Comments on Ken Armstrong Writing Stuff: Call of the Bloody Wild

I don't think I can relate as much since I've neve...

2009-11-18T21:48:08.161Z

I don't think I can relate as much since I've never had a phone without caller id so I tend to always know how's calling me. Though I imagine it would be pretty annoying for someone to play these sort of games with you.

;)

Strange, do you really get a lot of phone calls wi...

2009-11-15T13:40:56.650Z

Strange, do you really get a lot of phone calls with callers not identifying themselves? We usually get a ring and at the other end is a beep, beep, beep, beep...some internet thing I think. It's so annoying. Or am I in a coma and it's the sound of my life support machine?

At least you're no being pranked by immaturities, just playful associates having a laugh or a game; be thankful the phone is not at war, and only at your neck, annoying.

Btw, you once commented on one of my poems, something like: 'thanks for this, i'm learning the difference between the artistic and the tehcnical, day by day.' I just discovered it again and it left me wondering, was I merely artistic and not technically minded? *interested to know*

as ever, reading you.

Ken, I think it's not you. By the third time someo...

2009-11-11T18:14:18.735Z

Ken, I think it's not you. By the third time someone tried that guessing game on me, I would be ready to explode and then hang up.

I can't say I've had someone do that to me. But I have had my former roommate's brother do voices and pretend to be other people than himself on the phone with me.

As a result, I told a policeman collecting for the Policeman's Ball, "Ah, sure you're the police, Bryan! Right! Tell me another one."

"I am not this Bryan ma'am."

It took several rounds of that before he convinced me it wasn't a fake voice. :)

Elisabeth: Most of these episodes are with people...

2009-11-06T00:44:22.232Z

Elisabeth: Most of these episodes are with people who I know I know, I just can't place them. Actual cold callers get very short shift. :)

Susan: You are not worse than I am... in anything. :)

Hope: Yup. I do get the gals' genes humming. That I do. :)

Catherine: When I answer the phone, people often mistake me for an answering machine and say nothing, waiting for the beep. I don't know what this says about me.

Anon: Japanese too eh? I've read all your books by the way... very good. :)

Jena: Tagalog is a lovely name for a dialect. Mine is Sligo-Mean. :)

Jim: None of this is funny as it is happening. I need humour-coloured spectacles to see me through.

Reese: Telemarkets (spits). It's an awful way to ski. :)

Laura: Nanowrimo Notformeno. :)

Aerte: Don't You Dare. :)

picks up phone reciever...

2009-11-02T03:48:32.590Z

*picks up phone reciever*...

Are you going to attempt NaNoWriMo?

2009-10-28T15:23:25.235Z

Are you going to attempt NaNoWriMo?

That doesn't annoy me. I don't often know who it i...

2009-10-28T15:18:44.908Z

That doesn't annoy me. I don't often know who it is just by the voice either. My sisters and my nephew all sound quite alike when they call. I just take a stab at guessing which one it is. I don't feel bad if I'm wrong.

What really bugs me about the phone are those machines that call and then leave you waiting for someone to say something... anything! once you have picked up the call. Frickers! I hate that, waiting for someone who called ME! Not the other way around. Usually it isn't anyone I want to talk to anyway. So I've gotten into the habit of just hanging up on them. A couple of times it was my sister who has her own business - she had just been asked a question at the time I answered. But she called me back. No problem.

I tell everyone to email me cause I seldom answer the phone and forget to check messages. I'm just a phone freak, I don't like running every time someone rings a bell, as if I'm some lab rat.

What I hate is when a telemarketer calls and 1) pr...

2009-10-28T11:54:57.868Z

What I hate is when a telemarketer calls and 1) pretends they know me...Hi Reese, how ya doin' tonight? or 2) completely butchers my last name (which really isn't a difficult one, but people insist on making it French rather than Irish).
I do feel sorry for people who call our home. My daughters and I sound exactly alike on the phone, so people often start a conversation with the wrong person!

