Historically, a busy signal has meant just that. Call me brash, but when I hear a busy signal, I go ahead and go out on a limb and make the assumption that the line is busy.
It might be worth the voice-over if the busy-signal message offered some sort of consolation. "We're sorry, but the number you dialed seems to be busy. Please don't take it personally. If the person you are trying to call knew you were trying to call them, we are sure they would get off the phone."
That would make me feel a lot better.
I still get the regular, good-old-fashioned busy signal when I try to dial my own extension from my phone in the office. There's no voice-over, no matter how many times I try it.
(My boss, Julie, probably thinks I'm slacking instead of performing research.)
***
Busy signal messages are not the only unnecessary things we have nowadays. Don't get me started on all the stuff that used to operate just fine that now, for some reason, requires electricity.
Sinks and toilets are the dumbest. Have we become too stupid to operate plumbing by ourselves in the 21st Century?
Our forefathers used to turn on the faucet, wash their hands, then turn off the faucet. They used a little handle on the sink to control the flow, even to mix hot and cold water to produce warm water of the desired temperature.
No company has yet designed an automatic electric sink in which the water will stay on long enough for you to wash your hands thoroughly. You end up waving your soapy mitts back and forth in front of the little sensor, trying to get the water to come back on. Then you do the same dance again in front of the electric sensor on the hand-dryer.
I wonder what the aliens who are watching us think of us sometimes. I'm a little embarrassed for Earth.
I'm thinking about painting "NONE OF THIS WAS MY IDEA" on the steel roof of our little house in the woods.
Toilets also used to be manual devices. A little chrome handle could be flipped downward when a flush was required. Now a sensor can tell when you sit down and then again when you get up.
Do you honestly think Homeland Security doesn't have access to that information?
Can openers used to be manual devices. Now most are electric. The electric ones don't work any better, oddly. But the manual ones they sell now don't work as well as the ones they sold 50 years ago. I don't know why.
I think we should be going in the other direction, truthfully. I want a hand-cranked microwave oven. And windup-car technology has been around for generations, but it's never been applied to any vehicles much bigger than a matchbox.
I think it's because of the oil company lobby.
It might be worth the voice-over if the busy-signal message offered some sort of consolation. "We're sorry, but the number you dialed seems to be busy. Please don't take it personally. If the person you are trying to call knew you were trying to call them, we are sure they would get off the phone."
That would make me feel a lot better.
I still get the regular, good-old-fashioned busy signal when I try to dial my own extension from my phone in the office. There's no voice-over, no matter how many times I try it.
(My boss, Julie, probably thinks I'm slacking instead of performing research.)
***
Busy signal messages are not the only unnecessary things we have nowadays. Don't get me started on all the stuff that used to operate just fine that now, for some reason, requires electricity.
Sinks and toilets are the dumbest. Have we become too stupid to operate plumbing by ourselves in the 21st Century?
Our forefathers used to turn on the faucet, wash their hands, then turn off the faucet. They used a little handle on the sink to control the flow, even to mix hot and cold water to produce warm water of the desired temperature.
No company has yet designed an automatic electric sink in which the water will stay on long enough for you to wash your hands thoroughly. You end up waving your soapy mitts back and forth in front of the little sensor, trying to get the water to come back on. Then you do the same dance again in front of the electric sensor on the hand-dryer.
I wonder what the aliens who are watching us think of us sometimes. I'm a little embarrassed for Earth.
I'm thinking about painting "NONE OF THIS WAS MY IDEA" on the steel roof of our little house in the woods.
Toilets also used to be manual devices. A little chrome handle could be flipped downward when a flush was required. Now a sensor can tell when you sit down and then again when you get up.
Do you honestly think Homeland Security doesn't have access to that information?
Can openers used to be manual devices. Now most are electric. The electric ones don't work any better, oddly. But the manual ones they sell now don't work as well as the ones they sold 50 years ago. I don't know why.
I think we should be going in the other direction, truthfully. I want a hand-cranked microwave oven. And windup-car technology has been around for generations, but it's never been applied to any vehicles much bigger than a matchbox.
I think it's because of the oil company lobby.
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