phone found here

Forgive me if I slur my words and can’t be bothered with spell check this morning but I’ve been up for the last few days trying to learn how to navigate my “phone”. Calling it a phone is an understatement; it’s the Universe and beyond in my pocket.    

I remember when the phone weighed about three pounds and had a cord leading to a wall and the height of luxury was a ten foot cord from the hand set to apparatus you used to dial the phone with a round disc.  The cord feature made it possible for you to walk around the kitchen or out the back door so no one could hear what you are talking about. 

I’m also old enough to remember the “House of Tomorrow” and one of the features was a video phone.  Jet packs to use rather than walking to school were also featured; too bad those didn’t come to pass.     

My new phone has more memory than my first computer.  Hell, I think our microwave has more memory than my first computer.  Now I could have a world atlas, dictionary, cookbook, thesaurus, phrase books, travel guides, an assortment of novels, magazines, newspapers, typewriter radio, alarm clock, compass, maps, phone book, address book, calendar, video camera, camera, and handheld television, guitar, piano, metronome, bus schedule, flashlight, notepad, or chess board, just to name a few.

I must not forget the Angry Birds.  I could have angry birds in my back pocket, too.

I absolutely won’t allow myself to even look at the Angry Birds game because the people I know who play sound like crack addicts when they talk about it.  Their eyes are glassy and their hands twitch as they unlock their smart phones .   No thanks, I have more than enough time sucks at my disposal and my latest time suck is the apple app store.    

There are several iPhone apps I haven’t been able to locate:

The Charlie Brown Teacher Voice app:  you click an icon on your phone and point the phone at someone so their voice sounds like the trumpet on Peanuts television specials.  It’s a smart app so it knows to leave in key words so the context of the lecture conversation is not lost.  This would come in handy for me when I have to deal with Difficult Co-Worker or Ward.

Portal Finder app:  a GPS sort of add-on that directs you to the closest Stargate so you can leave this universe and try out another one. 

Excuses app:  This would be handy for the younger iPhone users or the slackers like me.    It calls excuses in for you.  Late with your  TPS reports?  “Excuses” calls something plausible to your boss.  Don’t want to spend an evening with your in-laws? This app will call them for you with the flick of a finger. Perfect (or not) for slacker students:  Wally could have used this his senior year; hopefully there would have been enough excuses for the number of days he skipped.

Transporter App:  Have you seen the price of gas and airfare?  Holy cow! This app is overdue.  All I need to do is tell the transporter to send me to Mexico and it completely eliminates the need for a five hundred dollar plane ticket and a strip search.  The price of this app might be a little prohibitive at 80 gazillion billion dollars and ninety-nine cents.    

Does This Outfit Make My Ass Look Fat app:  Utilizing the reverse camera the app rates how fat your outfit makes you look by using a complicated and completely mathy system of BMI, dress size, and three dimensional magical log rhythms.  The responses range from: “Oh my God, you are so silly you don’t look fat at all!” to “Do I really have to answer that because that’s like the worst question to ask someone.”

Dog to English app: Obviously if your first language is Urdu it would be a dog to Urdu translator but you get the idea.  Open the app while your dog is making noises at you: whining, barking, growling and then the iPhone will translate it for you.  The voice is jovial, enthusiastic and sincere sounding. Rupert Grint and Ellen Degeneres are the best voices for this app. To have it further translated out of loldog you have to pay an extra $1.99.

Cat to English app: it’s the same as the Dog to English but instead of the voice being jovial and easygoing, the cat voice has a bitter and entitled edge to it.  I originally thought Catherine Zeta-Jones would be good but I can’t make fun of her because she is struggling just now and that wouldn’t be fair so I’m settling on Oprah and Bono.

Time/Space Continuum App: Take a look at that parallel life you’re living.  I hope it’s a good one!  Like the hologram part of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-e) only in your back pocket.

Mind Reader app:  Self-explanatory application which stands to save marriages and relationships all over the world.  This would be a Nobel Peace Prize winning app. 

I think my next career should be Smart Phone Application Developer and I’m going to call the Apple and Droid people to schedule a pitch with them just as soon as I figure out how to make a phone call with this confounded newfangled gadget in my pocket.