B.B., phone home!
 

I finally broke down and started carrying a cell (mobile) phone. Oh the joy...:rolleyes: Though I work in a hi-tech field, I resisted getting a phone as I find them annoying and useless, having not had one for most of my life (here's a clue, plan ahead). People thought it odd when asking for my cell number, and I replied that I didn't have one.

(Yes, I know, some of you are already thinking that people may find me odd even *with* a cell phone. :p)

Anyway, I have tried to make use of the phone that I received as a gift from the kids (how could I say no?), just so I don't follow in other dinosaurs' footprints, and I will need to understand what the kids' are doing with theirs once they get them (and we never see them again as they stand around texting each other).

One feature I like, which seemed impossible when I was a lad, is the voice recognition technology. I just say, "Call my wife" and the phone dials 'my wife.' I've tried to make each contact somewhat distinct, so that I have to argue with the phone as little as possible as below:

"Call my brother."

"Did you say, 'Call my mother?"

"No."

"Did you say, 'Call my brother?"

"Yes."

"Mobile?"

"No."

"Home?"

"Yes."

"Calling my brother home."

"Finally..." :rolleyes:


Anyway, I wanted to know if you use any Tolkien words in your contacts, or could suggest some so I could 'phone home' with something more distinctive than 'my house,' 'my home' or 'mi casa.'

"Call Bag End."

I started (Middle-earth) roleplaying with my friends when I was 11 or 12, and in the beginning we used our characters' name everywhere, including our contacts. Actually I even signed an exam as Fundin once instead of using my real name... (But it was okay since it was elementary school. :p) Lommy was our GM and because it felt weird to call her by her NPCs' names, I think we just called her Thinlómien (yes the name dates that far back) or made up some other nice and friendly nicknames. :)

Bag End is a really cute name for home. But sometimes there might times when Mordor would be more accurate (although of course your cell might confuse it with 'mother', what with the way you Americans pronounce Mordor)... ;)

Voice recognition technology? Hey, I must check out my new cell to see if I have that. But I can just imagine the scenario if I get a cold or flu and my voice changes. How to convince the bloomin' machine I am who I say I am without sounding like Popeye?

Tolkien names would be good, but I'd have to remember them, so I couldn't let mine get too fancy. Would I remember that "Call Mr. Bliss" is my garage mechanic? That "Call Annatar" is for Santa/the North Pole? I'd use Dol Guldur for the boss only I don't have one. "Call Minus Teeth" might be easy to remember for the dentist. Ditto "Call Athelas" for the local pharmacy. But I bet I couldn't remember that "Call Old Man Willow" is the Income Tax Number, at least not for long after the April deadline for tax submission.

As for home, I guess I'd have to stick with "Call Bombadil.":D

My cell phone is considered an antique by the people who keep trying to sell me a new one -- it's not that old, but it's not a smart phone in any sense of the word. If it were smart enough to recognize my voice (which it is not), I would probably tell it to call Aman or the Uttermost West when calling home. Of our local group of Tolkien fans, we were always and coincidentally the ones who lived farthest west, hence the name. I suppose I'm glad it doesn't have voice recognition; getting my personalized ring tone on it was hard enough. (And for those familiar with my symphonies and suites, my ring tone is the theme I wrote for the Ring. Bad pun, I know, but I'll never get it confused with someone else's. My husband uses my theme for Sauron as the ring tone for me when I call. I should be miffed at that, but I just can't be. :))

I wish I could turn the voice recognition off. It is cheesy and clumsy and I never use it ($20 phone) and I wish it would just go away and let me poke buttons.

But if I DID use it... I don't know whether I'd be digging into a Sindarin dictionary for the elvish words (what is the elvish word for Home?) (Instead of Cell Phones, do my friends each have a Palantir?)

Or maybe I'd be going with "Rivendell". Is work "Mordor"? I think of it more as the Road to Mordor (my quest to destroy the Ring of my weaknesses and frailties, which just happens to take place in an office.) But then I'd need the elvish word for "Quest."

Golly, it's as hard as coming up with passwords.

I remember a friend of mine (Honza - for the few 'Downers who know him) used to have a phone with this function, and you can imagine the fun we had with it. But you don't need to, of course, limit yourself to such prosaic ways to express yourself. Just for the sake of coolness, and for utter discrediting yourself in the eyes of the "normal" people, you might try to use for a few cases to call things like "Elbereth Gilthoniel!" or "Ash Nazg Durbatuluk" (both with some appropriate intonation). I think the image of a person with a sudden movement reaching into his pocket, taking out a mobile phone shining in the evening dark as it's being switched on, lifting it high in front of himself and crying "Elbereth Gilthoniel!" is pretty stunning... But of course, that's just one alternative.

It might be good for example for any emergency calls.

Surely there is a very obvious choice for a suitably favoured person:

"Mellon!"

Yea, and the telephone would reply: "Which one of them?"

I did use one nickname for a friend, but the wife (and most of the family) never played D&D, and so no help there. Could call 'Tinúviel,' but not sure that she would get it, even after the explanation. Better would be 'call my hot and youthful hardworking wife who is better than I deserve,' but that would probably run afoul of the interpreter.

Mordor and Mother? Not likely. :D And I'm just not the kind of guy to call home 'Bag End."

I actually leafed through the manual to see what I was doing wrong, and stumbled on this feature along the way. It does even more, but I think that *I'm* the one lacking in features now.

On the one hand, it's incredible that without training, it reads and recognizes the words correctly. On the other, during those rare times when the kids are reproducing the theme of Melkor in the background, the phone stumbles a bit.

Why?

That hack was worth the days I spent on it, saving me from paying $2.99 for a ringtone...

I considered using some of Howard Shore's works from the LotR trilogy. The Shire theme is nice, but wouldn't scare me enough to make me realize that I had to do something, like answer the phone or turn it off. Also considered the TTT end theme, as it has the lyrics, "We are lost, and can never go home..." but that too was a little to soft. Ended up with some Led Zep, Jimi Hendrix, Asia and The Who.

And no, I'm not ignoring your calls...I just can't hear my phone ring. ;)

I didn't pick the phone, and so decided to make the best of it. Though I can eat, read the paper, change the radio station and do some banking while driving, I thought that it would be safer if I let the phone dial for me, as I wouldn't want to be distracted.

It's basically the same thing. Surely one day me and the kids will have a "Gandalf, Pippin and Palantir" moment.

You see my point.

That would be too funny. I can see saying, "Call the Secret Fire of Anor."

"Calling the Secret Fire of Anor."

Plus it would set you off in a crowd, and if you were in trouble, the Tolkienphiles would be first at your side.

Good catch! I figured someone would get this one (it occurred to me during my commute while I played the LotR movies through my head.) My guess is that, when it didn't confuse it with 'Helen,' it would try to call the bank.

Update
 

Well, for home, for the moment, it came down to 'Helm's Deep' or 'Sammath Naur.' I chose the later just to see if the phone could handle it, and to my surprise, it can understand this (though I'm sure my pronunciation is more like the Black Speech.')

I like Imladris, and Rivendell...but they're just not as fun. And I can't see myself saying, "Call the House of Elrond." He doesn't live there; I do.

Anyway, I'll let you know if anything comes of it.