wildyams

I've been thinking lately that rather than let my blog wither away and die I should just post the occasional movie review for anything I might have seen lately. So here's my review for a movie I just watched last night (not for the first, second or even third time though), Frailty directed by and starring Bill Paxton and also starring Matthew McConaughey. This is a movie I'd definitely recommend to anyone who likes horror movies or thrillers because it's really well written, it's a pretty original idea that grabs you pretty quick, and because it's well acted and well directed. I won't go into what it's about in case anyone reads this and hasn't seen the movie (to give the plot would really kinda ruin the enjoyment of just finding out what the movie is about, IMO), but if you're really dying to know all the spoilers and whatnot you can probably go look it up on your own.

The movie made me really long for the old Matthew McConaughey who actually seemed like he had at least a passing interest in making some good movies, rather than the joke he is today. He's quite good in Frailty and really adds to the ominous tone of the movie. There is just a great feeling of dread that builds throughout the movie, and Bill Paxton should get a lot of credit for that. Matt O'Leary who plays the young Fenton is also really good in this movie.

The fun highlight of this movie for me was the flashback scene with what is supposed to be a young Powers Boothe sporting sideburns :)

Don't read this unless you've got some. Seriously. It's just text but it's not for the faint of heart.

Lemme tell you the worst thing about working right next to a construction site: I am constantly hearing the beeping of trucks backing up, but it's just faint enough and just frequent enough that I think at times I'm just imagining it. It really can be tough to tell if I'm really hearing it, or if it's just something that's embedded in my head. Even worse, when you have to listen to it on and off all day, it really kinda sounds like an alarm clock. What could be worse than an alarm clock that you can't turn off?

Here are two unrelated things I'm blogging about simply because I'm bored.

I have my doubts about how smart the new Apple "Genius" feature on iTunes really is. For those who aren't familiar with it, it supposedly is able to make playlists out of your music by choosing songs that sound like the one you pick. So you just scroll through your music till you find a song you like and click the Genius button and voila, it should give you a playlist made up of songs that sound pretty close to the one you chose. Sounds great, right? Well overall I've been mostly impressed with it, although just now in the Genius playlist I created from the song "No Myth" by Michael Penn I had the song "Chopped In Half" by Obituary show up. Maybe Apple knows something I don't?

A couple days ago I bought some mice to feed the snake back at my place and had a near disaster happen on the way home. See, I normally buy about 5 mice for the snake, and this time was no exception, except that usually the guys at PetSmart put these mice in a fairly large paper box. Well, this time they put these mice in a very small paper box, and I figured it wouldn't matter if they were cramped for the car ride home cause they'd be dead soon anyway. After paying I had the cashier put the box into a plastic bag just cause the mice will piss and shit a surprising amount in the short time they're in there, and I didn't want anything seeping through the box. It turns out that the plastic bag was a lifesaver because when I got about halfway home I realized that the mice had chewed their way through box and were now crawling around inside the plastic bag. Naturally I was worried that next the mice were gonna eat their way through the bag or just escape through the opening, so I decided to just tie off the opening and hopefully suffocate the mice (that's what the snake was gonna do to them anyway). After tying the end of the bag I spent most of the ride jostling it around so the mice wouldn't be able to easily get a spot they could start chewing through. Well, I got most of the way home when I realized that one of the mice was wiggling out of a small hole near the opening of the bag. I quickly turned on the next side street and had to try to grab the mouse by the tail (which I did) and get it back into the bag. The problem was that the hole the mouse had wiggled out of was very small, so I had to untie the bag while holding it in one hand and holding the mouse by the tail in the other. In the end I had to thump the mouse on the head a couple times to daze it before I could get it back in the bag, but eventually I did get it back in there and quickly made it home where I fed all five mice to the snake. Crisis averted.

