A couple of weeks ago, when my cell phone (endearingly named Dino, since it was probably manufactured during the Jurassic Period) finally went kaput, I sprang for one of those nifty phones with the keyboard - for optimal texting, as the salesperson put it. Since I’d been growing increasingly fond of texting, I figured the keyboard feature would make sending out messages more convenient. But little did I know that I was about to go from casual messenger to a total texting addict.

Yes, I admit it. I really, really like to text. I do it all the time: under the table at restaurants, during the previews of movies. Sometimes I even stop in transit to send out a text (I don’t have the hand-eye coordination to walk and text at the same time. Not yet, at least). While I try not to be rude with my texting, I can’t help but love this new development in communication.

But before you condemn me to the ring of hell reserved for the intellectually degenerating and socially awkward teenage population, hear me out. As an aspiring writer and self-proclaimed grammar Nazi, there are some lines I refuse to cross when it comes to texting. I never use abbreviations, except for the occasional “lol.” With my old phone, that made writing out one text an all-day affair, but with my handy keyboard, it’s a snap. And that annoying, pointless one-word text that makes you want to reach into your phone and punch the person who sent it? I won’t send it. Ever. I get way too many of them as it is; I won’t subject any of my friends to that type of agony.

My reason for texting is restricted to simple convenience. Read More »

Apparently the Teen Choice Awards were on last night, or something? Yeah, we didn’t know either. But here are some people dressed up for it.

This is what $14 Million looks like. (Funny, I thought there would be more gold….)

Is my iPhone really killing me?

Thank God for CollegeCandy, especially now that our favorite magazine is folding.

People say my standards are too high, but would do date this man?

Sleeping in until noon is not bad; it makes you smarter!

Paris Hilton’s mama fights back against John McCain. Looks like the Repubs lost a little financing, eh?

Sexual harrassment is A-OK. In fact, it is necessary for the future of our species. Duh.

Please, Tyra. PLEASE. Don’t ruin this election for the rest of us.

Are you a nailbiter? Smoker? “Like” sayer? Quit that nasty habit overnight!

Don’t mess with Tracy Turnblatt. Fo real.

If there’s one thing I’ve learned in college, it’s that half of the contacts in my phone are people I don’t know. I may have known them for the length of a drink or a line outside my favorite bar, but memory fades with last call.

In any case, what makes the randoms in my phone stand out is how they’re entered as a contact… affectionately re-named, if you will.

We all do it, and I really do lament my memory slipping, but as I was going through my contacts list the other day, I couldn’t help but crack up at some of the best names I found in my phone. After which I was reminded of some of the better names and numbers taken down by some of my friends.

With no further ado, the best contacts I completely forgot about, and you likely have in your phone too (please note that actual names have been changed on the off chance any of these people remember exchanging numbers with me or my friends):

1. John Cinco de Mayo
Ah, yes, you remember the Cinco de Mayo story. What a glorious and drunken event. He’s still in my phone, identified by when I met him. This can also occur with cities and venues as well (see below)… Read More »

My phone is ringing. Again. And again. And again. At 4 a.m. my ex calls, just to shoot the breeze. I have to get up for work in three hours! The six missed calls earlier were not one, not two or three, but four different friends calling to find out what I was doing that evening and if I wanted to go out for drinks.

This is not a weekend.
This is a Wednesday night.

It seems the time has come to prune some extraneous leaves on the branches of my social tree. My phonebook now includes some names to which I cannot even match the slightest hint of a face.

I have now reached the stage where I can answer the question, “So what are you up to tonight?” with, “Oh nothing,” and invariably end up somewhere loud at three in the morning stumbling into a dirty bathroom and incessantly repeating the line that never fails to impress: “I have work in the morning! I can’t believe that I am out doing this!” Read More »

Remember back when your parents met? How did your parents meet, anyway? Mine worked at the same ad agency and had a number of mutual friends. They courted the good old-fashioned way, with phone calls and dinner dates.

Wait a second, though—isn’t that still the way people do it?

What with your iPod in your left hand, your BlackBerry in your right hand, your laptop spread out in front of you, and your cell phone plastered to your ear, it seems a little weird to imagine dating without the technology of today.

