Meanderings

Sept. 25, 2009

When all’s said and done, a phone is just a phone, after all.
   The shine has worn off of my fancy-dancy new cell phone. After weeks of pressing icons and playing on the Internet, checking my e-mail and all the other gosh-wow wizardry wonders in my hands, it now rests on my hip unnoticed.
   Oh sure, it’s nice. One day we were having a debate at breakfast over when CNN went on the air. I don’t know why, we just were. I looked it up on the Internet on my glitzy phone and felt really smug about it.
   Another time, a buddy was talking about a certain place in the basin and I was able to get onto Google Maps and find an aerial shot of the exact place. Kinda nifty.
   But in the end, it’s just a phone after all.
   My better half showed me how to load music on it, and she did this by sending me a song of my choice off her phone via Bluetooth, which I’ve learned is nothing more than a silly name for phone-to-phone communication.
   So she sent me “Hazy Shade of Winter” by the Bangles. Yes, I said the Bangles. I love that song, it truly rocks, and the Bangles is my all-time favorite girl band, even displacing Heart by just a smidgen. So far, it’s the only song on my phone.
   Did you know the Beatles sold 2.25 million albums since Sept. 9? I kid you not. At one point the last time I looked, five of the Top 10 and nine of the Top 20 bestselling albums in the nation belonged to the Beatles.
   Most prominent is that new collection of remastered albums, all of ‘em. It’s expensive, to be sure, at about $200.
   “Can I download the whole thing to my phone?” I wondered. All of them? Probably not. Maybe just Harrison’s songs? Okay, okay, I’m getting a little silly about it. But it’d be cool.
   I also learned that my phone was not free. They charged me an $18 upgrade fee, in the fine print. You see why us Indians hate signing things? There’s always something in the fine print, an upgrade fee, a clause, the Black Hills, something.
   But it’s an enjoyable phone, and I don’t regret it, even if I don’t use all the features that sold me on it much anymore now that the shine was worn off. It’s convenient, yes, but essential? No.
   Anyway.
   I was watching the news pretty closely about these ACORN videos and I gotta say, how those two pulled it off I can’t imagine. I mean, Hannah Giles might have been dressed appropriately as a prostitute, but that little guy James O’Keefe came off like a cartoon character pimp. Put Tobey Maguire in the same outfit and you’d get the same look. Who’d believe this guy was a pimp? I’ve never seen a real pimp in my life, and I’d have laughed my tail off at him.
   I think Jon Stewart hit the nail on the head when he demanded to know why CNN and MSNBC and so forth didn’t get on this story. “I’m a fake journalist and I’m embarrassed!” Stewart declared. That was too funny.
   I also read that the ice sheets are melting faster than any other time in recorded history. I was pretty upset about this, being a sort of moderate-environmentalist. Then I learned that NASA measured the melting of the glaciers by firing more than 50 million lasers from orbit. Well, duh? Of course they’re melting!
   But theeriuthly, folkth…
   As you can see, I don’t have a whole lot to talk about today. I’m kinda whupped, and in need of some time off.
   My new knife did come in, if you wondered at all about it after reading my column “The Good Knife” a few weeks ago. I settled on a Boker, and am not disappointed. It’s got a stacked-leather handle, measures about eight inches with a nearly four-inch blade. Came with a fair edge right out the box, which I touched up and it will slice a piece of letter paper easily. I opted for a more gracile model than I originally planned: It’s a slimmer blade, perfect for carrying fishing, in a boat or wading.
   Someone asked me why I felt it necessary to carry a fixed-blade knife while fishing. Once when I was a kid I was swimming in Bayou Teche and my foot got tangled in an old trot line. I managed to pull the line up to the bank with me and get it off, and was extraordinarily lucky none of the rusty hooks caught my flesh. Put the fear of God in me, though, I can tell you. Since then, I carry a knife when I’m fishing, boating or wading. I don’t want a pocket knife because I don’t want to fumble around with opening it. Plus, there are numerous needs for a good fishing knife that are far less life-threatening, but genuine.
   Y’all have a great weekend, hear?