This New Year's will be the 8th anniversary of The Last Bike Ride Out of the 20th Century, and no anniversary of The Last Bike Ride Out of the 20th Century would be complete without a time-travel tale that at least attempts to be comparable to the one in which, by simply making the first of a whimsical pair of u-turns with my time-traveling iron steed, I visited 2000 subsequent in time to 2001. That Einstein-defying stunt seemed to heat the Yukon up to double digits in January.
I'm happy to report that I have one for this New Year's: Yesterday morning, I seemed to visit Sunday, 12/28, subsequent in time to Monday, 12/29!
My cellphone rang at 2:50 am, and I thought, "Hmmm, who would be calling in the middle of the night on my _cellphone_!? A) I'm not _substituting_ on this Sunday paper route anymore, and even if I was, it's Monday morning now, not Sunday morning. B) All of the handful of _other_ people who might ever call me in the middle of the night are - partly _by_ _definition_ - not the people who have my cellphone number!"
But I answered it, and what did it turn out to be, but my event reminder telling me that it's 3am "Sunday" and therefore time "4" my paper route.
This was very weird, because for the whole year and a half since I'd discovered how to use this event-reminder feature of my new cellphone, I'd been _religiously_ following that just-before-3am-Sunday timeframe as the time to _always_ be getting ready to do my weekly paperboying. So, although I was tired enough that under normal circumstances I would have gone _right_ back to sleep, I didn't.
Even when I'm on a bike or canoe trip sleeping in the woods near a railroad and the sound of an approaching train wakes me up, my brain's checking and re-checking of the "Am I on the tracks?" consideration only keeps me awake for a minute, if that. (Or two minutes maybe, in the case of my _non_-stopping-for-the-night canoeing days in 1975, when I _was_ in the path of barges that I had to sit up and paddle out of the way of.)
But in this case, it took me an _hour_ to go back to sleep, because, having traveled back in time _before_, I was considering _every_ _angle_ of, "Am I _sure_ that 12/28 is in the _past_? I remember it, and the delivery that I completed on it, very distinctly; however, am I _sure_ that there isn't some _other_ time-warp possibility of how 12/28 could perhaps happen a second time - and for Sunday carriers to be expected to show up and do a repeat 12/28 delivery - subsequent in time to 12/29?"
In conclusion, I feel vindicated now for being one of the last non-users of cellphones; I detested them and didn't knuckle under and get one until I became a paper boy. (They _are_ admittedly useful for a specific purpose such as that.) I think wierd things are _generally_ starting to happen with my cellphone, because a couple of weeks ago, it seemed to _call_ two of the numbers that were in my directory on it, plus several randomly-generated numbers, all by itself!
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3 comments:
Time "4" your paper route, huh?
You know, I have text capability on my cell phone; I got it to stay in touch with a friend while she was away. I rarely ever use it; I use it only in situations where a call wouldn't be appropriate (such as when someone is outside the local calling area and a call would be long distance or when I know they're in a noisy environment where they might not be able to hear me if I call).
Why don't I use it more? Well, for one thing, it's bloody annoying to type a message on a phone keypad, particularly for someone like me who types at 95+ WPM; it's frustrating to realize how much faster I could type the exact same words on a proper keyboard.
However, the most frustrating limitation is that damn 160 character limit. Now I'm aware that using shorthand like "4" for "for" and so on is meant to compress the length of words, allowing one to get more information into that 160 character limit. Still, I just can't do that. When I write, I always write in complete sentences and words with proper punctuation; this includes when I send texts. Sure, that means my messages can't be quite as detailed, but at least they look good.
I thought all this technology was supposed to make writing in proper English easier. Instead, it seems to actually be degrading day to day English, particularly among the younger generation; one only has to look at the atrocities committed against the English language by my troll to see how bad things have gotten.
Speaking of proper grammar and punctuation, out of curiosity, why do you still use the underscore characters to mark off words you want underlined? The compose window in Blogger allows you to actually use underlines and italics. No big deal; just curious. ;)
I got "4", not from the nose ring generation, but from "4 sale" signs and stuff like that that pre-existed those button-pushing punks and their toys.
I got my first cellphone in 2007, and I only use the text feature mainly for writing names in the directory. The first thing that I noticed about the text feature of cellphones, is that it's more complicated to use than Morse Code! Morse Code, which I learned in the 1970s shortly before I became a ham, is _way_ easier _and_ faster.
Kind of ironic, ain't it, how _inferior_ methodologies win out in the marketplace (with this example being understandable in that the salesmen figured that more punks owned push-button telephones than knew Morse Code)?
Devices that promote inferior methodologies of underlining, etc., also unfortunately win out in the marketplace, but thanks for the info that Blogger will accommodate the proper use thereof whenever I get around to wading around the necessary gobbledegook for figuring it out - sometime after I get around to figuring out other screwballities, mainly having to do with this Mac that my brother-in-law gave me and which I finally got around to hooking up.
Such as, but not limited to: 1) This is my second attempt to do this response; I figured out easily enough why _that_ didn't send when I tried it a couple of days ago. 2) I _haven't_ figured out why this Mac _is_ screwball with _your_ blog, on which I tried to post a response on Saturday.
At least my cellphone's "datebook" feature has been showing the correct date again since New Year's Day. How it had gotten exactly 24 hours behind (as reported in "Another time-travel tale") remains a mystery, but my best guess as to what fixed it is perhaps the leap second that I understand got tacked onto the end of 2008.
Hm... I wonder if it's possible to get software for a cell phone that would allow you to use Morse Code to enter a text message? Technologically, it's certainly feasible; I'm willing to bet somebody somewhere thought of doing it... :)
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