about whether your No.1 would be all the people with CrackBerries or other PDAs... now those I hate! Because while Bluetoothers are just dorks, PDA addicts are seriously malicious corporate tools.

Still, a great roundup of people we love to hate!

I have to admit it openly and publicly - I don't even know what a blue tooth is. I think I can surmise based on reading this blog, but you're talking to a woman who just got her first cell phone two months ago. And I miss typewriters (I found the pinging sound of the return strangely comforting.)

Rebecca---no joke my right thumb is very nimble now, about 3 times the size of the other one, and so bulbous I want to draw an anchor on it, Popeye style. OK, I joke, but it's like any other exercise---gets really easy the more you do it.

I realized the other day I texted someone w/out even looking at the keys, just the screen; you just get used to, say, three bumps in the top right corner for letter F, two bumps bottom center for U, etc. But the spelling definitely is a casualty---I have to watch that my work emails "dnt look lik txt" =)

I can't wait for the perfectly modern DINK couple who are both just sooooo busy that they have sex standing up with both Bluetooths on and having conversations with separate individuals while they're banging away at each other. Please find me a porno that makes fun of Bluetoothers...somebody please!

Oh Eileen you would love this..,

http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-2293379193666591017&q=jerry+lewis+typewriter&hl=en

I have the solution.

A harness worn around the base of the head, that places a zipper over the ear. Then, you don't have to see the "member"-shaped device violating another's ear.

In honor of Steve's observations, we'll call it a "Dicky Dickie."

(I have limited photoshop skills -- who's going to be the first to post a mockup and trackback here?)

G'day Steve,

Riposte suitably posted on my blog {smile}. And WHEN are we going to catch up for that interview? Mr Dave "I'm a Nobody" Murray is over here in Feb and I'll be catching up with him -- I'll beat him senseless unless you agree to a day/time! {smile}

Cheers from downunder,
Lee

Beat him senseless, anyway. I did when he was over here. He likes it!

Thanks AN. I fell in love with Jerry Lewis all over again.

Eileen

Allan . . . the crackberry addicts are bad, and getting worse. As a seminar leader, I'm almost getting to the point where I'm going to have to ban them from the room.

It's hard enough to teach for eight hours straight under the best of circumstances . . . but when you have to deal with people fiddling their dingleberries the entire time, it's maddening.

I know what you're thinking . . . if my content was better maybe they wouldn't feel the need to check e-mail. But that's not it.

In New York last year, a woman spent the better part of two days playing with her dingleberry while I was teaching.

Then, at the end of the two days, she came up and told me it was, and I quote, "The greatest two days she has spent in her career, because she learned so much."

I wanted to say: "How the hell did you learn ANYTHING?" but far be it from me to argue with a satisfied customer.

Lee: I finally have a Skype account! I haven't used it, but I have it. So I can do the interview whenever.

But Allan is right . . .that should NOT stop you from beating David Murray about the face and shoulders with dead kangeroo. He needs it, and you'll feel much better about your entire relationship with him.

Steve C.

Steve - I've recently watched a show called "Dirt" - I'm not sure if I like it yet, but here's an interesting tidbit...
Courtney Cox's character was holding a meeting, on her laptop at her side she was streaming all crackberry messages being passed between people in the room.

Interesting thought - being a non-crackberry using geek, I don't even know if such a software exists - but I'm intrigued. Wouldn't that be fun...posting everyone's crackberry messages into a projector?

Just might give their thumbs a rest.

(Longtime lurker here)

Last night was my kindergarten son's first school concert. About ten minutes into the concert, I realized that the mother sitting next to me was wearing a BlueTooth thingie. And she was talking into it! In the second row. In the middle of the kids' concert. I couldn't believe it.

I'm sure it wasn't distracting to the kids, because the stage was far enough away, but it was distracting to me. And she KNEW it was distracting and rude, because she kept her hand over her mouth as she talked. (I could still hear her though.)

The concert was short - about a half-hour - and I just can't believe that she couldn't wait to take/make that phone call.