Last night the final season of The Shield began on F/X, and I felt like I should say something about it. Well, not the particular episode last night really, but just about the show in general, because The Shield is really the show that genuinely got me interested in watching television. Of course I'd watched TV before The Shield, but prior to The Shield I hadn't actually been a fan of any TV show since I was maybe 10 years old (give or take) and liked watching Knight Rider. Growing up my parents were very opposed to my sisters and I watching any TV at all, and the only times we were really allowed to do so was Friday nights, Saturday mornings (before they woke up), Saturday nights, and then for maybe an hour or so on Sunday nights. Because of that, even back then it wasn't like I had a bunch of shows I watched, and instead I just ended up watching whatever was on during those times (which was basically Knight Rider on Fridays, some cartoons Saturday morning, some kind of movie on Saturday night, usually on Elvira or something, and then some kind of family programming on Sunday night).

When I was in high school my parents relaxed a bit on when they'd let us watch TV, but by that point I was really more interested in hanging out with my friends than with sitting home and watching TV, so I really didn't do much of it. I did watch movies in HS, but never really latched on to any TV shows (my sisters were way into 90210 though). In college there weren't many TVs around, so I never had any real regular shows I would watch there either, mainly just a lot of Simpsons re-runs here and there whenever they were on. In college I definitely was just hanging out with friends during most of my spare time. Then after college I discovered the internet, and spent my spare time usually surfing the web, watching movies on TV or watching the Lakers (which I greatly missed doing in college).

Eventually I came to adopt a fairly adversarial attitude towards television shows as an artistic medium, thinking that no idea is that interesting that it needs to be explored for some 20 hours per season for 5-10 years or whatever; especially not when there were so many great movies out there that could deliver the goods in around two hours. I became frustrated when people would talk about whatever shows they were into, and detested the idea of scheduling my time around some show on TV and couldn't understand how people could do this. I became even more annoyed with TV when Reality TV first started to become popular, as I couldn't fathom how people I respected could sink to such a lowest common denominator level of entertainment, even while they were aware that they were doing so (I still feel this way, btw). So I never watched any shows, and even flatly refused to give anything a chance.

Well eventually through my job I was forced to have to view a couple episodes of various TV shows here and there, and they almost always confirmed the contempt I had (Joss Whedon's crap, the X-Files and Star Trek being the most frequent shows I had to watch which reinforced my dislike for TV). However, eventually I had to watch a couple episodes of The Shield and The Wire, and I actually was impressed. These were episodes I had to watch that were right smack in the middle of some episode so I didn't really know what all was going on, especially with The Wire (which is an extremely complex show, and is virtually impossible to just pick up in the middle like that); but even without having seen these shows right from the first episodes I could tell that these were both good shows.

The Shield definitely was much easier to pick up in the middle of a season like that due to it still taking somewhat of an episodic approach that The Wire really does not; so eventually when I got tired of just getting movie after movie on Netflix, I decided to give Season 1, Disc 1 of The Shield a look. The result of that was that I just whipped through that show, watching the first 3 seasons' worth (all that was on DVD at the time) in a little over two weeks. I was really blown away by the quality of everything on the show, especially the writing and the acting, and I just gobbled it up. By the time I finished the 3rd season on DVD, the 4th season had already aired, but we had yet to do the discs, so I was stuck in total frustration of wanting to see what happened next but being unable to. When Season 4 finally came to the office, I volunteered to do the whole season alone just to make sure I got to work on it, and I ended up being paid to watch every episode in order (which of course was awesome). A few months after that the Fifth Season aired, and for the first time since I was a kid I had a show that I actually tuned in for each and every week (aided by Tivo at this point).

