Breaking Cat News by Georgia Dunn for June 02, 2022

How many landlines do the People have?

Me! With an answering machine. I believe in two or more baskets for my eggs.

Poor old (or old-fashioned) Elvis.

Actually I have more than one working landline phone myself, as does my mom. If you’re still going to have a landline, why not have several extentions?

Elvis, try carrying it around.

There is no use trying to make Elvis use his new, app loaded cell phone when he has a perfectly good land line, Beatrix……

Beatrix can text folks, with those big paws of hers?

I love her, but I know I can’t text without a stylus with my sausage fingers, so I am not saying this to be mean.

Wow! A wild rotary phone in its natural habitat! What a rare sight!

I love Elvis’s expressions in the first two panels. I don’t like to lose what I’m comfortable with either. But I do like my smartphone too. I’m into adding the new without subtracting the old.

O.T. Summer

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XU3qfDtWFmk&t=11s

The only time I’ve ever been around a rotary phone (I fall into the dread generation Millennial) was the archive I worked at in graduate school as a page. My job was to go into the wilds of the closed stacks and fetch stuff, including the…under-renovated…fourth floor. There was a very real possibility, every time I went up there, that the elevator wasn’t going to make it back down, and there was no reliable cell service in there. (Big, solid building.)

There was, however, a landline with a rotary phone. To call for help with, just in case we poor pages got stranded up there.

…good luck, college students!

(It never happened, and I could have made the phone work if I’d absolutely needed to.)

I am a bit worried Elvis might poke his eye out.

Aw, Elvis. You still have that phone. And now you have a second one, that your best kitten Beatrix set up specifically for you, thinking of you…

…and that I’m sure she’s not going to use to send you memes you don’t understand. Not at all. Never once.

Elvis, I am with you. I have all of the modern gadgets, apps, etc., too much social media. Give me a break. I just want to be able to email and sometimes text, if I have to. If family sends me Facebook family pictures or updates, I will accept them, but you can spend all day on the various programs and get nothing done.

Beatrix, tell Elvis it’s time to retire since the new station tech is beyond him. Three… two… one, Elvis texts her.

It’s a sort of clock, Beatrix. Look at the numbers. Here, I’ll write down how to use it. In cursive.

Elvis’ phone seems to have eleven holes.

I love that second panel! I get it Elvis! If you weren’t supposed to text with it, why did it have all those letters above the numbers? (Would you believe that local numbers started with GA for Garfield?)

Original area codes were based on the speed of dialing a rotary phone. The major cities (NYC, Chicago, LA, …) were assigned the quickest ones such as 212, 312, 213, … Places like Albuquerque (808?) and Michigan’s Upper Peninsula (906, God’s area code) took the longest. With the advent of pagers and faxes, the middle digit expanded beyond 1 and 0 while the physical areas shrank. When mobile phones hit, pow! Overlays came into being.

Oh, Elvis’s expressive ears! <3 <3 <3

I’m with you all the way, Elvis❤️

OT Elvis has gotten into my brain. I read the Qs and As and still can’t figure out how to add Texts from Mittens. Please, can anyone be a dear Beatrix and help me out?

Beatrix’s paw on her forehead…..Now where have I seen that gesture? Oh yea, my kids…..

Elvis is a Luddite.

OMC, Elvis in that second panel! My heart breaks.

come on Elvis, if anycat can it’s you ❤️❤️❤️

Beatrix toe beans!

Squeeeee!

Awww Elvis is a technophobe. I am a bit of one myself.

Recently my 2 daughters (19 & 21) were playing with the landline in a hotel. One tried to call the other on her cell. I said it is a long distance call. She said no it is not. She is standing right here! I’m not letting her live that one down for a while.

What I find more frustrating than cell phones, is how complicated watching TV has become, not to mention expensive. Right now I have satellite. Next year I am considering going more with streaming, but there are so many options it’s overwhelming. We also record a lot of shows, how will that work? Ughhh, gives me anxiety!

I’m with Elvis – until it stops working, you’d have to pry my landline out of my cold paw.

From the late great Jim Croce: Operator

Operator, can you help me send a text?

I have this new phone and can’t use it.

I’ve been trying for a while, and it doesn’t want to dial,

Just ten more minutes and I’ll get through yet!

…….

I’d just like to let this newfangled thing go!

And forget about that,

Just place my call if you have the number

I would do just fine with a dial,

I’ve learned to do that well

Learning to use this new thing is simply pure heck

Bea said it was easy, but that’s not the way it feels!

…….

Operator, let’s just forget about this text,

I can just dial and talk to the others

I’ll just have to see

If I can get some help from Bea,

I need a cup of tea!

…….

I’d just like to let this newfangled thing go!

And forget about that,

Just place my call if you have the number

I would do just fine with a dial,

I’ve learned to do that well

Learning to use this new thing is simply pure heck

Bea said it was easy, but that’s not the way it feels!

I don’t know … somehow I think Elvis may become a convert to the new technology. And possibly drive his station mates batty with his selfies, social media posts, internet searches. Until the novelty wears off or they take the phone from him!

Continued technological improvement does not eliminate problems, it just changes them.

That’s right, Elvis. Who needs texting when you have a phone that takes a solid minute to dial seven numbers? I’m sure in his mind the rotary phone is the most dignified of all, but honestly neither of them should know what one is since they went out of fashion in the 1990s.

Elvis is a cat after my own heart. I love my landline!

