Please note that I am running out of ideas

Cell phone technology is going too far. These days you can't turn on a television set without seeing commercials like this:

(A woman enters the room with shopping bags. These are made out of paper. Give me just ONE EXAMPLE of a Loblaws of NoFrills or Sobeys or whatever that actually gives you paper bags anymore! They all have their promotional advertising on their plastic bags because they're easier to produce. The Loblaws-Fortinos chain is the worst. They are a chain of over twelve billion supermarkets such as NoFrills, the Real Canadian Superstore, and Many More Which I Can't Remember At the Moment. They are known, uncommonly, as the President's Choice chain, and their plastic bags always have some chef with a spatula giving the customers an open-mouthed smile and telling you about their great PC "special deals", in which you can gain 50 000 PC Points every time you buy a pack of Dentene Gum OR you can trade it in as well as the free chicken and the Epcot Center vacation for whatever is behind Curtain Number Two. This chef, I picture, becomes a real menace at night, when each of the surviving chefs jump off their bags and form an organised society complete with conversation, dancing, trading, music, and free samples of spicy food. But they cannot let this secret get out. If the lights are turned on, they all quickly jump back on their advertisements, waiting for the people to leave so they can finish executing Morris, who is in the large billboard next to the bakery and who has recently been convicted by the Tiny Chef council on the charge of stealing fresh-baked desserts that have been up for sale since 1997, and if a security guard comes along, they all attack and eat him, and all that will be left of him by the next morning is an index finger and his security badge. I suppose you could make a great horror movie out of this. Please keep in mind that I haven't gotten any sleep in days. Anyway, this woman puts down her bags and looks at what we assume is her husband sleeping on the sofa. The screen changes to show only her, and she mouths out the sort of "Aw!" you would make if you saw a tiger cub loose on the street and walking towards you with people screaming and running out of the way. This "Aw" would shortly be followed by "What a cute little kitty! Yeseeizz! YEZEEIZZ! Aw! Now, isn't that cu-- Wha- No! No! No-AAAIIIIIIEEEEEEEEEEE!!!!!!!", proving that if there is one thing that Mother Nature cannot stand, it is baby talk. Behind this woman is a very large diagram of--this is true--the anatomical structure of a grasshopper. We hope this is just a phase. The woman takes out her cell phone, presses the Video Record button, and yells. This startles the husband, who wakes up and immediately falls onto the floor. The woman starts laughing, so the man goes downstairs, enraged, and gets out a large hamster cage containing a grasshopper a foot and a half long. in a voice like a James Bond villain, he says:)
HUSBAND: Soon, our time will come, Mr. Springy. And soon, the WHOLE WORLD will bow down to ME! BWHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!!

After this sequence, the announcer comes on and tells us that these camera phones start from "zero dollars", with a helpful little "$0" in the bottom-right corner in case anybody forgot.
What has happened to the cell phone? Take, for instance, the invention of the cameraphone. This is a little lens on the lid of the phone--Yes! They have lids now!--that allows you to immediately point-and-shoot-and-share-and-print-and-blackmail, as these phone companies call it. Whereas, years ago, cell phones were large, black, heavy enough to be used as murder weapons, and got horrible reception, today they are light, compact, have little to no reception, AND have a tiny digital camera inside. Today, you can't go into a store without seeing an advertisement like this:

The Nokia 9250A Winehurst Avenue!
A truly REVOLUTIONARY phone!
-Camera
-Colour Screen
-Downloadable Games
-e-Mail; -Voice Recognition
-Personal Digital Assistant
-Customizable Ringtone
-Song Recognition
-Toaster Oven
-and MORE!
Starting from $0 on the Pay As You Go Plan!