After starting with The Shield on Netflix, I got The Wire and found myself almost as impressed at first (and ultimately moreso as that show went on - The Wire is hands down the best show I've ever seen). After The Wire I got into a couple other shows: Deadwood, Entourage and Battlestar Galactica. In that time Deadwood has since been canceled, The Wire finished airing all the episodes the creators wanted to make, and Battlestar Galactica has entered into its incredibly long, drawn-out last season. And now The Shield has begun its last season as well, with it being the choice of the creators to end it now rather than waiting till it became crappy or the ratings fell causing the network to pull the plug on it. Watching the first episode of Season 7 last night was great, it was definitely like seeing an old friend who I hadn't seen in a long time. I'm so happy it's back on the air and I can't wait to see how they wrap it up, but of course I'm sad that it's almost over. I intend to cherish it while it's still here.

I was watching the movie Disturbing Behavior last night before I went to sleep (I turned it off about halfway through it cause it was getting late), and wanted to write a few things about it. First, odds are most people probably only vaguely remember this movie, if at all, even though it's only 10 years old. Second, it's probably right that most people wouldn't remember it, cause it's not a great movie or really remarkable in any way other than it stars a couple people who are arguably bigger stars now than they were then (but it's actually tough to make that case for sure, since the stars are Katie Holmes, James Marsden and Nick Stahl). Despite it not being very memorable or all that well done, it's one of those movies that I've found over the years is very rewatchable when it's in regular rotation on cable.

I don't watch much live TV anymore, thanks mainly to DVR/Tivo and my AppleTV, but before I had any of that my typical TV viewing habits would be to scan the pay movie channels for something that looked interesting (something I'd usually seen before), that I could put on and sort of half-watch, half-listen to while I was surfing the web or something; and then I'd do the same thing when I was watching TV in bed or eating in front of the tube, except there of course I'd give what I was watching my full attention. Anyway, since the way they program pay TV is sort of like a radio station where they have what is essentially a playlist that only gradually rotates you end up seeing the same movies on all the time, and for someone like me who doesn't really watch TV shows I've found there are lots of movies here and there that, while not being great or even good movies, are still plenty entertaining to watch over and over. Disturbing Behavior is one of those movies.

For those who have forgotten this movie and what it's about (i.e. just about everyone), it's the story of how the parents in an affluent northwestern suburb turned to some mad scientist guy to brainwash their troubled adolescents into being goody two shoes, conformist, non-rebellious teens. The unfortunate side effect for all involved is that the kids essentially become like robots and occasionally lash out with uncontrollable violence, even killing people. But at least they're not wearing Marilyn Manson T-shirts I suppose. Anyway, James Marsden and his family are the new people in town, and Jim quickly makes friends with Nick Stahl and Katie Holmes (who broods and frowns so much in this movie she almost edges over into Michelle Rodriguez territory). Nick tells Jim his theory about the stepford students, which Jim dismisses as paranoia, until Nick gets "recruited" (brainwashed) and joins the robotic student elite. Then Jim and Katie investigate further and find out what's happening and eventually put an end to the whole mess (except for the "twist" ending which sets up a potential sequel, which of course never happened).

I remember seeing this movie on DVD when it first came out, all those years ago, and because it was so long ago and DVDs were still relatively new to me (and to everyone, I guess), I actually watched all the extras on it, which were basically a long list of deleted scenes with commentary from the director. It's been a long time, but I do remember essentially the director having a somewhat beaten down tone to what he was saying, talking about how he was forced to cut all these scenes by the studio because he was a relative nobody and they wanted the movie to be really short in length. Basically he was apologizing for how crappy the movie turned out as a result of it being pared down to the bone the way it was. In retrospect though, I doubt the movie would have been much better if it had been longer, and the really fast pace for such a mediocre movie worked pretty well as I found myself last night wanting to get to the next part and always finding that it was right around the corner.

In any event, the main reason I am blogging about this (other than killing time at work) is because there's a really funny thing that runs throughout the movie which I felt I had to comment on. For whatever reason the filmmakers (or the studio or somebody) decided they would try to coin a new hip phrase or saying with this movie, and clearly assumed it would just take off and people would look back on this film as the origin of this word being used this way. It's very reminiscent of that girl in Mean Girls was was "trying to make 'Fetch' happen." Anyway, throughout Disturbing Behavior the characters keep saying the word "Razor" as though it's a common slang term, and it's quite funny every time they do so. Like they'll say "I hope you've got a totally razor plan for this" or "What do you say we get some beers and hang out tonight?" "Sounds razor."

