2004-06-08 - 9:46 p.m.

whoooooooo is it?

You know... I can't help it. I just love Miss Manners.

Portions of her column from yesterday, reprinted completely without permission... but with total credit and all copyrights intact...

"Hello" ... contains no information. Two people who cannot see each other exchange hellos, without enlightening the caller about who has picked up the telephone or the person called about who is calling.

[T]he outrageous idea that no one should be out of reach continues to hound people who do not yet have cellular telephones, or, even more provocatively, have them but occasionally turn them off.

Meanwhile, caller identification systems have come along. These not only assist those called in knowing whether the call is one they need to take at the moment, but solve the "hello" problem on one side, at least, by indicating who has called.

This unnerves many callers, Miss Manners has been told. Used to the preliminaries of guessing, they resent being greeted by name. She suggests they get over it. Nobody is more devoted to tradition than she, but there are situations in which a tradition that was originally flawed should be replaced by a sensible one.

People should surely be able to know, before they commit themselves to chatting, who it is who wants to chat. Hello?

Here's the link if you want to read the whole thing.

I turn my cell phone off sometimes - and not just when I'm supposed to, like at concerts and on airplanes. Sometimes when I just personally decide I don't need to be reachable at the moment. I do know this annoys some people. I would also like to suggest they get over it. I sometimes screen, too - shocking, I know. And yet I took a call from my boss on Sunday morning, even knowing who it was. See? I'm responsible and all that. Sometimes.

I was SO tired today. Got back about 2:30 yesterday afternoon and went right in to work for a few hours... see how dedicated I am?

my mood -

the mood of the whole world wide bleepin' web -