Can You Hear Me Now?

I was sitting in the recliner yesterday knitting away when my iPhone started playing "Gasoline and Matches" and my brother's picture popped up on the screen.  I always get a laugh when I hear that song because my brother and I are SUCH opposites in many ways and we do mix about as well as gasoline and matches sometimes.  Yet in many ways we are quite similar.  We are both very compulsive people.  We suspect that we are the only ones who have the correct answer on a lot of things.  We can even be pretty obsessive, too.  When we get together, we're loud, we tease, we laugh, and we don't hesitate to disagree.   Bottom line - we're siblings who love each other, quirks and all.

So the phone rang and I answered it with a "What's up?"

"Well, I got an iPhone," replied my brother.

"That's great," I answered.  "You're going to love it."

"I don't know," he said.  "I can't see the screen."

"What do you mean, you can't see the screen," I quizzed.  "You mean you can't read the icons?"

"No, I can't read the posts on Facebook, " he replied.  "I could read the screen on my Blackberry but I can't see this screen without putting my reading glasses on."

I asked him if he had tried expanding areas of the screen with his fingers or if he'd turned the phone on its side and yes, he'd tried all of that but just couldn't seem to get used to it and apparently didn't want to have to admit that his eyes were needing reading glasses now.

"Hey, John,' I teased.  "Looks like you're just getting old.  Your eyes aren't what they used to be.  Better get those reading glasses out."

Just then the phone went dead.  I tried to call him back several times but couldn't connect with him.  Then I noticed that I had a message in my voicemail.  I checked it out and heard this message:

"Um, Dee...this is embarrassing but I heard you call back and I can't figure out how to answer the phone."

When we finally reconnected on the phone, I gave him a good ribbing about being such an old fogey that he couldn't even figure out how to answer a cell phone.  Actually, I could sympathize with him.  Some years ago, the Commander and I had been in a mall on Black Friday with new cell phones and my sister-in-law had called me and neither one of us could figure out how to answer my phone.  We actually went into a store and asked a clerk if they could figure it out.

I told my brother that I'd email him with a list of the iPhone apps that I had on my phone and ones that were highly recommended in different magazines that I subscribe to.  I'm always researching new apps for my phone and being the researcher that I am, this is an assignment right up my alley.

In fact, I just downloaded a new iPhone app called "autoringtone" that supposedly has lots of different voices and effects that you can program to say whatever you type in and then you can assign these customized sayings to different contacts for their ringtones.  Oh, boy....this could be fun.  I plan to spend some time this afternoon playing with this new app and then I'll come up with a new ringtone for that brother of mine.  Hmmm,wouldn't it be fun if I could remotely program HIS iPhone to play one of my customized ringtones when I call?  Heh, heh, heh!