But when you think about it, the dating of today is really just the same as the dating of pre-technology. Maybe it’s just because I never have the latest gadgets and I try to avoid logging into my Facebook account whenever possible, but I really don’t think it’s necessary to electronically “poke” my love interest or text “OMG U=SO GR8 LAST NITE!” to my boyfriend’s cell phone. Call me old-fashioned, but I actually find it annoying when my relationship becomes entangled with technology.

There have to be other people out there who feel that way. I mean, yeah, it can be nice to stalk your crush in a nonthreatening way by reading up on the interests they list in an online profile—but wouldn’t it be better to, say, ask that person out for coffee and chat about hobbies over a caramel latté, face to face? Or is that just too much to ask? Read More »

It happens every year. School ends, your lease runs its course and its time to pack up all your sh*t and move out. In doing so, you discover things you haven’t seen since the day you moved in: that old camera (filed with embarrassing photos from that frat party during welcome week), the cell phone you dropped in the toilet and all those empty printer cartridges from finals first semester.

You consider selling everything on Craigslist… or you could just toss that crap in a hefty bag and leave it for the management company to tow away to the nearest landfill. You’d choose number two, didn’t you? Well, Al Gore would be quite upset with you, Captain Contaminator.

Read More »

Welcome to my new weekly rant. There are too many things we encounter in our every day routines that in reality, if we all quit doing them, would make life a whole let better. Then I wouldn’t walk around all the time rolling my eyes and thinking (often times out loud): “Puh-lease is that really necessary?” (Hence the title of my column)

So each week I will feature something new that we really could all live without. Consider it a lesson in public manners. Your mother will thank me… and you should too.

This week: People who talk (often way to loudly) on their cell phones while at the gym.

Okay people are we for serious here? How am I supposed to lip-synch along with Umbrella-ella-ella if all I hear coming through my headphones OVER my music is:

“No way!! She did? Wow well Jenny got that top two months ago”.

Seriously people, if you can talk that fast while on the elliptical, you probably aren’t exerting your maximum workout potential. So why even bother? Save yourself some energy and go gab with that friend on the other end of the phone over a big brownie sundae. Leave me to workout in peace.

Really I simply don’t get it. You workout for what, like mayyybe an hour a day and you can’t stay away from your cell phone? Read More »

So by now you’ve read or at least heard of the two books He’s Just Not That Into You and It’s Called a Breakup Because It’s Broken. Well one of the authors, Greg Behrendt, has some hilariously funny downloadable ringtones on his personal website. These are no ordinary ringtones…they’re meant to be set in your phone as the personal ringtone for that special a-hole that you KNOW is bad for you but you can’t seem to shake.

My personal favorite is called “Booty Call” and it’s a recording of Greg singing “Guess who’s drunk and phoning again, it’s me, it’s me…guess who’s drunk and phoning again at quarter to three…AM…in the morning…don’t do it! It’s a booty call! Don’t do it…”

Then there’s also “Let It Go to Voicemail” and “Delete It.” Perfect for when you know you need some extra reassurance as to why you shouldn’t pick up when that phone starts ringing and you know the person calling is B-A-D bad news. Shear genius.

I think we’re all at a point in our lives where an instant without our beloved cell pieces gives us some serious anxiety. I mean, what if that cute guy from my senior seminar sends me a text? I’d totally die if I missed him. Or what if there’s an insanely funny photo op and I can’t whip out my camera phone? That would suck. But what if, I reallllly needed to get in touch with someone in an emergency?

Obviously, every student on Virgina Tech’s campus had their trusty Motorola’s, LG’s and Samsung’s on hand Monday. Victims were able to warn fellow students of the shooter, his location, his appearace … They were even able to contact their parents and friends to say goodbye, or alert them to the fortunate fact that they were okay. And some even took the time to take camera pics and videos of what was going down. Read More »

As if we didn’t have enough to worry about these days. As if global warming and high gas prices and the war in Iraq and the possible disappearance of polar bears and rapid growth of Al Gore’s stomach wasn’t enough to make us want to hide under the covers until it was all over, apparently we are now killing bees everywhere with our CELL PHONES.

I’m not sure if you heard, but bees ain’t nowhere to be found these days. According to the above mentioned independent UK article, since last year “the West Coast is thought to have lost 60 per cent of its commercial bee population, with 70 per cent missing on the East Coast”. 60 per cent of our freaking bees are gone! They just up and disappeared, and for a while no one had any idea why. Read More »