Categories
music Ranting

Tunez

(Note: exaggerated whinging)

A gaggle of teenage girls on the train yesterday morning, joyfully debating the benefits of getting off at Malvern or Flinders Street. (huh? They’re miles apart). It eventually became clear that they were heading to St Kilda. (Why not any of the myriad of other stations then?)

But then they started on the activity that most train goers would dread the most: yes, that’s right… comparing mobile phone ringtones.

One held aloft a friend’s phone. “I’m just trying to find the one I use,” followed by a myriad of beeps. Why for heaven’s sake?

Another gleefully lunged for her own phone from her bag, pressed a couple of buttons and yet another travesty of a mystery tune (at least to me) emanated from it.

“Oh MY God!” was the reaction from her peers, obviously seeing some positive attribute in the monotonic tune that I couldn’t quite detect. “You have GOT to send that to me.”

“I can’t,” came the reply. Ah the joys of copy protected ringtones. Small mercies. The populace should be forever grateful that there’s no easy way of spreading the pain around.

By Daniel Bowen

Transport blogger / campaigner and spokesperson for the Public Transport Users Association / professional geek.
Bunurong land, Melbourne, Australia.
Opinions on this blog are all mine.

9 replies on “Tunez”

Ahhh yes, if its not the vapid gaggle of girls then its the vapif gaggle of suburban white teenage guys acting like Eminem that makes me want to shout “Pull up your PANTS!!!”. Makes my yearn to be stuck in traffic in my car.

What should we talk about then, Miss Trish? I don’t particularly want to have a deep and meaningful conversation airing all my inner most secrets on public transport. Who knows who might hear it and blog about it.

From Malvern station (Glenferrie Road) you can get a tram directly to St Kilda. It’s quicker. But anyway, their decision not to do it would have saved tram passengers a dose of the shits. Maybe those mobles really do scramble your brain?

Off the top of my head, 16 tram from Malvern, 246 bus from Richmond, 112 or 96 tram from Parliament or Spencer Street, 16 from Melbourne Central or Flinders Street. They apparently chose the slowest way of getting there. But of course, that was not the point of the post.

Must admit, of all the ring tones available with my phone, I settled on the boring “ring ring” sound, it annoys nobody, and nobody else uses it, so I alwasy know it’s my phone.

Whoever invented those awful polophonic ringtones needs to be bent over a barrel and have half a dozen mobiles shoved up his (or her) jacksie. AND, I hate the people who have all the little sound effects for pressing buttons and whatnot up full volume – there’s nothing worse than a 50 minute trip listening to one moron play Snakes or SMSing and hearing “Beeeeep!” “Bip!” “Ding!” “Ring!” every few seconds.

argh! I DETEST the annoying ringtone competitions on public transport! My newest phone came with approximately 30 melodies (now there’s an oxymoron) but no ordinary “ring ring” it does however have a composition function, so you can compose your own ringtone … so… does anyone know how to compose “ring ring”?

Comments are closed.