Techland

My phone broke the other day. And when I say it broke I mean I broke it. I had had a piece of good news, I went out and celebrated, I drank a lot. (Pro tip: if you are not James Bond, do not order a “vesper.”) Then I took a bath. My phone took a bath too.

LG Chocolate phone, I hardly knew ye

My phone was an LG Chocolate, a model that enjoyed a brief shining moment on the cutting edge of cheap-ass phones. Its hook is its “slider” format -- at rest it's shaped like a chocolate-bar, but to expose the keypad you can slide its top and bottom parts in opposite directions ... it's impossible to describe, but you know what I mean. It is also a “music” phone, which means that you can put a David Bowie song into it and it will play back to you a sound like David Bowie vomiting.

It has a touch-sensitive part too. Basically it's what the English call a dog's breakfast, meaning a bit of everything and a whole lotta nothing. Its interface design is hilariously bad -- just setting the alarm involves so many hacks and sub-menus it's like typing out War and Peace on the keypad.

I could get a free upgrade to the new cutting edge of cheap-ass phones, if I choose to participate in Verizon's “new every two” program. But that unfortunately involves re-upping my contract for another two years, and I don't know if I can go another two years without an iPhone.

I'll tell you something though: it's not all bad, not having a cell phone. At first it was like being one of those male adepts in Robert Jordan whom the Bene Gesserit^H^H^H^H^H^H^HAes Sedai had severed from the One Power. Or, less obscurely, it was like being Case at the beginning of Neuromancer. Exiled from the datasphere.

But its getting kind of exciting. It's like a game. Every time you leave your home or your office, you're launching yourself out into the great unknown. You're leaving the safe islands of connectivity for the deep scary ocean of total informational isolation. There's no way to alter your course if news breaks. The chips are down, the die is cast. You're a man on your own, on the run.

You know. Like James Bond. I'll take that vesper now please.