Of Ringtone Overkill

Cellular phone ringtones are turning into a musical genre and a public nuisance to boot. An uber-techie I once worked with had a husky voiced woman urge him "Come On Baby Get The Phone" each time it rang. It cracked up everyone in neighboring cubicles at first but soon we grew tired of the suggestive come-hithers. Another woman had the ET background score to announce her teenager's calls and Fur Elise her boyfriend's. Without a snazzy ringtone one can start to feel socially inept amid people who drip globs of attitude each time their cellular rings.

Golan Levin, now a professor of electronic art at Carnegie Mellon University says of ringtones "It can be a vehicle for creative expression both on the part of the composer and the part of the person who uses it. The ringtone has a clear connection to everyday life, and because of that I think it's a vital form." For those who disagree, there's always vibrate - and that would include me

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Cheese Making

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Part Liberated Woman

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Under Advisement

Recently a desi dude who is more acquaintance less friend called to check in on me. Those who have read this blog before might know that such calls tend to make me anxious. Depending on how far back we go, there are sets of FAQs that I brace myself to answer. The trick is to be sufficiently evasive without being downright offensive - a fine balancing act given the provocative nature of questions involved. I look at these calls as opportunities for building patience and tolerance both of which I seriously lack. Basically, they are very desirous of finding out how I am doing in my personal and professional life to be sure that they have me correctly categorized and filed for future reference. The major buckets appear to be loser, struggling, average, arrived, superstar and uncategorizable. My goal needless to say, is to be in the last bucket - the unknown, unquantifiable and therefore uninteresting entity. Their aim is to pull me into something more tangible. So anyways, the dude in ques...

Heartcrossings

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