Worst of the Week: The scarlet cellphone

Hello!
And welcome to our Thursday column, Worst of the Week. There’s a lot of nutty stuff that goes on in this industry, so this column is a chance for us at RCR Wireless News to rant and rave about whatever rubs us the wrong way. We hope you enjoy it!
And without further ado:
So I have a friend who doesn’t have a cellphone. I have no idea how to communicate with him. I mean, how do you get in touch with someone who doesn’t have a cellphone? It’s virtually impossible.
See, he used to have a cellphone for a while, but he never did get the hang of it. Then he broke it, and that was that. (He’s British, and I think this simple fact explains much of the problem.) He’s got an answering machine at his house, but he seems to check it only every once and a while, if at all.
How should we as a society deal with these kinds of people?
I have equal difficulties communicating with my own parents. Although they do own a cellphone, my father is convinced that it won’t work if he leaves it on; thus, it remains off unless he needs to make a call. This makes it impossible to communicate with my parents when they’re away from their house, which is a fair amount of the time.
The best part is that my father never did set up the voicemail feature on his cellphone, so it actually is impossible to leave him a message. Classic.
Anyway, my point is that people without cellphones should be ostracized from society. I know this sounds harsh, but I believe it is necessary, mainly for my peace of mind.
I also think people without cellphones should be forced to identify themselves, maybe with a red “C” painted on their shirt or something. Yup, that would be awesome.
Thus, I fully applaud various carriers’ efforts to target new segments of the market. Verizon Wireless’ “Coupe” phone (that one for old people) and the Firefly phone for kids are excellent ways of expanding the market. But I think this is only the start.
We also need cellphones that are the size of bricks and can hold a charge for 30 or maybe 40 days. I know my parents actually would be happier with an enormous brick phone instead of that skinny little bar phone they’ve got now.
I also think we need an “idiot-proof” phone for all the people out there who are unreasonably scared by the combination of a cellphone and a digital camera. This “idiot-proof” phone would have huge buttons and be made out of aircraft-grade aluminum, and it wouldn’t do anything else but make and receive calls. (Also, the “send” key would not say “send,” because that’s dumb. Instead, it would say “press here to place all” or something easier to understand.)
Finally, we definitely need a cellphone for people with British accents, one that would translate English into British: “I’ll meet you at the store” would turn into “Bloody bollocks cheeky bloke cod” or whatever.
As you can tell, I’m full of good ideas.
OK! Enough of that. Thanks for checking out this Worst of the Week column. And now, some extras:
–Mobile game-maker Glu announced a new offering just in time for the presidential campaign season: “White House Rumble.” In the game you get to play as George Bush, Dick Cheney (complete with undershirt tan and hunting rifle), Hilary Clinton, Rudy Giuliani, Al Gore or Barack Obama (with sparkling white gloves and shorts). Anyway, here’s all I have to say about this: No Larry Craig?
–Leap and MetroPCS have gotten into a war of words over Metro’s attempts to merge with Leap. Seems Leap is none too happy with Metro’s offer and the carrier’s performance. Just a note to you all: I’m available for a multibillion-dollar merger. Anytime.
–Sprint Nextel included the phrase “the iPhone is so last week” in some of the marketing materials it used to advertise the new Moto Razr2, implying that the Razr2 is more advanced than the iPhone. Having tried out both the AT&T iPhone and the Sprint Razr2, I can officially laugh at this marketing ploy with sarcastic irony. In fact, other than the external music keys and the stereo Bluetooth, I had a hard time figuring out what the difference was between the Razr2 and the original Razr.
I welcome your comments. Please send me an e-mail at mdano@crain.com.