So anyway, if you ever do find yourself watching Disturbing Behavior, keep an eye out for the repeated use of that word, while also keeping an eye on Nick Stahl's great overacting and Katie Holmes' brooding bitch routine. But just remember, if you do watch it and find yourself saying "This movie stinks, what was he talking about?" keep in mind I only said it is mildly entertaining upon repeat viewings, at least in comparison to many other movies. Don't rent it or catch it on TV if you're expecting a great night of moviewatching.

I'm gonna try to get back into a more bloggy kind of mood around here. The cobwebs are everywhere, but blogging will help me at least kill some time during the day, and lately there's been a lot to kill. Things at work are really up in the air and kinda all over the place, as they've been shuffling us all around a lot, and creating new positions and such. As a result I sometimes feel like a lot of things fall through the cracks and I get a lot of spare time, which I've been filling with just surfing the web. However, yesterday they sent out a company-wide email saying they're going to do a web usage audit of everyone because apparently there's far more internet surfing going on here than they'd like, so I'm now looking for ways to occupy my downtime during the day. Writing some entries here will definitely help to fill some of that time.

I'd like to tell anyone reading this that Gmail is the coolest thing ever when it comes to email. I've had Gmail for a while now, but only recently began to realize what all I could do with it. For the last 6+ years I had an email address here at this site as my main email address and I was using Thunderbird at home as my mail client, and generally I was very happy. The only problem was I couldn't use it at work, although I could still check my email online by going through the company that hosts my site to check it. Doing so was a very slow and somewhat annoying process, but if I really needed to check something I could. Because of this I generally just used my work email for most daytime communications, as I'm sure most people do. I got Gmail a long time ago mainly just because back then it was this cool new thing that promised much more online storage space than places like Yahoo or Hotmail did, even though I didn't use either of those services just because I was content using my work and home emails, and because I was content using my other emails I generally didn't use Gmail.

A couple months ago, however, I began to get annoyed that my emails were in two different locations, and that if someone sent me an email at work and I was out sick or off on vacation or something, I wouldn't see it till I went back to work. I decided the best solution was to just tell people to email me exclusively at my Gmail account and that would take care of it, and that's what I've been doing ever since. But then about two weeks ago I learned that I could use Gmail to handle emails from non gmail accounts, and set about making my wildyams email address work through Gmail as well, and it is fantastic. I can now send and receive emails from my wildyams account without having to use an email program, and I can now use that email address from any computer that has an internet connection. In addition, I discovered that someone made a program a few years ago that will import all my old emails that I have on Thunderbird (over 6 years' worth) into Gmail so that I can have all my emails located in the same place! It's a farily lengthy process to import all those emails and it went all night and didn't finish importing them till this morning, but it is really great to have that all set up.

Anyway, not the most exciting blog entry, but it did help me kill some time.

Been a while since my last entry, and since I've had a couple requests for a new one I figured I'd give my thoughts and review on The Dark Knight. Where to begin? I want to first say that the money this movie is making is unprecedented and I think this is the first movie to really have a legit shot at breaking Titanic's box office records. Other movies have had huge opening weekends before (although The Dark Knight just broke all those records), but the staying power of this movie has carried over beyond the weekend and into the week. Titanic was an incredible anomaly at the box office because it made its $600m domestically not based on a gigantic opening weekend (it only made $28m in its 1st weekend, as compared to the $158m that The Dark Knight just grossed), but rather because it just stayed around forever. Will The Dark Knight have that kind of staying power? No, absolutely not. Titanic was still making good money in theaters five months after it was released, back when DVDs were a brand new medium. Five months from now The Dark Knight will probably be on DVD in stores. It might last 2-3 months in theaters, but that's about it. And it'll be facing much stronger competition at the box office than Titanic did because it's out during the summer rather than late winter and early spring the way Titanic was. So it remains to be seen what kind of legs The Dark Knight will have, to see if it really has a shot at what Titanic did, but consider this: in 5 days The Dark Knight is already over a third of the way to Titanic's total, and by this time next week could be well over half of the way there.