I suppose I'm lucky in that this hasn't happened t...

2009-10-26T10:53:44.349Z

I suppose I'm lucky in that this hasn't happened to me more than a couple of times in my life and both times it annoyed the hell out of me. I don't like being embarassed like that. And that's what it it. They're making me squirm because of my inability to recognise who they are. That's not funny. At least I don't find that funny.

My worst experience on the phone was when I called up a girlfriend and I got her brother on the phone and he pretended to be her and I bought it. No experience I've ever had on a phone could ever surpass that one.

Hi Ken, I hang up when they don't identify themse...

2009-10-26T07:41:09.135Z

Hi Ken,

I hang up when they don't identify themselves first. It's phone courtesy. "Hello this is, so and so may I speak to Ken?" lol.

Perhaps because English is our second language, we are usually "taught" how to conduct a formal phone conversation. In the tagalog dialect however, we also do that at times.

It is a charateristic common to Irish and Japenese...

2009-10-25T21:44:00.688Z

It is a charateristic common to Irish and Japenese people,this polie bantering about weather and Tommy/Hiro down the road and Oh she had a baby did she? the missus, oh God thats great but really i was just wondering could you move your car away from my driveway? thanks.

With you 100% on this, Ken, not that it happens to...

2009-10-25T14:41:16.324Z

With you 100% on this, Ken, not that it happens to me that much, thankfully. I don't speak to that many people on the phone, and I usually recognise their voices... I'm pretty guilty of not always announcing myself to one particular friend (or to my parents, for that matter, but then I think the 'Hi Mum/Dad' should give me away there), but I always give my name as soon as I ring someone.

If I don't recognise a voice though, I treat it like a wrong number and ask who the person wants to speak to. And 9 times out of 10, it turns out to be an actual wrong number...

I think that with the advent of mobile phones and fancy house phones that display the number, a lot of people assume that you will have their name programmed in somewhere and will automatically know how it is...

Ah, my Irish genes started humming on this one. :...

2009-10-25T14:40:13.327Z

Ah, my Irish genes started humming on this one. :)

Like Elisabeth, I'll give them one chance to answer, then they get "Sorry, no thanks!" as I hang up. [See, the southern girl thing makes me offer an apology before handing up on the idiots]. Those who actually call back begin with, "Hi, it's Doug. You okay?" Depending on how many idiots called prior the reply is either a cool, "What did you need?" or the more terse, "What do you want?!"

My problem is complicated by the fact I was once a police dispatcher and tend to recognize a voice 98% of the time...the 2% are the ones who like to torment me.

I feel your pain. And I think replacing the receiver forcefully might solve some of the problem. :)

No worries -- I might be worse than you are, in fa...

2009-10-25T13:38:10.005Z

No worries -- I might be worse than you are, in fact, because I'm instantly irritated when the phone *rings*. I've never liked those things and find them rude by their very nature.

Yes, I think it is an Irish thing. During our summer in A merica, if the phone rang, I'd say "hello" and what I got was always something like this, "Hey Susie, it's Mike next door. Could you send Martin over to help me with getting a door up, would he mind? OH and how are you?"

Back home, Jaysis. It's either a long guessing game to find out who they are, or, if you recognise them, then you have to work out what they want after a long series of "So how're ye keeping" and "Sure isn't it raining again" and just silences, until I'm screaming WHAT DO YOU WAAAAAANT???

So of course everyone near here thinks I'm an unstable nutjob. (Good, maybe they'll stop phoning...)

If the person who calls does not identify themselv...

2009-10-25T12:35:29.656Z

If the person who calls does not identify themselves, then I assume it is someone 'begging' and I say immediately and without ruth, 'I'm not interested'.

I'm with you on this one. People ought to identify themselves when they ring, and if they don't they deserve the consequences, unless of course they are children under the age of 18.