Earlier today, someone was in the middle of a three point turn in a busy car-park. Instead of completing their parking, and thereby allowing all the people blocked from driving through ... they answer/make a phone call. They could have waited 10 seconds to finish parking, or allow their passenger to take the call ... but hey no one else exists ...right?

Rob is soooooo right. People are talking on their cellphones while they are doing other things that SHOULD occupy their total attention that it is just sad. People have lost the concept of "downtime", "time to think", "time to reflect".

Excuse me. I need to reflect on this.

Next thing you know we'll be hearing about surgeries gone awry because some surgeon decided that answering a cell phone (not just responding to a page) and carrying on a conversation was more important than the patient. Or has this already occurred and I just missed it?

Head, meet desk.

No comment on cell phone abuse, but major props to Rob for running and completing the Marine Corps Marathon!

NIce going, dude!

My personal favorite is that many people who go to climb Everest now bring multiple iPods so that they will not be with out music while they are climbing (the multiple iPods being because some will cut out at altitude and they hope to get lucky with one that won't). If you are out there to climb a mountain you would think that you would want to enjoy the environment (as much as one possibly can enjoy oxygen deprevation and the extreme stresses on the body) not climb to the top of the world to the tunes of Led Zepplin. On top of that it also is downright dangerous. I can see too many people failing to hear their guide telling them to tie into this rope because they are listening to their music too loud.

It's not the strangest place by any means but it's defnintely one of the rudest...the customer who continues to chat away all the while ignoring the erstwhile checker asking her relevant questions in order to take care of the next customer...grrr...hisss...

Wait until there's the surgery that seems to have gone well, until you hear the doctor's ringtone coming from inside the recovering patient's abdomen.

I ran the marathon yesterday and had my phone in a baggie in my waist pouch. I used it to communicate with my husband and sister to let them know where I was so they could find me from the sidelines up ahead. Also, my husband was carrying some supplies for me so we definitely needed to connect. But I don't typically carry a phone while running and it was strange to answer it (my response: "I told you never to call me here!" Definitely made runners around me laugh.)

And the phone was most useful afterwards, when my husband called to say he couldn't pick me up in Rosslyn because this year all the streets were closed for a post-race festival. So there are good reasons to carry it, believe it or not... the iPods I don't understand. Why would your music be more interesting than the cheering masses?

I'm a lawyer and sometimes I have clients who, while in the middle of a meeting with me, will pick up an unrelated cell phone call. I let them talk to their heart's content, as each minute they sit there and talk just earns me more money -- $7 per minute to be exact. That 4 minute cellphone conversation about your dinner plans -- $28, thank you.

@Johnny C: How much did that response cost us?

I carry a phone while running for my own safety and in case my family needs me in some kind of emergency. Casual conversation though? Not a chance.

Headphones while running is not only lame, but downright dangerous. Why give an attacker such an advantage? How about the idiot cyclists who ride in the roads with the cars with their headphones blasting. THAT's insane. Time for Darwin to help us out....

Are you still not supposed to use cell phones in hospitals? If so, people ignore that rule a lot.

kimosabe: Hey, I didn't say that I finished :)

(Fortunately, I did--took only 45 seconds longer than Adrian Fenty to cross the finish. But I'm sure the mayor looked in better shape than me over the last five miles!)

Chele: As it happens, the coffee shop I'm typing this from, Murky Coffee, has a "no cell phone use while ordering" sign at the cashier. Start of a trend?

CT & L: Thanks for sharing your experience. I'll give you this one--coordinating a food or beverage handoff could justify carrying a phone (it's amazing how difficult it is to spot somebody on the course even when you know about where to look). Also: Congratulations on your run!

- RP

Most annoying are the people talking on their cell phones while going through the checkout lanes, and having the nerve to make the cashier wait for them.....The cashiers at a local big box store tell me that it is getting to be more and more common and they don't know what to do about it. I wish their was a way of disabling people's cell phones in the checkout area of a store....

Second most annoying are the people who think they are "above" the no-cell phone rules in a doctor's waiting room, using their cell phones so we all must be a part of the conversation or business deal. That is extremely insensitive.

Third on the list are the people in the bathroom stalls -- even flushing while on the phone. Where have our manners gone?!? That is just gross.

I dread the day when people will be able to talk on their cell phones for the length of a cross-country flight. This scenario will be truly terrible, because all the rest of the people on the flight are captive, and cannot move out of the conversation, even if we try.

I think the football player who pulled a cell phone out of the padding in the end-zone and called someone after scoring a touchdown takes the cake. Of course, he was trying to take the cake, so I guess that's a different category of inappropriate.

http://sportsillustrated.cnn.com/2003/football/nfl/12/14/horn.cellphone.ap/

Perhaps cashiers should put up a sign "Please use manners" or "I'm a person, too."

I think I caught a guy texting while running: http://flickr.com/photos/asmythie/1795914705/

You're right about the tracking system. It was awful. We were worried that our runner had gotten hurt because the alerts failed to show up. And then they showed up with a vengeance after the race -- 96 messages for one runner!

Here's my blog post on it:
http://blog.agrawals.org/2007/10/29/tracking-the-trackers/

In Germany I've seen so many people on their cell phones while riding their bikes around town. An accident just waiting to happen.

I carried a cell phone and used it during the Marine Corp Marathon. I used a web tool called Jott to update my blog - to let folks who couldn't be there know what I was thinking and how I was doing.

Most importantly, my family (who could not be there) called me at a critical time (mile 21) and gave me the encouragement I needed to finish.

