Phone Phun

All good things must come to an end. Whether it's a movie that's captured your attention, a job you love, or something else, you know the time will come when it's run its course and is done. The same is true for your mobile phone as well. No matter how much you love it, or how much it seems just a part of you, the day will come when it shuffles off this mortal coil and goes to its reward. So what do you plan to do with the leftovers? You know you can't just chuck it in the trash, without fouling your local landfill for the next ten thousand years. How about recycling it?

RecycleMyCellPhone.org is a project of Earthworks, an environmental protection group. Visit their site, print out a postage-paid mailing label, and send your old phone or PDA or pager (do they still have those?) in to them. You get a tax deduction and the knowledge that you've done your bit for the environment.

Do you suppose I could send them all the junk in my garage as well?

It seems like just about everybody is on Twitter. That's both good and bad: you can keep up with your favorite celebrities, but that also means that there are those poor souls who literally do just answer the question "What are you doing?" So how do you keep everybody up-to-date on your latest activities and opinions? Sure you can post on Twitter's site, or you can use a third-party tool to tweet. How about your phone?

TwitterFone is a service that lets you call up and speak your message. The magic TwitterFone machine takes your message and translates if from speech to text, and then posts it to Twitter for you. You can also listen to your Twitter stream as well.

TwitterFone is still under development, and is currently in beta. In order to join this service, you have to get an invitation from them. Submit your request on the site, and then just sit back and wait for the secret sign-up code to come your way. No decoder ring necessary.

While the sugar plums may not be dancing in their heads yet, your little ones certainly know that it's December and that the Big Day is getting closer. What better way to really get into the spirit of the season than receiving a phone call from the Right Jolly Old Elf?

The folks at Kroger have arranged for you to get a personalized call from Santa—or Sammy the Snowman, or even NASCAR driver Tony Stewart if you prefer. Visit their website, give them some basic info—child's name, phone number, time for the call—and then sit back and wait for the special moment.

There's no cost for the call, but you do have to sign up for an account with Kroger; hopefully if you un-check the appropriate boxes on the form you won't be inundated with grocery-spam. Also be aware that there is an ad at the end of the message. It follows several seconds of dead air, but you may want to make sure that you grab the phone back from little Billy or Susie before the sales pitch starts. Ho! Ho! Ho!