Enough about the money its making though, lemme talk about what I thought of the movie itself. Back in 2005 I saw Batman Begins and wrote a review of it in which I basically said I loved its pragmatic approach to the comic superhero genre, and thought it worked so well as a "real world" approach to the character that it was almost disappointing once Bruce Wayne showed up in the Batman costume. I felt like in the same way that Tim Burton's Batman redefined comic book movies by using his flair for visuals to present a real comic book-like appearance to everything, Batman Begins redefined comic book movies by presenting everything in as "real" a way as possible, and you see that more and more in comic book movies nowadays.

The Dark Knight has taken this approach to a whole new level.

The new movie has entirely ditched any attempt to look cartoonish and visually is the antithesis of what Tim Burton set out to do with his Batman movies. I've heard some comparisons with The Dark Knight and Heat, and the comparisons definitely have some validity to them. I've always felt that Michael Mann's crime movies (Thief, Manhunter, Heat, Collateral and even Miami Vice) always tried to ground themselves in as much realism as possible, and in addition to usually showing the sheer technical precision that must mark any successful high-end heist and/or real detective work, his movies are usually almost entirely humorless. Batman Begins took steps in this direction, attempting to show how Batman could do the things he did as if he was a real person, and what technology, training and real mindset he'd need, but the movie was still a fun ride and had a definite sense of humor about itself. In The Dark Knight the "fun" aspect is definitely toned way, way down in favor of a very dark, serious approach to everything, and in my opinion it works beautifully. The movie is an honest to god serious crime movie that, much like the last movie, only "breaks character" a few times with some of Batman's less believable gadgetry.

One of the biggest (if not more subtle) visual shocks of this movie is the amount of it that takes place during the daytime. For me it really set the tone right off the bat as the whole opening scene takes place right in the middle of the day. There are, of course, many scenes at night as well, but how often do you see bright daylight scenes in a Batman movie? The daytime scenes give the city backdrop a much more "real" feel to it, much much moreso than there was in the last movie (which was already infinitely more real seeming than any previous depiction of Gotham in any of the other Batman movies).

The characters in The Dark Knight are incredible as well. Heath Ledger's Joker is everything that Jack Nicholson's Joker was not, in that he is scary (rather than funny) and he most importantly makes you feel that Batman actually is the underdog in the fight, which after the last movie I would have thought would be pretty impossible. Jack Nicholson's Joker was a hugely entertaining spectacle onscreen, but his character was mainly a thorn in Batman's side because he stole enough money to match Bruce Wayne's spending abilities by having his own gadgets to try to rival Batman's. In this movie, Heath Ledger's Joker has the upper hand because he's more committed to what he's doing than Batman is, much in the way that a real terrorist is. He's a maniacal person with sadistic goals who has no regard for anyone's life (especially his own), and it takes Batman a long time to even be able to wrap his head around how you deal with someone like that. As a result the Joker is always one step ahead of Batman and not the other way around.

For instance, in Tim Burton's Batman the Joker's evil plan was to use cash to lure Gotham's civilians to the streets so he could gas them with poison-filled parade balloons, but Batman was able to rather easily foil this plan by just showing up with his Batwing and flying off with the balloons. Even in Batman Begins Ra's Al Ghul's plan was to similarly gas the city using his own device, but Batman used the Batmobile to destroy it and save the day. In this movie there is no plan like that, and instead the Joker is more akin to John Doe from Se7en or Jigsaw from the Saw movies in that he simply sets up situations to challenge people's morals and in which his goal is just to create chaos through cleverly hidden and difficult to diffuse methods. In the end it is not Batman's gadgets or training which help him prevail over the Joker, but rather his commitment to his goal that does.