And don't even try to purchase anything BUT that phone, because the personnel will assure you that this is the greatest phone in the history of mankind and always will be, or at least for a few more days. A typical conversation goes like this:

CUSTOMER: Hello.
SALESPERSON: Hi! How can I help you today?
CUSTOMER: I'd like a phone.
SALESPERSON: Well, we've got just the thing right here!
(Points to the Nokia 9250A)
SALESPERSON: Now, just LOOK at this baby! It's got this great colour screen that'll really let you take excellent-quality photographs with this camera here. See it? All you do is press this camera button, then just point and shoot. And if you press this button, it'll bring you into, like, into an organizer where you'll put, like, all your appointments and stuff.
CUSTOMER: How would you rate this phone?
SALESPERSON: This phone is THE greatest accomplishment in mankind's history, just above the discovery of fire.
CUSTOMER: I'll take it!
(Little dollar-signs appear in the salesperson's eyes)
CUSTOMER: What kind of talk plan does it have?
(Pause.)
SALESPERSON: Talk?
CUSTOMER: Well, yeah. That's why you buy phones. You talk on them.
(Pause.)
SALESPERSON: You've lost me.

This technology has not changed for the better. And neither has computer technology. Nowadays the Internet has so many viruses and spyware and hackers and pornographic sites your fifteen-year-old enters claiming to be a twenty-six-year-old unemployed man named Gus.
And what about all these personal organizers, such as the BlackBerry? The BlackBerry is an organizer, as well as a text message-e-Mail composer produced by RIM, who has recently introduced the BlackBerry 7100 Series, including 7100t, g, r, x and v. The BlackBerry has exactly the same problem as text messaging: namely, that when you're trying to pound your fingers over keys the size of an American Idol voter's brain, you don't always make perfect sense. You sound something like this:

hi cant makeit 4 200 have to fly 100-500

Followed, of course, by the boastful tagline, so it looks like this:

cant talk 4 five mins cremating myuncle
Sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld

I realise that this is probably how they would talk anyway, but the BlackBerry sure doesn't help. In fact, cell phone text messaging works basically the same way. If it is indeed possible to change the disclaimer, it should sound something like this:

I swear I can get this thing right, okay? It's just that ever since Mardi Gras last year I've been so utterly happy that I can only partially write sentences. It has nothing to do with the BlackBerry! The BlackBerry is God! ... (Help! It's trying to kill me, and I know it's monitoring what I write, and--What? No! NOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!) Everything I have just written was a complete lie, and was sent from my BlackBerry wireless handheld.

What's more, cell phones are amazingly dangerous. You know those Miracle Headsets that, simply by changing the radio station, allow you to make important phone calls while driving? Well, only 19% of all Americans have these or are considering buying them, according to a voice in my head that makes up accurate-sounding statistics. Let's consider this situation: Ted and his neighbour work at the same company at the same position and are competing for the same promotion. Jed, the Efficient Employee, heads for work fifteen minutes before Ted, because he has already finished Important Work on his laptop. He gets in his car with his laptop and briefcase, and puts on his stereo headset. Soon he is as busy as a radioactive beaver, conversing on Important Details, and basically being Mr. Productivity until he rear-ends a school bus. But for the moment let's assume he starts steering with his hands as opposed to his forehead, and he makes it to work all right. Meanwhile, Ted, the Rival, gets into his car and opens his briefcase, which is full of about three deciduous trees-worth of corporate documents, all of which he will need to shred later on to ensure he will not be suspected of embezzlement, and a boring old Black-and-Greenish-Screen cell phone. He gets a call, which might be the boss informing him that he got the job, but he is not sure, and the phone has slid off the seat and is now just out of reach. So, at the next stop light, he reaches down to grab it, and in stretching accidentally pushes one of the pedals and the car moves into moving traffic and the next thing he knows he's in the recovery room of a hospital with a spark plug stuck in his brain. Jed meets with the boss five minutes later. When the boss asks Jed where Ted is, Jed simply replies that he has been involved in a car accident. The boss thinks about this for a while and finally says, "A car accident. I would never have thought of that. And that's just the kind of fresh face we need around here! Sorry, Jed. Better luck next time."
That's right: cell phones have become so interesting that Ted risked both his life and the tiny foam dice hanging from his dashboard trying to reach one. And I'm sure you would do the same. REMEMBER: They're ONLY phones. You can get one for upwards of Zero Dollars at any Rogers outlet. The only thing even REMOTELY interesting about them is trying to figure out how that Motocross game works.
So, please, people. I ask you to write to your phone companies, asking for them to make phones safer, less interesting, and function as normal communications tools. Such a letter has been attached for your sending pleasure. If you're going to start your letter from scratch, remember to include the phrase "President's Choice Chef Advertisements". If that don't set them straight, nothing will.