Making your phone ring

[gfretwell]

I agree. A vacation is to get away.

BTW if someone did die and they couldn't tell you right away what would happen? They wouldn't still be dead when you got home?

[DerbyDad03]

.

Maybe they just made a bunch of extra money by storing those hundreds of hits and selling the numbers to a telemarketing-valid-phone-numbers distribution firm.

In fact, I think the poster who put up the number actually owns a telemarketing-valid-phone-numbers distribution firm and faked the MCI message.

At this very time, our numbers are being distributed to telemarketing firms across the globe.

Signed, Jerry Fletcher

(Go ahead, Google that name)

[gfretwell]

I bet MCI is asking "what the hell happened". They suddeny started getting hundreds of extra hits on this line.

[S. Barker]

Yes, i would never ruin someone's vacation with a death in the family. I'd just put them on ice until they got home.

s

[Mark Lloyd]

It's strange the way people treat death as an emergency, like they're not going to stay dead very long.

For the most part, I'd rather not have a phone with me when I'm driving. It could still be useful in emergencies (real ones).

[NotX]

Maybe it has something to do with the way they say 'death' all the time but act like they consider it not to be real (after all, "life after death" is a contradiction when you accept the reality of death).

[gfretwell]

Good phone numbers are freely available without thiis. Google (among others) will not only sell your phone number, they will give the customer a browsing history if you have ever given your phone number to a merchant on the web who stores cookies.

True story, my wife googled replacemnent windows and 20 minutes later her CELL PHONE rang. It was a saleman from Sears who said "we see you have been looking at windows" and told her about the windows she looked at (none of them at Sears.com). The common denominator google, the ultimate evil.

[gfretwell]

The only time it is important is if they were supposed to pick you up at the airport ;-)

I am losing my bag phone next month and I bought a "geezer phone" (jitterbug). It is $10 a month and 35 cents a minute for folks like me that use about 5 minutes a month. No texting, no weather, no MP3s.

I would like a camera but I don't want one I need to email the pictures to my PC from. I want one with a USB port.

[Mark Lloyd]

And, if it's in the phone, that's another gadget you bought but don't really own. I'd want a camera that's MINE. There are some really small (non-phone) digital cameras around.

[Mark Lloyd]

I give Google as little information as possible, and never keep cookies for them.

[aemeijers]

What can I say? it was a small town, with only 3-4 prefixes at the time. Most weeknights after supper, there were people on there, as well as late at night on non-school nights. In many ways, much like anonymous chat sites are now- voices were pretty garbled, so lots of slamming people and spreading rumors. I mainly lurked. I wouldn't hang on there for hours (multiple siblings wanting to make or expecting calls would have killed me), but phone was in the hall, so on the way back from the can, I'd pop on there and see if there were any voices, and if the subject matter was interesting. Kinda like nosy neigbors used to do on party lines. One time, I was talking to a young lady that lived a ways out of town, and I used some Bad Words, and caught an earful from her old neighbor lady that liked to listen in.

-- aem sends...

[aemeijers]

Thanks for the memory jogger, there. Now that I think about it, we (the crowd I hung out with) would all call the number for the answering machine at the local theatre (it played a 'what is on tonight recording for about 45 seconds), since that is a number we all knew by heart, and was usually busy anyway.

-- aem sends...

[S. Barker]

Small town? With 3 or 4 prefixes?? That's a contradiction in terms. The town i live in still only has one prefix. THAT's a small town. A town of

40,000 is not small. s

[Red Green]

" [e-mail]" wrote in news: [e-mail]:

The way kids always get a new one every time a new feature comes out, I should be able to pick up a dozen at the dump on Saturday.

I saw a girl in McD's today, couldn't have been over 16, with what appeared to be a Blackberry. Those aren't cheap.

[mm]

I'm not convinced but this is from a regular poster who is not an idiot.

I do allow cookies in almost all cases.

I went to buy something from Amazon and when I went to check out, there were two things there from months ago, when I was just pricing things or trying to find out how much shipping costs.

it's a good think I looked at the screen and didn't just pay for everything. I had 3 or one thing I could at most use one of.

[Stormin Mormon]

That's close to what my Dad said to the neighbors, one time as we left for two week vacation. Here's the key. If it's on fire, call the FD and have them deal with it. Let us know when we get home.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

I allow them too, after finding out how little works if you block cookies. I just have the browser delete them all on exit.

[Mark Lloyd]

[snip]

If I dial my own number (7 digits) here I get a few seconds of silence followed by a recording saying I must now include the area code. Dialing 10 digits gives me a busy signal.

BTW, they started requiring 10 digits for all calls here about 3 years ago, because of a new "overlay" area code. I still haven't seen EVEN ONE number that uses the new area code.

[Mark Lloyd]

The town I live in used to have just one prefix. That was before fax, internet, and cellular phones. You used to be able to make a local call by dialing only 5 digits. That's another thing that went away with ESS.

[DerbyDad03]

re :You used to be able to make a local call by dialing only 5 digits

Slightly OT, but we moved our offices from downtown to the suburbs and got new numbers because the 3 digit exchange couldn't be moved. In fact, it's a whole new phone system, new phones, etc.

Anyway, downtown we could dial the last 4 digits to speak to a coworker, now we have to dial all 7 digits for an internal call.

We have to dial 9 for an outside line and most ot the time I hit 9 out of habit, thus making an outside call to talk to my assistant in the next office!