Hang Up Or Get Off The Plane

[kliljedahl]

Another nice rant by Mark Morford:

Oh my yes, please yes, open your giant purse or crack your bitchin' briefcase and whip out that swell little silver Motorola and pop in the earpiece and dial that bad boy right up.
Because you know what I'd love right now, sitting here right next to you right at this tedious never-ending airborne moment? Why, I'd love nothing more than to listen to you whine for the next 137 minutes to your husband about how your acid reflux has been acting up again and you really think the goddamn Purple Pill ain't working and by the way how are your hemorrhoids honey maybe you should try tying a little rubber band around it to choke it off and oh sweet Jesus and we're still 10,000 feet over Oregon, and I am here, paralyzed.

I can't escape. It is physically impossible to slide more than nine inches away from you and it's apparently illegal for me to spend the entire flight in the three-square-foot airplane bathroom banging my head against the wall, and there simply aren't enough little bottles of Stoli in the in-flight drink cart to turn your conversation from brain-gnawingly deadly to merely numbly sufferable.

And despite how I am a writer and am therefore supposed to love this kind of thing, I really do not care to imagine the life you must lead that has led you to this moment wherein you find that you absolutely goddamn must call your sister and discuss in infinite painstaking detail just what, exactly, you should wear on your date with your rehabbed ex-husband who is taking you to Red Lobster to try and compensate for the drunkenness and the sloth and the diddling of the gum-snapping babysitter in the tract home rec room last summer.

Link: http://sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article.cgi?f=/gate/archive/2005/05/06/notes050605.DTL&nl=fix



Keith’s Barbeque Central

[wakeme2008]

1. From what I have heard

the great majority of people that fly do not WANT cell phones used on planes for everything listed in that article and more.

[Ilsa]

2. The flights I took recently banned the use of cell phones unless

the airplane door was open. You simply could not use one in flight.

[MazeRat7]

3. Hang up if you are within earshot of another person....

Sometimes, I want to just scream...

nobody here gives a rat's ass about "your" conversation, so please take it in private.

I am seriously considering purchasing my own personal jammer.
http://www.globalgadgetuk.com/cell%20phone%20jammers.htm

More over, they may be "faking it"... http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/04/20/opinion/garver/main689651.shtml
Which would be great if said "jammer" was active and they were still yakking away.

People are just so rude and overly self-important when in public and the presence of other people. It just amazes me.

MZr7

edit: typo in header. sorry.

[Mugweed]

4. Have you ever tried this?

Just stare at them and say "Blah Blah Blah" for as long as you can exhale, or pick up the Sky Catalogue and start reading the copy to the offender. It makes the point. OF course, we could just grow a spine and tap them opn the shoulder and tell them that we don't want to hear it and could they ask the attendant if they could sit in those backward-facing fold-out seats in the back for the duration of the call.

[Selteri]

5. I agree

I'm all for the diea of being able to access the internet on the planes with the new and overpriced tech they are offering.

After all, the rythem of someone who's typing a text message is a lot less annoying than anything that has to do with listening to them blab on their celly.