Watch it at Home

Cinemas around the world are now providing lounge chair type seating for their customers, presumably for two reasons: firstly, their old style seating, where you were often jostling elbows with other customers wasn’t comfortable, and there was seldom enough room for people with long legs. Secondly, many people feel more comfortable in their own lounge at home, watching a DVD – even more so if they have surround sound and all the trappings such as a wide screen.
The problem for cinema owners is that it is more comfortable in your own home. You can stop the DVD any time you like and go to the loo, or make a cup of tea, or answer the phone. You can even keep your cellphone on. If the children fall asleep, you don’t have to miss half the movie; you can leave them where they are, or shuffle them off to bed and come back for the rest of the movie later. In line with the comfort aspect, some companies now make home theater seating, the sort of seating that even the luxury cinemas don’t provide. Full on armchairs, that can be swivelled to suit how you want to sit, and on top of these, a whole range of accessories for people who are mad enough to pay for things around the house, but not keen to pay ordinary cinema prices!

The joys of cellphones

There was a time when I wouldn’t have bothered with a cellphone. I’ve probably mentioned this before, in fact. My wife seems to be forever buying herself a new one, on the other hand, and I don’t know how many she’s gone through since the craze started. There was the one she dropped in the toilet, for instance, plus the others that just decided to die on her. Cellphones don’t seem blessed with longevity, to my way of thinking. I suspect they have an inbuilt use-by-date, so that the companies can sell you the next and most exciting kind. The last one my wife had took photos, and she was forever snapping something or other – until it died. To her considerable distress, I must add, since she was forced to downgrade, due to lack of finances, and be content – if that was the word for the occasion! – with the same cheap model as mine. At least now we can help each other out if something mysterious occurs; and that too, seems a feature of cellphones. You can work your way through the booklet until you’re blue in the face, but some unknown facet of the phone’s capability will suddenly come to the fore and do something you didn’t expect: like turn the sound off, for instance.
We’ve nearly always used the pre-paid approach - although not every other member of the family has, sometimes to their joy and sometimes to their distress. I’m yet to be convinced that there’s any better way, and I see that a site called Wirefly recommends the prepaid phonetoo, for good reasons. They encourage us on their site to buy as you go, which I assume is similar to the system available here: you pay some money down, and then use it up. (Usually it’s a minimum of twenty dollars, but every so often the company gets generous and gives you a free top-up.) the credit card approach to having a cellphone, where you are charged after the event, seems fraught with peril to me, particularly since cellphone companies here are forever encouraging you to text until your thumbs fall off. Personally I don’t always find the thumb the best digit to tackle the tiny keys on a cellphone with: my are too stubby, for some reason. And if cellphones get any smaller, not even my little finger will be of use!

I've just discovered there are such things as self-sterilising cellphones. There's one Korean phone that attacks pathogens and promotes deodorisation by using a single nanometer-thick coating of silver particles. Hmmm, have you noticed your cellphone smelling?

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An Overgrowth of Words

I had a thought to go through this blog and check out how many words are new – or new in their current usage - and wouldn’t have been around three decades ago. Obviously the Internet is one, and email, but how many other words have arrived on the scene recently? Cellphone, the current use of ‘avatar’, the already-acceptable ‘phishing’, as well as vishing, fuzzing and a new use of zombies.
DVD is another, forum in its current use as a place for people to write on the Net. Blogs and bloggers, links, web development, and a host of other web add-ons (and add-ons itself), Wiki and Wikipedia, .com, online, video, download, software, ecommerce, connectivity, handsfree… the list goes on and on. And that’s just from a quick flick through my recent posts.

Smaller and smaller cellphones

My kids and my wife have always been enthusiasts for the latest in cellphones – and they’re constantly taking pictures on them, as well as short videos. I’m still in the basic cellphone mode, because it’s taken me a while to be bothered with having a cellphone, and all I really need one for is a bit of communication now and then. Such as when the car stops in the middle of nowhere, as it did when we were travelling to Christchurch the other day. One minute going fine, next minute going nowhere.
My daughter tells me the Motorola Z3 is commonly called The Razor (based on the initials RIZR). It’s razor thin, amongst things, and it has – well, I don’t know what it doesn’t have. A click flick through the list tells me there’s Bluetooth wireless technology, colour screen, data capability, email connectivity, handsfreeability, MP3 player usability, and voice dialability. Why would you go anywhere else? as the ad (for something else) goes.
And of course, most important of all – for some people – you can get stylish ring tones, and groovy screen tattoos. (Screen tattoos? Oh, will you get with it! They’re like tattoos that you’d have on your body except that you have them on your screen. It’s obvious.)
Ring tonability and screen tattooability. And did I mention it’s razor thinability, too?

You can buy the Motorola MOTOKRZR online, wherever you are.

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