Yesterday’s manic buzzing and twittering all across the ‘net about Google’s new beta, Google Talk (or GTalk as it was quickly dubbed) didn’t really thrill me—although I did set up Adium to connect to it, despite having no one else I know to talk to. I mean, a new IM system/protocol/service? I’m inclined to just hit the snooze button and you can wake me up when something, you know… happens.

However, all the hubbub about GTalk did get people into a mood to discuss online communications in general. This led to people mentioning things like Gizmo, Vonage and Skype. Voice Over IP and voice chatting (audio IM? whatever) aren’t new by any stretch, but Google’s 750-pound gorilla getting in on the act has people speculating that they may be either angling to buy Skype or angling to trash their business, leaving VoIP providers and the few smaller projects like Gizmo floundering.

I personally don’t think Skype has much to worry about. Google’s incessant beta tests (seriously, Gmail is still in beta) and their lack of a “shake-up” feature (such as Gmail’s then-unheard-of massive disk space allotment) in GTalk doesn’t seem to have anything compelling to offer over Skype except the Google name. But this isn’t about Google vs. Skype or really about Google at all.

What got me thinking was Skype itself. I’d heard of Skype and Vonage and all that before, but I’d never really paid it much attention. For one thing, I don’t make a lot of really expensive calls. Some, sure, but not enough that I’m constantly working that angle to try and lower my phone bill. But like anyone else, if there was an acceptable way to reduce any bill I get, I’d be interested. What turned me off about Vonage was that it didn’t really fix my primary problem with phone conversations; that being the phone itself. Vonage converts your home phones into VoIP, which is nifty in a “gee, they can do that” kind of way but not really thrilling when your one and only phone is a crummy SBC model with a seven centimeter cord that just happens to be the only phone you’ve owned in the last six years that functions.

I’ve ranted about my trials and tribulations with telephones before, but the only pertinent rehash that needs to be done here is to remind you that since I became solely responsible for providing me and my household with telephone service I have burned through an estimated $400 or more on telephones, accessories, services and doctor’s bills in a vain effort to have something that works as a means to remotely communicate with friends and family members in a voice-to-voice format. Add in the expense for goods and services which (more or less) allowed me to achieve that goal and it’s been a lot of money with not a lot of return.

Given my detest for the phone system in general and contrasting that with my (likely obvious) fondness for other means of communication, I began to look at Skype in a different way yesterday. In essence it comes down to this: I use the telephone (I’m referring to the wired box in our bedroom that plugs into the wall and we pay for every month) to call maybe ten people. Of those people, perhaps four of them live far enough away that “long distance” calling becomes a factor to the extent where cell phones might be too expensive of an option should the conversations ever get too long. Everyone else I call I’m inclined to do so on my cell phone.

Pardon a quick digression but I feel I should explain my cell phone situation. I get my cell through work, who provides a (crummy, half broken, secondhand, 1998-model) phone and for $10 a month gives me personal use ability. However, the “personal use” is full of stipulations which restrict or outright prohibit expensive features like SMS (text messages), long distance, downloadable ringtones or anything that would add up to more than $10 per month in incurred charges. I’m not really complaining as it is a free phone after all. But what it comes down to is that I have the phone for emergencies at work and I’m really supposed to treat it as if I used it for emergencies at home, too. In protest for this I have never enabled voicemail on it and while I carry it around most places, I don’t really make a concerted effort to have it on me at all times.

All my other communication comes from IM, IRC, email, this site and in-person. Looking at these facts I realize that I “talk” to most people with my computer as it is. Those I don’t I probably talk to with mobile means anyway. So if I need a cell phone and would prefer to communicate via computer in all other cases, why do I still have a landline?

There are two stumbling blocks here: One is emergency services (911) and the other is bandwidth. Skype doesn’t allow emergency service calls (and you’d have to log in through your computer anyway which would probably defeat the purpose of the quick 911 phone call) so it would be fairly imperative to have the cell phone on, charged and nearby at all times. Also, since Skype uses the broadband connection and at least in our household we have a lot of connected stuff including two computers, the XBox and two TiVos, if we thrust the phone service in there, collisions and slowdowns might be a problem for our puny DSL line.

The 911-via-cell isn’t much of an issue at least looking from this side. If a cell phone is your primary calling tool, I’m guessing I’d just learn to have it with me. The bandwidth thing could actually be a blessing in disguise since as I understand it the cable company has come calling around lately looking for people to sign up with their internet service. I would love nothing more than to not just shut SBC phone service down but cancel my DSL account along the way. If nothing else it might be worth it to, considering the expanding uses we’re finding for our internet connection, invest in a more significant pipe anyway.