I need to see the movie again and I am planning on going at least once more while the movie is in theaters, although it may be the kind of movie I end up seeing a bunch more times in theaters, and that's not something I've done with a movie in a long, long time. The movie was quite long at two and a half hours, and it was really packed with many characters and storylines and I feel like it probably needs repeat viewings to be adequately digested. The movie has really stayed with me over the last couple days since I saw it, and it was very enjoyable to watch, which considering how high my hopes were for it to me says a lot about how good it is. I don't know if the movie is for everyone, but it is currently sitting as the #1 most highly rated movie of all time on IMDB (by a considerable margin), although I expect that to fall back somewhat the longer its out and the more people see it; and it did get a 95% on the Tomatometer, so it does seem to be overwhelmingly well received (especially in combination with the huge box office totals). If you haven't seen it, by all means check it out, although be sure you watch Batman Begins first, as this is a true sequel to that movie, and much of what went on in that movie plays into what happens in this movie.

The last 3 days have probably been the best weekend, sports-wise, that I've ever had. It started on Friday when the Minnesota Twins traded Johann Santana to the Mets. Why does this matter to me? Santana's the game's best pitcher, and it was rumored he would be traded to either the Yankees or the Red Sox. If he'd gone to the Sox it would have been good just cause it would have kept him away from the MFYs, but the Red Sox would have had to give up a lot and commit a lot of money to him, so it would have been risky. The best option was just that he would go to a team in the National League instead, and that's what happened. This means the Red Sox can go this year with the team that just won the World Series and it means the Yankees are still screwed with shitty pitching. So it's looking good for the Red Sox again.

The next great piece of news was that the Lakers traded Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittendon and some draft picks to the Memphis Grizzlies for Pau Gasol. This is a trade that is already legendary in its one-sidedness. The Lakers traded their backup center (who's renown for being disappointing and frequently injured) and their 3rd string point guard (who is a rookie and who hardly ever played) for a guy who is not only an All Star caliber player (who's only 27), but who also fills a huge hole for the Lakers at power forward and center. The Lakers were already one of the top 5 teams in the league this year, and now they added an All Star basically for nothing. Once the Lakers are fully healthy they should have one of the best teams of all time out there, and all their key players are young, so they should be contenders for years.

The final great thing that happened in sports this weekend was that the NY Giants just pulled off possibly the greatest Super Bowl upset in NFL history by beating the previously undefeated New England Patriots. Now I'm admittedly not much of a football fan, but my Dad is as big a Giants fan as he is a Red Sox fan, and he raised me watching Giants games. As I got older I kinda lost interest in football, and now mainly only watch when I go over to his place during the season to visit with him and eat dinner on Sundays. So I'm not gonna claim I'm like a superfan or anything, but on the occasions when I do watch football, I do root for the Giants. I don't have any other team I have any interest in. I have watched and rooted for the Giants in all four of their Super Bowl appearances, and remember them quite clearly. Watching tonight was special, because just like back in October, I was there with my Dad when the team he lives and dies with won a world championship.

The fact that the Red Sox, Giants and (possibly) Lakers could all win championships in the same year is incredible to me as a sports fan :)

I got in on the "cell phone craze" rather early. No, I wasn't one of the people who carried a huge, suitcase-sized cellphone around on a shoulder strap like The Dude, nor was I a guy with one of the "bricks" (the big grey cellphones the size of a brick), but I mean I was right on the crest of the wave that was the cell phone revolution which crashed upon society back in the late 90s or so. Really my journey with that type of connectivity began at some point in the mid-90s when I got a beeper along with my friends one summer and marveled at how great it was that my friends and I could locate each other with them when we were sitting around bored and trying to organize an afternoon of Frisbee golf.

