Flyp Sided Thoughts!!

The wife was watching an episode of "the vampire diaries " ( not to be confused with the Bridget jones diaries,the only similarity both diaries have is that they are both a pain in the neck{pun intended}) and mentioned "these vampires have such high Fi phones , I have never seen them charge it!!" And suddenly it hit me ...... What's the gig with phones in movies and television. I have never EVER seen a single phone on charge!!. There has never been a single accurate representation of a phone!!!. One scene I have never seen is a character frantically rushing home to charge his phone or for that matter unplugging his phone from a charger on his way out!!.

I seem to see only two kinds of phone these days on television or movies , an iPhone or a flip phone.even Hollywood seems to have forsaken the good old NOKIA.
 I personally owned a flip phone for a very long time , the world moved on and switched to smart phones which could do everything except for lighting a cigarette (they should call them Swiss army phone knives), But I stubbornly stayed true to my beloved flip phone. i have now flipped, i mean switched to an iPhone , thanks to the generosity of the better half.
i have come to realize that owning an iPhone is pretty much the same thing as owning a dog..... you can not leave home without a charger(leash) and as soon as you arrive at your destination, the first thing you do is to find a plug point to charge the phone ( tie up the dog and feed it ), its smart, loyal and in case it is giving you too much trouble switch it off and then on again(chuck the dog out into the backyard) it's as good as new .and if it keeps freezing (falling sick) take it to a tech, ( vet).
after wiping the phone memory clean after a couple of unsuccessful attempts at adding a ring tone via i tunes. i decided to stick to the default ring tones in the phone. this worked out fine till i realized that every time a phone rings or a message is received by a character in the television, i dutifully check my phone.

There is something extremely melodramatic about the operation of a flip phone , lets take a tense scene in a movie, the scene is in a deserted shipyard , there is an eerie silence hanging in the air interrupted only by the squawking of sea gulls, there are two people framed by the graying sky, one of them is lying bruised and battered and the other protagonist is holding a gun with professional nonchalance to his head(not to his own head you fools). A phone rings , the gunman extracts a phone from his clothing with pin point accuracy and effortlessly flips it open , grunts in greeting, has a monosyllabic conversation , flips the phone shut with out as much as a goodbye , fires of the gun and walks away into the sunset.
Ok now if it was you are me in this exact same scenario , this is how the whole thing would have played out..... Lets start from the ringing of the phone shall we , cos in 9 out of 10 cases it would be us lying bruised and battered on the ground staring at the business end of a gun.
 So with out getting too technical lets jump directly to the point where I (us) am the gunman. The phone would ring, I would start groping around with my left hand first, then transfer the gun to my left hand and start frantically stabbing away into various pockets , the phone would continue ringing , getting louder by the minute ( Cos I was stupid enough to choose the ascending mode and also a embarrassing ringtone) finally I would stick the gun between my knees , stand in this weird half crouching half reverse bow legged stance and systematically but frantically start patting all my pockets starting from the top, finally the errant phone would be located,the phone would promptly try to escape when tried to be flipped with one hand and after a unimpressive desperate juggling session with one hand the slippery phone would finally be coerced to remain still, opened with both hands, and answered with a desperate sounding "hulloo".... This would be the proceeding conversation - "sorry!! Sorry couldn't find the phone .....hello? hullo?? can you hear me?? ....... yes yes i can hear you,can you hear me?............ damn network is bad.... sorry come again........ suit him? ...... loot him???.....ohhh!! shoot him !! ok ok i got it....S as in Singapore,  shoot him.... ok i'll call you back........ yes i do have a gun.......... off course it is loaded!!!......... yes yes the safety is off...... hang up goddamnit so i can shoot him now....... NO NO i am not going to hang him!!! i am asking you to hang up so i can shoot him.... bye........ yes bye...... you want what???!!!......sighh.... regular or non fat?........"

it is most definitely asking for too much off the gentleman to patiently lie still while this conversation goes on, if he hadn't already scooted like a rabbit while i was looking for the phone , he would most definitely propel himself like a human battering ram and knock me off my feet while i am walking around in errant circles trying to get a better signal,with a finger stuck in my other ear . it would definitely not be me walking into the sunset.

lesson learnt so far....... use a hands free for gods sake, flip phones are not best used when palms are sweaty!!! either that or use a carrier pigeon.

Sony Ericsson Z550i

i miss my flip phone though, a sony ericsson Z550i . it was of the generation when the phones weren't smarter than its owners. where all forms of problems were solved by simply removing the battery and putting it back. they came from a generation where phones weren't feather light , they stayed in your pockets as snug as a brick would feel in your pocket, so you would know exactly where your phone was. and in case you stepped out feeling light footed and as if the weight of the world wasn't on your shoulders anymore, it only means you have forgotten to carry your brick... i mean phone.
but the most important functional use of it was..... if you were attacked by someone you could hurl it at them, and the damn thing could do some serious physical damage such as dent the skull or give the attacker a bleeding nose, distracting them long enough for you make your escape.

but on the flip side (pun unintended) now that i have been bit by the smart phone bug, i don't think i want to go back, that would be like trading a machine gun for a blunt wooden club.
 i like it that my phone is smarter than me, i feel almost cavemanish without it.
 if you were to ask Sashi kapoor today "theree paas kya hai? haaiin ??", he would have replied .............
 "mere pass iPhone hai !! "..........