by Mark Shead on March 9, 2010
These are my links for March 9th from 21:12 to 21:15:
by Mark Shead on March 8, 2010
In movies and television, no one says “Goodbye” at the end of a phone call. Have you ever noticed this? They simply hang up when they are through talking. How do they know that the other person is done talking? Even if they are calling to tell each other “Goodbye” for the last time the conversation usually ends up with something other than “Goodbye”. Maybe Hollywood thinks that it would be too annoying to hear “Goodbye” at the end of every phone call or something. Maybe they are trying to show that the characters are “too cool” to follow such social norms. I don’t know, but I do know that if you try this in real life, it will drive people crazy!
In college a friend of mine and I decided to follow the movie model and stop saying goodbye. We’d simply hang up when we were through talking. I can tell you it positively makes for the most annoying telephone conversations you’ve ever had. You are talking back and forth, your friend says something and then “click”. You don’t get a chance to reply or say anything–they were done so they hang up. You can call them back if you have something else you want to say. You end up with conversations like:
A: Hey do you want to go get some lunch?
B: Yes CLICK
A: [Redials B]
B: Hello?
A: Um did the phone disconnect?
B: No I was just done talking.
I think the calling back thing would make movies a bit more realistic. When someone hangs up without saying “Goodbye” (and thus giving the other party a chance to finish up any important business) the person who was hung up on, should immediately call back and say, “Wait, I wasn’t through talking!” or “Did you hang up or did the call drop?”
by Mark Shead on February 26, 2010
For the past month, we have had a trash mystery at our house hold. The trash pickup that we pay for picksup every Friday morning and requires that we put the garbage can on the side of the road.
The mystery occurs every Thursday morning. Someone pulls into our driveway, retrieves the garbage can, empties the contents and leaves without a sound. That’s not all. The service we pay for will only take out the bags in the garbage can. We had several items in the bottom of the can that weren’t in bags that had been there for several weeks. The mystery garbage pickup service cleaned out the trash can as well!
by Mark Shead on February 24, 2010