However, I quickly abandoned the beeper once I started working at an electronics store in 1998 where I discovered not only could I get a Nokia 5100 series cellphone for dirt-cheap, but I could also get an employee plan so it would only cost me $20/month or so to use it (provided I didn't go wild with it). I quickly became enamored with it, it was the most fantastic thing I'd ever seen. I'd never even stopped to think how useful it would be to have a phone on me at all times, how easy it would be to get in touch with my friends, or to let them know I was downstairs in the car and was waiting for them, or if, god forbid, there was an accident I'd have the ability to reach out for help with little to no trouble. My friends could call me if they needed me, and all was well with the world. Anyone reading this knows exactly the feeling I'm talking about, because cellphones are so ubiquitous now that I don't know anyone who doesn't have one.

Things were different back then though, back when the people who had them were truly rare indeed. I found I frequently had to have conversations with people where I had to justify exactly why I felt I needed a cellphone. I found if I got a call in public, people would look at me with a puzzled and annoyed look on their face, just from hearing it ring. And lord help me if I answered it without rushing outside first to be away from everyone before doing so. Talking on a cellphone indoors around other people was absolutely inexcusable. While I'm sure what I just wrote probably sounds tinged with a sarcastic scoff by me about how people back then were too sensitive or something, the truth was I completely agreed with them. I was embarrassed if my phone rang just because I knew it was rude, and I never talked on it indoors in a store or restaurant or something because that was extremely rude. Now, of course, social norms pertaining to cellphones have changed so drastically that the person who throws the occasional annoyed glance at someone on a cellphone (even in a movie theater) is the rude one, and not the person who is actually using the phone.

None of these things bothered me about having a cellphone back then, and I didn't see enough cellphone usage from other people at the time for them to bother me that way either. One thing I did begin to realize over time, however, was I didn't like how the cellphone suddenly became viewed by others who knew I had one as a way to get a hold of me at any time. This in and of itself wouldn't have been so bad if not for the fact that it was accompanied by them all knowing if they called and I didn't answer then it was almost surely because I saw they were calling and sent it to voicemail, as I would inevitably get the "why didn't you answer my call" question later. I began to really hate that suddenly I was expected to be available at all hours of every day, and realized I couldn't use the "I was out of range for a while today" excuse too often and expect people to believe it, so I eventually had to move to the more dramatic step of actually, really just leaving my cellphone turned off in my car at all times. Then I would tell people I didn't carry my cellphone with me anymore, so if they wanted to reach me that was a bad place to call. Eventually I got tired of spending $20-$30/month just to have it sit in my car, virtually unused, so I canceled my service and gave the phone to a friend.

Naturally, as the cellphone revolution really took off, it became more and more incredulous to people that I didn't own a cellphone, telling me I didn't know what I missing out on, and how they don't know how they ever survived without one. This eventually segued into people just assuming the phone number I gave them was a cellphone number because it got to where nobody even had landlines anymore. Then people would inevitably tell me at some point "I tried to text message you but it didn't work for some reason" at which point I'd have to tell them I didn't own a cellphone.

Almost a year ago I finally got another cellphone, but this time it really was on my terms. I got a prepaid phone from TMobile with $100 worth of minutes which would last me for a year (and they will in fact, I'll even have some left over I'm sure). The reason the cellphone is on my terms is because a couple years ago I ditched my landline for a VOIP phone through Vonage, and one of the great things about Vonage is that I can have any incoming calls simultaneously ring up to six different numbers if I want it to. This means that I have it set so if someone calls me it rings my home, but it also rings my work and my cell phone all at the same time, and whichever phone I answer from is the one that gets the call. This also allows me to turn off my cellphone when I'm either at work or at home because I'm already near a phone which will ring at those locations, so I have no need to have my phone on. I only turn my cellphone on when I need to call someone else or when I know I'm going to be away from a phone and will be expecting a call of some importance. Finally my cellphone works for me and not for everyone else I know.