kay, so I’ve got a flip phone. Yes, I’ve taken a lot of crap for it, the whole dinosaur thing. Ironically, they are making a come-back – people realize how invasive and consuming immediate internet gratification can be. It turns you into a drone.

Now, my flip has its own problems – I keep it in my front right pocket – I can just get it in there with my keys and wallet (the left front pocket has my pocket watch – an old staple). But the problem with that is that there are some critical buttons on the outside, like that control volume and automatically hang up. So often I find that I’ve accidentally muted the phone (missing critical calls) or rudely hung up on people. This is a major design stupidity – it’s as dumb as those Japanese mecha anime things, where you have a massive robot with a cockpit for a head. Seems like an Achilles Brain-pan  idea – that you just smash the pilot and the robot is done – sorta a Rockum-Sockum Robot thing.

Whatever.

But I was thinking about paperbacks the other day – all my old ones will fit into my back pocket. But all new paperbacks are oversized so as to take up shelf/attention space. My own Early Retirement is also that way – at least I’ll admit to it. But now you gotta figure another way to carry a book around. Not that that is a problem for most people – they get around it by not reading and being stupid.

So, Iphones. How do you carry these things around? They won’t easily fit into your pocket (put them in your back pocket and someone will either pickpocket it or you’ll sit on it and break it). I know there were some early ideas of belt pouches that died an early acceptance death. So, what, you plan to carry your phone around in your hand for the rest of your life? And at a table with friends, you have to set it on the table because there is nowhere else to put it (all the while looking like a cellphone junkie asshat, staged so you can accept a better conversation than the one at the table?).

Really, when out for a bike ride along the trail, literally everyone I see is (a) carrying a phone or (b) talking on a phone. There is nowhere else to carry it and man, being a tool user, feels the need to use any tool in his hand (everything looks like a nail, right?).

So as I understand it, you are willing to carry a plastic slab with you for years and years, wherever you go? Do I have that right?

Strange.

>>>I MENTIONED EARLY RETIREMENT BUT THERE ARE OTHER BOOKS I’VE WRITTEN, TOO. CHECK THEM OUT DOWN THIS LINK!<<<