Ring Ring

My job requires me to do make a lot of phone calls, and this has led me to a weird discovery of a new cell phone technology that I have not yet encountered in the States. Not only can Kiwis change the ring of their cell phone for incoming calls, they can change the ring that the caller hears while waiting for the cell phone owner to pick up. So basically what happens is that you hear "ring ring" like any normal phone and then all of a sudden some music (I assume chosen by the cell phone owner) plays over the ringing. I was a little confused the first time this happened, hearing Aretha Franklin's "Respect" playing as the phone was ringing.

This is by no means a bad technology, and I figure that it won't be long until it's introduced at home (if it hasn't been already... I have been away for six months now). The problem comes more that people don't know what to do with new technology. Just as people choose stupid cell phone rings that embarrass them when their phone rings in public, people have been choosing pretty stupid rings that I hear when I'm calling. This is the same thing that happened when we first got answering machines and people thought it was funny to record stupid messages, and the same thing that happened when people were allowed to choose their own email addresses. The rule translates pretty easily: If you're going to use your answering machine for business purposes, don't record have your three year old do the recording. If you're your email is for business, "HotBabe4U@hotmail.com" is a poor choice. And if you're going to give out your cell phone number for business purposes, I just don't think you should choose to have Jaime Foxx's "Slow Jamz" playing in the background.

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PS- Sorry about the lack of blogging lately. Please address all concerns to my job, which has blocked access to blogger.com.