Casual conversation, work talk, chatting as I run along, no way. But connecting with folks who were cheering me on virtually was very important - and did not endanger anyone (I walked when I was on my phone).

We can impact some of this rudeness by responding in kind. If someone is driving poorly near me while talking on the phone I simply lay on the horn constantly until they leave my vicinity or hang up. Similarly if someone is talking loudly in a checkout line near me, I pull out my phone and pretend to have a ridiculously loud conversation that will interfere with theirs. I'm all for phone jammers and wish they were more commonly deployed.

Cellphones and the plethora of personal electronic devices are like IED's -- they show up at all the wrong places and inappropriate times.

I'm a daily bike commuter who carries a phone -- turned off -- in my bike bag. I call my family when I arrive at (AM) and leave (PM) the office. They know that I'm on the road when they call and the phone immediately dumps them to voicemail. When I do ride with the phone on (in bad weather when going home), I only call or pick up *after* I pull over and stop. Life's too short!

If the issue with motorists was *only* using cellphones, I'd be happy. It's the mishugana drivers who, in addition to using their phones, have the radio and/or video player on in their sort-of hermetically sealed vehicle (they can't see or hear me, while I can see and hear them), and have their pet sitting on their lap! In self defense, I have an air horn (sounds like a truck horn) instead of a conventional bell.

Pedestrians are equally guilty. I've seen folks downtown with headsets on walk into parking meters. Don't know whether to laugh, cringe or cry.

Finally, we bicyclists aren't angels either. Too much bobbing and weaving in traffic, busting lights, riding against traffic (!) and otherwise scaring pedestrians, drivers and fellow bicyclists alike. But at least we aren't distracted by the electronic revolution!

Flying back into Philadelphia from Madrid, a woman who was assigned to handcheck our carry on baggage after landing was on a lengthy, personal call on her cell phone. Now what faith do I have that she's doing her job correctly?

A few months ago, a guy behind me in a movie theater answered his phone and started chatting away like he was in his own living room. Are people that moronic where they believe its OK to answer a phone, much less carry on a conversation on it, in the middle of a movie? I can certainly understand forgetting to turn off the ringer, but when you answer and talk on your phone during a movie that costs a couple $20, you're just asking for negative attention.

On planes, I make bets with my wife as to how many conversations are taking place where we'll here the following phrases: "Guess where I am....I'm on the plane." "We're still at the gate." "We just landed." I appreciate the quick callers on planes, but then you have the folks who drone on and on. If they ever allow cell phones on flights, be prepared for cases of extreme air rage.

Here at UC Berkeley, it's common to see students walking between classes with their earbuds in while talking on their phones.
But the least likely was a guy talking on the phone while drinking a cup of coffee while riding a bicycle.

I used to work at a CVS in the pharmacy. The pharmacists got tired of the rudeness and put up signs about no cell phone use. And the service was bad in the back of the store anyway, so it was constantly people yelling into their phones -- "hello, hello, hello" -- if they don't answer they CAN'T HEAR YOU. (That rule works everywhere.) If someone was chatting on the phone waiting to cash out, I would tell them to let me know when they were ready and then I smiled at the person behind them if that was the case and assisted them first. That usually sped of their call.

That's not me in the Flickr picture, but I did have my cell with me to text friends where I was and to snap some shots along the course. I took a recovery walk at every mile marker and used that time to send brief text messages to a specific group, e.g., "Mile 18 - Still in Hains Point."

It bugs me that I follow the rules and don't take my iPod with me on races like this -- even though I use my iPod when I train -- and then on the course there are iPods all around.

During a rugby game the ref had his cell phone with him. We had to stop several times for phone calls - including one break of several minutes very a tense point of the game.

He did have a good excuse - he was military and the officer of the day. He was getting reports on all the guys he needed to have arrested and or hospitalized after a wild Friday night off base.

But it was still the oddest place I had ever seen a cell phone answered.

I don't get people who wear headphones while running on the streets. It's incredibly dangerous. When I cross country ski, I even see people with headphones on out in the woods. And the last thing I want to do while running or skiing is take a cellphone call. But, I do understand why people take their phones with them. I did the Chicago Half Marathon in September, and it was a miserably hot, humid morning. I saw several people around me pass out, and whenever it happened other runners always whipped out cellphones and dialed 9-1-1.

I recently was returning a U-Haul truck to the store. There was a sign behind the counter that 'requested' that there be no cell phone calls while at the counter. As I was finishing up my transaction, there were a few people in line behind me. My wife calls to find out how soon she needed to be there to pick me up. The lady who was next in line jokingly commented about the sign and my call. As I was walking away from the counter, HER phone rang. All of us gave her the evil eyes.

Perry's Deli in Chicago won't let you use a cell phone, which is very cool...http://www.perrysdeli.com/

Unlikely place to use a phone...? Didn't Paris Hilton stop in the middle of one of her, um, home movies, to take a call?

And just a random rant: If they ever allow cell phone usage during flights, I will never set foot on a plane again...My commuter train is bad enough.

One use for a phone that I hadn't even contemplated was live-blogging the race. I understand the urge behind that--I really need to write up the "what it felt like to run the marathon" e-mail and send it off to my family. But I can't see myself doing that *during* the race: I would spend too much time crafting each post, instead of just pounding out the essentials ("mile 24... legs cramping bad... kill me now").

The issue of listening to music while running, biking or skiing might be grist for an entirely separate post. I've never biked with an iPod, but I have to confess that I've run with one on rare occasions (when I tried out the Nike + iPod kit) and I've skied with one a few times as well.

- RP