i either hit the jackpot with a certain payphyone today, or i wasted an
inordinate amount of time. i’ll find out later. it seems that the phone is
programmed to allow calls of unlimited duration for just one quarter.
there are many phones programmed to allow unlimited call time for local
calls, but those cost 50 cents. i am not so interested in the financials
of the matter, i was more worried about logistics. assuming this was an
ordinary payphone i expected to make a series of calls paced at 3 or 4
minute segments (i’m recording a story). this particular story is pretty
lengthy, probably 20 minutes, and i was anticipating having to feed
quarters into the phone for to keep the recording going. that act of
shoveling quarters in can make for interesting theater, but for a lengthy
story like this one i think it would get annoying. so, i started a test
recording this afternoon, expecting to have to deposit more money every 3
or 4 minutes, but this phone just let me go on and on. nice. i was
considering using a credit card to make the calls, or a calling card. if
only the voicemail sysem i’m using let me talk indefinitely, but i guess
you can’t have everything.
the payphone is actually pretty neat. a cool location on a sidewalk where
the payphone is practically in traffic, the cars on the street are so
close to the phone. i was really happy to find it there, too, as i half
expected it to have been removed. it is, as far as i can tell, the only
one around in that particular area. hopefully my use of it in the coming
days and weeks will help support its continued existence. and, of course,
i hope to hell the calls i made today actually worked.
i saw something interesting on the way back: an older gentleman had an SLR
camera around his neck. he was using a sock as a lens cap. a white tube
sock. that’s classy. maybe he used it as a filter. from the “department
of questions never before asked”: how would pictures taken through the
filter of a sock come out?
