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Wow! Did you hear that? The Death of Voicemail...
Igor: I heard the strangest music from the upstairs kitchen and I just... followed it down. Call it... a hunch.
Ba-dum chi.
Ok, for those of you too busy to notice… Voicemail has left the building. What? You missed the funeral?
Don’t feel bad, I don’t think anyone attended the services. Now some of you out there may be freeze
dried geriatrics, and don’t believe the headline.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: [to Igor] Now Igor, would you give me a hand with the bags?
Igor: [doing a Groucho Marx] Certainly, you take the blonde and I'll take the one in the turban.
Submitted for your approval, Mrs. Ima busygirl, a mild mannered smartphone carrying individual that
has chosen, to not only ignore the office phone, but has decided not to make the effort to laboriously
log in to her voicemail account, put in a password and listen to the 33+ messages that have been sitting
there for 5+ days, instead, she listens to the voice for 3 seconds and deletes it… Now that’s the
conscientious user, most don’t even bother, as evidenced by
“Sorry, that mailbox is full. Thank you for using Blah-blah-blah’s voicemail, YOUR ARE THE
WEAKEST LINK, goodbye…”
So, what happened? Did our desire to leave voicemails dwindle? Or more accurately, did we find a
better way?
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Love is the only thing that can save this poor creature, and I am
going to convince him that he is loved even at the cost of my own life. No matter what you hear in
there, no matter how cruelly I beg you, no matter how terribly I may scream, do not open this door
or you will undo everything I have worked for. Do you understand? Do not open this door.
Inga: Yes, Doctor.
Igor: Nice working with ya.
[Dr. Frederick Frankenstein goes into the room. The Monster wakes up]
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Let me out. Let me out of here. Get me the hell out of here. What's
the matter with you people? I was joking! Don't you know a joke when you hear one? HA-HA-HA-
HA. Get me out of here! Open this goddamn door or I'll kick your rotten heads in! Mommy!
Well, for those of you not paying attention, the flavor of the year is “texting”, yup, that behavior we love
to hate, i.e., the obnoxiously loud person pacing back and forth with the cell phone glued to his ear, or
the ear bud fused to the side of his head, has been replaced by the street monk. The “Street Monk”,
i.e., the head down, two thumb wielding smartphone enthusiast, who prays to the glow of the latest
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IT News, Served Cold with a Kick!
Remember Cheap ? inexpensive...
ricker-wasabi-roll.blogspot.com
Droid, iPhone, or Blackberry screen. You see it all around you, people that are standing two feet away
from each other, completely ignoring their surroundings engrossed in their text conversation with
someone else. Even at the restaurant dining table, conversations grind to a halt as soon as one pulls out
their phone to respond to an incoming message sets the rest of the marmosets at the table to pull their
pavlovian response devices and then the games begin…
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Are you saying that I put an abnormal brain into a seven and a half foot long,
fifty-four inch wide GORILLA?
Even and evening at the movies are precluded with the crowd ignoring the corporate sponsored slide
show, preferring to pursue their own pre-movie entertainment on their phones. A whole theater of
phosphorous lit faces, floating in the darkness as if in a back drop of a Shakespearian play that we
refused to watch in High School Composition. Remember that photo of the three-D movie patrons of
the 50’s, kind of like that, but with their heads bowed and no glasses. Now this was only a pastime for
the kids, who are btw, the most prolific texters on the planet; however, has now been joined by the rest
of the population that has decided that brief and to the point conversations are better than the f2f
conversations we used to have. Now a days, typical responses are, “Just text me”. I can go in to how
this method has changed man’s dating rituals, but I will keep this “G-rated”.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: And it was you... who left my grandfather's book out for me to find.
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: So that I would...
Frau Blücher: Yes.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Then you and Victor were...
Frau Blücher: YES. YES. Say it. He vas my... BOYFRIEND.
So, accepting my epitaph of voicemail, this annoying technology that just made us that more accessible,
we must accept the adage that deaths comes in threes, like celebrities, right? So who is next?
Inspector Kemp : Vee had better confeerm de fect dat Yunk Frankenshtein iss indeed VALLOWING EEN EES
GANDFADDA'S VOOTSHTAPS.
Villagers: What?
Inspector Kemp: Following in his grandfather's footsteps, footsteps, footsteps.
Villagers: Ohhh. Footsteps.
How about email? I would like to submit that email, if not already dead, is at minimum, in intensive
care. Don’t believe me? How many times have you heard, “Hey, didn’t you get my email?” and your
typical answer, “Uh maybe, I get hundreds a day”. Your junk mail filters can’t keep up. The only
resolve is to change your email address. Today, the only emails that you pay attention to are the ones
that your friends have text’d you that they are coming and you are waiting for. Not to mention, the
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IT News, Served Cold with a Kick!
Remember Cheap ? inexpensive...
ricker-wasabi-roll.blogspot.com
tedious, labor intensive, ritual that you have to go through just to realize you don’t care about the
message and summarily delete it.
Dr. Frederick Frankenstein: Throw... the third switch!
Igor: [shocked] Not the *third switch*!
The third? Hmmmm… I think the laptop is “marked for death” (apologies to Steven Seagal). I think that
our need to tote that heavy, fragile, all encompassing computing device with 100s of applications and a
bloated OS is on its way out… Is the replacement the iPad? No, try something as small as a smartphone;
really, just look around you…
__________________________________________________________________
About Rick Ricker
An IT professional with over 20 years experience in Information Security, wireless broadband, network and Infrastructure design,
development, and support.
for more information, contact Rick at (800) 333-8394 x 689
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