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8 - Orono Weekly Times Wednesday, April 14, 2004 Basic Black by Arthur Black by Arthur Black Take that phone and shove it It's official: the. alarm clock is no longer the most hated technological device on the planet. A study by researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has conferred that dubious honour on (flourish (flourish of beeps, squawks and the opening bars of Beethoven's Fifth)..... .the cell phone. Or 'yell phone' as I like to think of it. Why is it that people people who insist on yapping on their cells in public think they have to holler like a lumberjack lumberjack to be heard? It might be different if the conversations (the one side of it we get to hear at least) were entertaining, entertaining, but they never are. They're about late invoices, dental appointments, school pickups or breathless, late- breaking 'travel updates'. "Yeah, Frank ... Bill here. I'm in termial two right now. Just got off the Calgary flight. My flight to Montreal doesn't leave for fortÿ minutes so I should be downtown by ..." Too much information, buddy. What a phenomenon, the cell phone. I remember visiting visiting Italy a few years back and being dumbfounded by all the mentally incapacitated natives walking down the street holding holding their ears and talking to themselves. "They're talking on cell phones, dummy" my partner explained. Oh, yeah. Right. I knew that. Italy - in fact, much of Europe - had long been famous for its wretched telephone telephone service, so it wasn't surprising that when cell phone technology arrived, it was gobbled up like an all- dressed pizza. Here in Canada we had a pretty decent telephone telephone system in place, so cell phones took a little longer to establish a beachhead. Well, they've landed. At last report 13.5 million Canadians subscribe to a cell phone service and the numbers numbers are still soaring skyward. Too bad cell phone etiquette etiquette hasn't kept up. I used to take a perfectly wonderful early morning ferry ride that was ruined by a single cell- phoniac. Ferry passengers - regulars mostly - used to convene convene at tables in a large common common cabin where we sipped our coffee, read the paper or kibitzed in a low-key, early morning kind of way. Then the jerk with the cell phone arrived. A building contractor. He commandeered one of the tables, hauled out his cell phone and commenced to call a long list of customers and suppliers, barking out job quotes, service orders, work crew instructions and other assorted business crap that only two people in the universe universe could possibly have been interested in. The rest of us melted into the comers but you couldn't get away from the guy. He had a voice like Don Cherry. I complained to one of the staff who shrugged apologetically. "There's no It pays to BANK at DUCA Advantage # 6 : MORTGAGES (Competitive rates and Bonus Shares) 5 Year Mortgage 4.75% 1 Year Mortgage 3.90% nm#s subject to change without notice, For current rules cell your local branch. Call 1-866-800-DUCA or visit www.duca.com Bowmenvllle Branch Manager: Tom Broadfoot 200 King Street East Tel. (905) 623-6343 bowmimvIlleCMucn.com Whitby Branch Manager: Paul Muller 1818 Dundas Street East Tel. (905) 720-4650 wliltbytoduen.coin Come bank with us! DUCA Ftnnnclul Services ...yoiirCm/il Hum! law against it," he said. ] was right. Unfortunately. The cell phone has not only shattered our privacy it has imbedded itself in our lan guage. We have the 'cell yell' (already ranted upon); we also have the hammy offshoot known as 'stage phoning' wherein some Suit flamboyantly flamboyantly flourishes his Fido at a restaurant table and proceeds, with much windmilling of arms and mock opera gestures to impress the clientele with just what a Big Time Operator he is. Then there's the highway and byway phenomenon known as DWY -- Driving While Yacking. I haven't seen the accident statistics for people people who have ploughed into trees or been T-boned by a semi while chatting on their mobiles, but I'll bet they're impressive. Other signs that the cell phone is here to stay? The resistance that's building up to them. One of Japan's hottest exports this year is a product called "Magnetic Wood." It's a kind of building material paneling that's saturated with magnetic particles of nickel- zinc ferrite. This apparently deflects 97 percent of mobile- phone signals. More and more restaurant owners and barkeeps are lining their walls with the stuff so that their clientele can eat and drink in relative peace and quiet. I also note that July has been declared 'Cell phone Courtesy Month' and that the Yankee equivalent of Via Rail - Amtrak - has begun to introduce introduce 'Quiet Cars' on it's commuter commuter runs, wherein the mobile phone is banned. Other jurisdictions have'a long way to go. Down in the Sunshine State, the California Highway Patrol estimates that 40 percent of the emergency 911 calls they receive each year are false alarms caused by people accidentally.parking their behinds on their cell phones. 'Butt Calls', the cops call them. I call it Appropriate Stowage. Stowage. . Book Reviews by the Clarington Public Library Book picks for the month of April from the Clarington Public Library The Queen's Fool by Phillippa Gregory In this sequel to "The Other Boleyn Girl", Gregory returns to the familiar setting of Tudor England, but this time readers will follow the journey of a fourteen-year-old Jewish girl who is forced to leave Spain and becomes a member of the Royal Court. This work of historical fiction weaves together romance and mysticism, creating an interesting depiction of the world of Queen Mary and Queen Elizabeth. The Five People You Meet in Heaven by Mitch Albom We are constantly searching for the answer to the age-old question question "Why was I put on this earth?" In this engaging novel, Albom takes readers on this journey of discovery with Eddie, an eighty-three year old maintenance worker at a seaside amusement park who is accidentally killed trying to save a little little girl from a falling cart. In heaven Eddie encounters five people whose lives are inexplicably interwoven with his own. Having always felt that his life was meaningless and insignificant, insignificant, Eddie is guided by these people in understanding that every act of sacrifice, no matter how small, impacts on the lives of others. As Eddie comes to realize that there was a remarkable reason that he was put on this earth, we also have the opportunity to take a very thoughtful look at our own place in the grand scheme of things. Paranoia by Joseph Fletcher Adam Cassidy is an intelligent but lazy worker in a large tech company who discovers a way to throw a $78,000 retirement party for a co-worker using company funds. When he is inevitably caught, his talent for lying is revealed and becomes his saving grace as well as his downfall. His boss decides that, instead of going to prison, an apt punishment for Adam will be forcing him into a high-paying job at a competitor's company with the aim of discovering the details of a top-secret project. Soon Adam is living the high life, complete with a six-figure salary, a $90,000 car and a beautiful girlfriend. Eventually exhaustion and his conscience begin to get to him, resulting in a novel that ends with a surprisingly enjoyable twist. 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