i'm getting a landline!

whatever happened to portable phones? they all look like honda civics now

wecome to the party

God I hate my landline. I freak out totally whenever it rings.

I've been answering my landline lately if it rings too many times. I make creepy noises by rubbing my beard on the mouthpiece until whoever it is hangs up.

I live with my brother and he gives out our landline number to all his friends. I don't know what's wrong with him.

i'm so fucking excited

God I hate my landline. I freak out totally whenever it rings.

― I wish to incorporate disco into my small business (chap),

Mine is my work phone, so about 95% of my incoming calls are something I don't want to do or something I don't want to hear.

The only thing I use my landline for now is my internet connection, so 95% of the time any actual calls are from telemarketeers.

You're on dial-up?

No, out-in-the-sticks broadband over a BT landline.

maintaining a landline is almost worth it just to give something to people you don't ever want to talk to

co-worker: iced tea and cocoa in the conference room
ILXor: yeah, I'd like to suck on some of that!
*Disconnected*
*Attempting to reconnect*
*Attempting to reconnect*
*Attempting to reconnect*
*Connection failed*

so many companies have my dormant home number that i've lost count, and if it's urgent they can send me an email xp

I don't even get real flesh and blood telemarketers calling my landline, just robots. I think the primary purpose of us having it is so we can call our mobiles if we lose them.

I still pay for a landline! I like the security in hurricane-prone Flo-ree-da.

I use Google Voice for my work calls and have it routed to my cell phone. that way my client doesn't know my real number, and I can turn off the auto-routing at the end of the day so they can't be calling me at 9 pm (and I get notification of any voicemails.

My landline is solely for my house alarm. We switched off the ringer on the handset, but it rings through the stupid alarm keypad. This is why I just let the thing ring and ring and ring.

i'm gonna have a rotary phone in the kitchen, my mother in law has one

I sometimes enjoy kicking back on my landline.

xp You should get one that hangs on the wall, and has a curly handset cable that's been made super long by years of stretching.

I don't answer the phone anymore at home. The callers are credit card companies, people looking for my sister, or people wanting to poll me or ask for a donation.

Sometimes it's my wife, so I'll pick up again. The elementary school will call with a recording every once in awhile. Plus, I got a really good prefix in one of the country's original area codes, so there's that.

summers in the eighties

xpost

Most of the time, I don't even know where the phone is.

cell phones are better for throwing when you're angry. landlines are ok if they're cordless, if they're corded they have a potential boomerang effect and could hit you in the face.

i have anger management issues and i throw stuff a lot

The only thing I've thrown is a party.

You're invited, Neands!

xp You should get one that hangs on the wall, and has a curly handset cable that's been made super long by years of stretching.

― not a lunch that is hot (snoball), Thursday, October 24, 2013 5:02 PM (9 minutes ago) Bookmark Flag Post Permalink

i'm planning to, that's what my mother in law has

Is your kitchen in 1987? It must be hard getting through the wormhole every time you want a glass of water.

i'm looking for something like this in the bedroom

http://s.ecrater.com/stores/237121/4f80f5f9ba54b_237121b.jpg

but preferably grey and with an antenna

It has come to the point where all phones are assumed to be personal items, one per person. The other day I picked up our landline and said "Hello" and the person at the other end said suspiciously, "Who is this?"

Don't forget to get an answering machine.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fOKICU2VFD4

with those tiny tapes xp

maintaining a landline is almost worth it just to give something to people you don't ever want to talk to

― Autumn Almanac, Thursday, 24 October 2013 15:54 (35 minutes ago)

yep, this - all the utilities have my landline number.

ummmm BTW? Ryan told me they stopped making answering machines. or some shit. like his mom has to call up her voicemail on the portable.

are you fucking kidding me?

Replacement tapes, head-cleaners, everything you need.

whew. thank god.

if you talk on a landline phone is it still the case that two people can talk at once and both signals will come through simultaneously, as opposed to w cellphones where one signal will be cut off/delayed?

yes

I do really miss that feature.

I like co-talking.

i like, can't help it. i'm always starting a sentence the same time as my best friend

haha

in my head you're both saying 'XPOST, XPOST, NO YOU GO, XPOST'

i bought phone service bundled w/my tv and internet a month or two ago and just hooked up an actual phone to the line yesterday. that day, before I'd given my phone # to anyone, i got about five calls, all bs. got a few more today. my plan is, a) still don't give my # to anyone yet; b) put my ringer on mute; c) anytime i do actually notice the phone ringing, i pick up and immediately say 'hi, please put me on your do not call list thanks' and hang up; d) i set up my voicemail to say the same thing; e) i signed up for both statewide and national do not call registries. we'll see if any of this has any effect at all in a few months i guess. fun!

Landlines rule -- reception much better than my cell, and I always know where it is. If my cellphone rings, and I'm at home, I don't hear it, because my cellphone is not going to be, like, directly on my person, it's going to be somewhere else in the house. It is kind of expensive, though, that can't be denied.

The phone service through my ISP is ridiculous, something like $45/month. Now that I've unbundled and gone back to directv, it's time to switch to Vonage or some other VOIP service.

Anybody here have a VOIP provider? Any recommendations? One site I looked at only had Vonage as 6th in their rankings, but it's the one I've heard of most.

45/month for a phone is ridiculously ridiculous

Seriously! It was kind of disguised when my cable/phone/broadband was bundled at $200/month. Even that was ridiculous, but I could call it a business expense and move on.

I mostly use my phone to check my bank balance (the account got compromised last year)

Ryan says oldschool rotaries don't work with the new technology - we saw a few at the flea

is this true? the ones with the rotary dials as oppose to buttons? i'd love to have one but he's giving me grief

They work still. I got Mr. Jaq one a few years ago on eBay and had it refurbished. Has a lovely ring and is hefty enough to knock someone out.

ugh see i told him. awesome thanks.

They won't work for automated phone systems that you have to "Press 1 for English" like. Because they don't make the tones.

I think?

right point taken

That is true. They work to make outgoing and answer in coming calls.

often with those though they say "Press 1 or stay on the line"

lol yes

it's ok i'm really not that worried about communicating with Time Warner customer service on my rotary phone, i'll have a portable too

They may not work with all systems; you might need to check what your phone company's exchanges support. Plus even if it works with your phone company now it may not next time they upgrade their systems, and you probably won't be able to get to voicemail, etc. Also rotary phones are quite slow to dial on because if you dial a 9 you have to wait for the phone to make 9 clicks and the dial to slide back, etc.

If you're really hardcore you can get adaptors to convert pulse dialling to DTMF but I don't know how well they work and they probably cost more than a new push-button phone.

Older phones with no screens etc do (or did?) have the advantage that they draw enough current from the phoneline to work without a mains power line, in a power cut, etc, though.

If you get a POTS line (plain old telephone system - actual technical term) which pretty much every phone company (vs. cable company) still offers in the US, pulse dialing is fully supported.

I still love my landline and will always use it to call people when I'm at home in preference to my mobile. Feels nicer and more substantial in my hand and call quality is far better than on a mobile.

We have always had a landline, more just as a precaution/backup if cell phones kark it, than any real love for it.

Our current phone is weird, it has voicemail but no indicator to show messages *shrug*

i just can't talk on my cell phone at home. it feels weird on my shoulder.