Coolio Calling China

So today I was walking down the street minding my own business and thinking personal thoughts when I remembered a friend of mine traveled to China the other day for some business trip. I wondered if his cellphone worked over there or what and I wanted to say hi-- so I called him up. I just sort of rolled the dice on the time difference thing. For all I knew it was 4 in the morning a week ago Thursday over there...

Anyway, I call up and he picks up! I'm like, 'Dude! You're totally in China!' He told me he was on a bus going somewhere. I could hear chinese people talking in the background! Talking chinese and everything! I was like, 'Dude! You're in China!!!' And technology (for the 10,000th time) weirded me out again. I mean- let me ge this straight--  here I am walking down the street in Brooklyn. I pick up this tiny metal object that is in my pocket. I push like three buttons and I'm talking to a friend of mine-- who is on a bus in China! In real time! Zip zap?! You gotta be kidding me!

(Which is another thing I don't get (and never really understood even though it's been explained to me before and I googled it) --if I'm talking to this dude in China, how does my voice get over there so fast? Why is there zero delay? I mean it can't be traveling the speed of sound, right? That would take like an hour to go around the world or whatever. So it's gotta be going into some other system and traveling at what? The speed of light? Wouldn't that still cause some delay? Plus how do you change sound into light? I don't get it still. But whatever... it's cool!)

Sure, maybe cellphones are busy killing bees these days or whatever-- but I still gotta respect them. After all this time and all this technology and exposure... it still sometimes bugs me out to be talking to someone on a cellphone-- especially when they're on the other side of the world!

After a minute of being on the phone and telling my friend how cool it was that I was talking to him in China and asking him if all the signs over there are in chinese and letting him know I was walking past my neighborhood chinese restaurant and how there was chinese people with chinese food inside it... He said, 'Dude... this is costing me like a thousand dollars a minute. This can wait till I get home...'

<click>

ok bye!

tOdd