Today, my phone number of eight years returns to the Numeral Graveyard. I let it die.

I'm not sure why. There are memories that peek up, dull-scaled fish that blink the eyelids they do not have against the little light that filters through the murk. I didn't always have a cell phone. Yet, I survived somehow. I...remember phone numbers. Actual strings of digits that when struck in a certain order would transmit my voice across precious metals strung along the earth from wooden poles like barren Christmas trees put up by the world's worst manic-depressive.

There are so many ways to communicate. I can speak. I can gesture. There is Facebook, Myspace, Twitter, Livejournal, Blogger, email, Instant Messenger, I understand the United States has an elaborate human-and-machine-powered pay-to-play courier service of some kind (which hardly ever suffers Injun attacks anymore), and the phone, eh, the tele-phone, which is kind of like text-messaging except the human voice is use to send aural renderings of written words.

Composing the message was faster as well. I credit this to succinct words and phrases such as "like", "you know?", and "word" (to indicate agreement or affirmation) which substituted entire parts of a sentence, mainly clauses, adjectives, and descriptive language.

I predict that someone will figure out how to detect when a person is composing a text message to someone else, for example, to me. As the person is texting me, my cell would detect if the message reaches 90 characters or so and automatically send "I know, right?" in the middle of the composing process. That programmer will make millions. Until I kill them. I suspect it may end up being that same guy that created Comic sans.

Which is bullshit. Removing something from something that already exists is not creating (listen up, Intelligent Designers). I cannot cut off one of the earbuds from an iPod and then claim I've invented a new mp3 player. That is not innovation; that is laziness.

I'm not sure if I'm doing the right thing. If I decide I'm wrong, I'm sure I can find another cell phone somewhere.

As a self-declared Level 34 Scamp, I take pleasure in knowing that my location and travel patterns can no longer be triangulated or, if I were using Bluetooth, broadcast to marketers.

Not that any marketers would, really. I ams as broke as the proverbial joke. And you know I got jokes.

The song Bangers & Mash by Radiohead seems to channel Pearl Jam. I like it a lot.

The preceding was brought to you absolutely, 100% pants-free. Happy Friday.

Disclaimer: All misspellings are intentional, as always. But not the racial slurs. Those kinda just slip out. It causes me shame.