The Dawn of the Eleven-Digit Phone Number!

Well, here we go. I've just gotten an e-mail at work notifying us that beginning February 1, all phone calls in NYC will require the area code before the phone number, even to numbers with the same area code. This depsite the fact that I have yet to encounter a single non-Manhattan phone number with a 347 area code, and have lived quite well till now not dialing 212 when not calling a 646 area coded number.

There must be some way to do this without making everyone in NYC go buggy remembering ten numbers whe seven used to do. And of course the public has no say. For that matter, I would guess that come February 1, most of the public will have no knowledge this is happening as I haven't seen any effort at an ad campaign.

For the life of me, I just don't understand why they couldn't just add a zero to all existing phone numbers, and leave the area codes alone. Adding a new area code doubles the available numbers. Extending all numbers to eight digits would add nine times as many numbers.

Anyway, here's a chipper little press release from our fiends at Verizon, written in the kind of PR-speak I loathe and despise and thank God every day I do not have to practice:

http://newscenter.verizon.com/proactive/newsroom/release.vtml?id=78416

It's almost enough to make me never use a phone again, and stick with e-mail.

Go In Peace, Come Back in Peace, and Take Some Pictures!

A special tip of the hat to Col. Ilan Ramon, Israel Air Force, who made history today as the first Israeli in space. Col. Ramon, a son of a Holocaust survivor and an accomplished pilot, is serving as a payload specialist aboard the Columbia on an all-science mission. His assignment? To help study the effects of the desert, of all that sand, on local and global climates.

Here's the official NASA bio:

http://www.jsc.nasa.gov/Bios/PS/ramon.html

While not a religious man, he arranged to bring kohser food with him on the mission, and is hoping to observe the Sabbath after some fashion. May the Lord watch over Col. Ramon and all other visitors to His heavens, and may they return safely and with much to tell about being up there.