Tuesday, August 17, 2010

Generation gaps and stuff...

I had to put a parental block on my phone...to protect me from myself.

I had a mysterious $9.99 charge on my cell phone bill this month...for something called "Jamster." I have no idea what that is and definitely didn't intend to buy/subscribe to it. So I called customer service, told the very helpful woman on the other end of the line that I had no idea what Jamster is, and she canceled the subscription and credited my account. How cool is that?

The best I can figure is that my phone, which I keep in my work bag and which occasionally turns itself on, must be the culprit. There have been times that I take it out of my bag and find that it has gone online or something. (See, I don't even know the terminology!) The customer service rep explained, "Well usually you have to confirm those kinds of purchases on the phone's screen." I am sure she was right--I just happened to be unfortunate enough to have the random moves and jostling of my bag click "confirm" before I realized the darn thing was even turned on.

I confessed to the customer service rep that it was probably (although indirectly) something that I did, but she still credited my account. That made me happy. Go AT&T wireless!

Then, to prevent it from happening again, she put that parental control block on the phone so that I can't purchase anything over the phone. So I am all protected...from myself.

I am so not part of the texting generation. (But that doesn't mean I don't still covet an iPhone.)

Speaking of generation gaps, I posted this link on Facebook this morning and it's gotten tons of responses, so it must have touched a nerve. My initial reactions: the Buffy reference (#6) is a weird one--why refer to the movie, not the show? Also, #4 made me laugh out loud, #19 is kind of poetic, #32 is just weird, #46 is cringe-inducing, and #49 is all kinds of awesome.

About the Buffy movie thing, I get that it's probably included because the movie came out in 1992, the same year most of these freshman were born (!), but the movie references (Hemery High and Lothos) are pretty obscure compared to the show's references.

1 comment:

Kate said...

I especially agree with # 32 being weird. Good, but weird.