So what am I missing? Is there any compelling reason not to ditch traditional phone service, use Skype for at-home calling (even using their SkypeOut is cheaper for calling to regular phone lines than picking up my phone) and get a decent cell phone service plan for everything else?

I Have Thoughts. I Will Share. You Won’t Care.

• Scott Ott writes what he would say to Cindy Sheehan if he were the President. While eloquently written and initially persuasive, it neatly manages to avoid the crux of Ms. Sheehan’s query which is, “What the heck are we doing anyway?” The nobility of a death with purpose wasn’t ever, so far as I can tell, being called into question it was more a question of “Why was any of this necessary?” The hooey about “…the number of nations where such protest is possible has multiplied…” sounds all valiant until you remember that Iraq didn’t really ask to be “helped” and we (as Americans which includes the American soldiers) weren’t given the clearest picture about what the motivations were. The whole region hates what we’re doing and we may well have made the terrorist’s case for them, encouraging the exact kind of behavior were were ostensibly trying to interrupt and being the best recruiting propaganda tool they could have asked for. Ott writes, “Let’s, you and I, resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain,” but when Bush himself and his cabinet have had a hard time expressing what our plan is, what our rationale was (or should have been, considering their revisionist view of recent history) and what all of this means going forward that sounds incredibly hollow as an answer to the question posed. I mean, you can’t answer someone who asks, “Why did my son die in vain?” with “Buck up or else he will have died in vain.”
• At the same time, we can’t really believe what the administration is saying (even if we could decipher their doublespeak babble) nor can we be sure the information we’re getting is presented in a reasonable manner making the media hard to believe as well.
• In the wake of GTalk’s introduction, the New York Times runs an article talking about the “Do No Evil” company’s new mustache-twirling ways.
• Okay, so it’s not just me.
• Hey, America! You’re fat!
• Whoa, you mean those helpful emails I get several times a day that offer me low low prices on prescription drugs might be shady? I… I… can’t believe it! They seemed so… honest!
• Newsflash: Lots of movies suck. The oft-cited summer movie slump is, assuming it’s even real, commonly attributed to high ticket prices and/or crummy movies by movie goer pundits and piracy/DVD encroachment by studio honchos. The NY Times article suggests it’s probably more the former and definitely not so much the latter. They also suggest that high gas prices may have something to do with it. I know that as of this moment I’m officially sick of people blaming stuff on the high cost of gas… almost as sick as I am of gas being like $3.20/gallon. But back to the movies thing, I think the real problem is in the theater experience. When we saw Four Brothers last weekend, some jerk’s cell phone rang and he had the utter audacity to not just let it ring, but proceed to answer it and have a conversation. I almost flipped my lid trying to keep from getting up and punching the guy’s lights out. I mean hello? How sub-human do you have to be to answer your cellphone during a freaking movie?
  What I think we need are theaters who give us actual value for our dollars. Yes, movie tickets cost a lot. But I think if the cost seemed justified it wouldn’t be so bad. If my $9.00 got me a clean, comfortable seat in a theater with attendant ushers who got paid enough to care that the theater patrons had an enjoyable movie-watching experience and were present to notice if the sound/picture quality was suffering I would fork it over without reservation. I could even understand having the matinee shows forego the ushers; you get what you pay for. As it is I can’t fathom paying full price for an identically rotten experience. Food prices are ridiculous but smuggling in a handful of candy isn’t much trouble and if they offered human-sized portions I wouldn’t have as much trouble buying the inflated snacks. I mean, $3.00 is a lot of for popcorn, but it’s astronomical when you consider that the “small” you’re paying three bucks for could feed an entire third grade classroom at snacktime. When you throw away 70% of a bag you dropped that much money on, you can’t help but feel gypped. And getting free refills on a 64 ounce soda is so funny it almost makes the $4.50 worth the chuckle you get out of it, but not quite. Anyone who can down 128 ounces of soda in two hours without having their bladder rupture deserves to be on the 11 o’clock news. And if you think dudes answering their cell phones during the flick is annoying, try watching Bewitched with the paramedics cleaning up a splattered bladder from the front six rows.
• Haunting and occasionally beautiful artwork depicting the Bikini Atoll atomic bomb tests.
• One of the funnier, more disgusting posts my brother has made. I approve wholeheartedly.
• Rare it is that I take so long to compose a posting that I have time to retract something I haven’t even posted yet, but I mention above that GMail is still in beta, but I guess you can sign up without an invite… sorta. You have to text message from a mobile phone (something that Dare Obasanjo thinks is a horrible privacy invasion (note that Dare’s site is utter pants in Safari)), but I guess that’s sorta non-exclusive-beta-ish? Or something. Which reminds me, I still have 50 invites milling around if anyone in this planetary system doesn’t yet have a GMail account but wants one.