Digital Phone Amazement and Entertainment

Digital phones are among the most amazing inventions and truly changing the nature of how place is perceived.  Wherever we are at in the world, as long as there is an internet connection, the way people reach me by phone remains the same thanks to my digital phone.  In Hong Kong and now in Madrid we maintain a local Kansas City phone number which means that it's possible for us to call anyone in the U.S. directly and for the same to happen in reverse.  While I could go on about how life changing this has been for me personally and professionally, I think it'd be more fun to focus on one new digital phone feature which wasn't around when we were in HK but is now more common - digital voicemail transcription.  

I love the concept of not having to actually listen to voicemail and of having some written way of keeping track of them.  That's what digital voicemail does, it transcribes a voicemail and puts it into an email form so you get it wherever you are and have email access.  The thing I didn't expect with this service was just how entertaining I it could be.  

Case 1: The poorly transcribed voicemail

Date	: Aug 16 2010 09:33:24 PM
From	: OMAHA NE (1402XXXXXXX)
To	: E Reedy (1XXXXXXXXXX)

"Hey Jay, it's me it's ish cheese pizza finished not really sure. Just thought I'd figured during the night. I'll be up for a while. If you wanna give me a call otherwise I will hopefully catch you tomorrow before before you and I also well, hope turkey went down got a bus and I talk to you soon. Bye "

This message was from my brother and while I know he loves food the digital transcription had him seemingly food obsessed...cheese pizza and turkey.


Case 2: Some things are funnier written than when heard

Date	: Aug 27 2010 12:53:40 PM
From	: TOLL FREE CALL (1866XXXXXXX)
To	: E Reedy (1XXXXXXXXXX)

"Hi I'm calling for Eric 3-D this is Nancy with RCN. Just following up on it. Looks like someone else may be moving into the apartment not exactly sure. Unless we have the apart all. I'm sorry. We do have the information here. I I apologize. You have a great day. bye bye "

This was an apparent phone call from our former cable and internet provider looking into why someone was trying to sign up new service at our house.  What I love in this transcription is how you can see the stream of consciousness.  It's maybe not that funny, but I've reread and reread this one over the last week for some reason.