The Facetime Horror Show

My new iPhone 4s arrived Monday and I've been having fun setting it up, getting things transferred over from my old iPhone 3 and trying out the new features.  Let me just say right now that I LOVE Siri.  FINALLY I have somebody I can boss around who actually will listen to me, even if she IS an artifical intelligence "person."

After I finished my phone activation, I decided to take my iPhone out for a "test run", so to speak.  I called my brother.

"Hey, John,  I'm calling you from my new iPhone," I gloated.

"Cool," he replied.  "Hey, doesn't it have Facetime?  We could try using that."

"OK, hang on, " I said, as I searched the call screen for the icon, "Let me switch over to it."

Sure enough, up popped my face in a little window and the phone indicated that it was trying to connect to my brother but no picture was coming up.  We fiddled around with our phones, talking all the while on them, trying to figure out what we were doing wrong.

"Hey, remember that YouTube video I sent you of that old couple trying to figure out how to use their computer's webcam?" I asked him.  He laughed.  "I sure hope these phones aren't recording us."

"Oh, maybe I have to click on the 'Accept' button," he said.  Up popped his face.

"Jeez," I said.  "Where ARE you?"

"I'm in my computer room but it's pretty dark in here," he answered.

"I'll say," I laughed.  "All I can see is a floating head.  You look like that host of the old Saturday afternoon horror show we used to watch on TV when we were kids."

"Maybe this will help," he said, as he reached up to turn on a light he had hooked to his computer monitor.

"Aargh, turn it off," I chuckled.  His receding hairline made the glare on his forehead blinding.

"Sheesh, I can see you but I can barely see me on this phone.  I'm in this little box up in the corner, " I said, as I  took off my glasses and leaned closer to get a better look.  "Holy s___! Is that what I look like?  Look at the bags under those eyes!  I could fit a whole sale at Macy's in those."

We spent the next 5 minutes amusing ourselves making faces at each other via Facetime.  Ain't technology grand?

"Hey, what's this little camera icon down here in the corner?  Maybe I can take a picture of you on the screen like I can when I'm Skyping," I mused aloud.  I pressed the icon.  Suddenly I was looking at my tablecloth.

"Whoops, that must activate the camera on the back of the phone," I told John.

"Hey, neat," he said.  "Do you still have snow there?  You could show me."

We spent the next 5 minutes aiming our phones at different views in our houses.

Our fun was interrupted when he had to cut the conversation short to leave for an appointment.  Gee, and we were having so much fun.  Just think of all the great moments of sister-brother bonding we've been missing without Facetime.  Until next time......