more cell phone jammer mischief

The guy sitting behind me on my train called his bookie and was placing bets on tonight’s baseball games. Loud and clear for all to hear! I’m not making this up! $200 on the Red Sox. $150 on the White Sox.

And that’s as far as he got. I gave him the juice.

I’ve seen people get angry over the inability to make a call but this guy exhibited a deep, primal rage you don’t see in public very often. He was desperate to get these bets in—it was 6:55 and the games start at 7:05—but try as he might he couldn’t get through to his bookie. I pictured one of Tony Soprano's Jersey goombahs on the other end.

He was furious. It was the first time I worried about retribution. Guys with that kind of deep commitment to gambling seem to have a very low threshold for anger. Have you noticed?

* * *

I have become a Zen master gunslinger with my cell phone jammer. I was toying with my prey du jour—yet another yappy sorority chippy—and I needed to send a quick text message. I held my jammer in my left hand underneath a paperback of Truman Capote short stories. My index finger rested gently on the power switch. Economy of movement is key. In my right hand, I tapped out a text message. Then, with one fluid motion, I clicked off the jammer with my left hand and opened a brief window in the cell phone frequencies, hit the send button on the phone in my right hand and quickly activated my jammer again after my message went through. The entire sequence took a matter of seconds.

It's a shame it's not an Olympic event.

* * *

Are you watching True Blood? It’s fantastic! It’s got everything! Graphic sex, well-crafted scripts and story lines, hot sex, superb acting (with some fine American accents being faked), lust! lust! lust!, vampires and gore galore and some pretty raw sex scenes. Plus, best of all, the villains are a bunch of right wing religious nuts. They're the REAL blood suckers!