Poor Elvis! Change is hard!

Love Beatrix’s paw to the forehead.

Wow! I haven’t seen a rotary phone since I was a kid/teenager. And I love the look on Elvis` face. And I have both a cell and landline. I don’t have voice mail on my cell phone, so I tell everyone to leave a voice email at home.

Who remembers the glee of finding a store selling a long cord? I pace while I talk on a phone and that little 2’ length drove me batty.

OT: The old bear…

Perhaps Bea can get Elvis a sterling silver telephone dialer from Tiffany’s.

I just sent this to a coworker and asked if it resembled anyone we know – and he agreed it was a perfect representation of my boss, who refused to get a smartphone forever (he was in his 30s, this isn’t an “old guy confused by technology” thing), and then once he finally had one, did not upgrade it for six more years. Also for a long time he carried it around in a ziplock bag “so it wouldn’t get wet.”

Off-Topic

Bea, that IS a phone. The “phone” you’re thinking of is more accurately a compressed computer that just comes preinstalled with a phone app. ;)

That’s a rotary phone

Maybe it’s because I’m on the lower end of the “old person” scale (GenX) and I grew up around computers and other technology, but I really don’t share this nostalgia for landlines. I grew up dreaming of the day when I could get in touch with someone when needed without being tethered to a wired phone or needing to hunt down a pay phone. (The fact that I once missed out on a date because of a miscommunication that could’ve been easily resolved in the age of cell phones has nothing to do with this.)

.

I also don’t run into problems with social media because I choose not to use those apps.

Meanwhile, Back on the Nile

Elvis-Anum: Lupinium, these cases are not play toys. Her Majesty gave us a gift of portable writing implements and papyrus for more effective communications.

Lupinium: But this case is so much fun to bat around the floor.

Elvis-Anum: That may be. But open it up, and there are so many things to use. Ink, pens, papyrus.

Lupinium: You’re right. I never realized there are so many things to play with.

Elvis-Anum: (Oh well, maybe he’ll get the hang of it).

Sometime Later

Elvis-Anum: So, Lupinium. Are you using your communication case?

Lupinium: Sure am. I’ve paw-painted these papyri, and shredded these. And the pens are perfect for chasing across the floor.

Elvis-Anum: Whatever floats your reed boat.

“It can text if I say it can!!” Mind over matter or in some cases, delusion over reality!

This is so… beautiful!

I wonder is Beatrix is polydactyl or is just extremely (and attractively cute) furry pawed. I have 2 kitty brothers who carry the gene. One, Oliver, has huge extra toes with enlarged claws on his front paws. SOOO kissable. His brother, Tyler, has only some enlarged claws on his front paws. Neither boy likes when I clip their claws, especially the enlarged claws.

I suspect the People have those old phones hooked up via one of these gadgets:

https://www.dialgizmo.com/how_it_works.html

Elvis’ expressions in the first two panels—how can one not sympathize?

Me loved them rotary dial phones (even though we never owns one). They has a certain style and class.

Oh look, Elvis has unearthed an ancient relic.

Cats are in part tiny dragons. Never try to take from the dragon’s horde! Items may only leave when they are abandoned with disdain.

It pains me to see Elvis devastated.

What’s so great about texting?

OMC Elbiss is in a dire strait!

Elvis reminds me of my Mother, God rest her soul, she did not like change, she once shouted that she was NOT going to learn the metric system even if they came and took away all of her measuring cups.

He lost with tech before

Got mad and closed the door

But Bea said try just once more

Your phone time’s just begun

You’ll be having so much fun

He’s not the tech-y kind

He’s about to lose his mind

Tech makes him feel very crappy

He’s so sad it came into his life

He likes the tried and true

So when it comes to somethin’ new

It takes nine lives gettin’ into

‘Cause he feels it’ll take control

And crush his very soul

Life always showed him that

Curiosity can kill a cat

He thinks tech is very crappy

He’s not glad it came into his life

No thank you baby

Nope nope nope

- Brenda Holloway, Patrice Holloway, Frank Wilson and Berry Gordy – You’ve Made Me So Very Happy – Blood, Sweat & Tears

They used to make phone dialer pens and mechanical pencils.

Texting does not make a phone a phone.

The power just went out here. Not a cloud in the sky and I paid the power bill 2 days ago. I called power company and apparently I’m not the only one out here without power. They say they’re working on it. In the meantime I’m catching up here.

Speaking of phones; it is so nice to have a phone not connected to the electric power lines. I don’t have landline, it was costing me sixty bucks a month when I can’t hear (I can hear, just can’t understand what is being said, I read lips) on it anyways. It might be good for emergencies, but for sixty bucks a month??!! No way!

I love having a cellphone. I can receive text messages on it from family and friends. With my Close Captioning app for making calls, I was able to call power company to find out what is going with the power outage and there is NO storm here. I’m still sitting in the dark, 30 minutes later……

HeeHaw…..power just came back!

One of the engineers at work has a ring tone for his cellphone that is the sound of the old phone bell ringing. It’s very distinctive.

It was bad in the early days of the cellphone “fad” :) because all phones rang the same, which resulted in considerable confusion at interrupted meetings.

Poor Elvis.

Elvis is definitely my brother. His wife was slowly bringing him into the 1990s, but she sadly passed away last year and now he’s stuck there.

Coming back through the time machine to say Elvis’ phone looks just like the old WQAX phone. After the station shut down, it became my personal desk phone. I still have it someplace.