Thought for today:

The latest technological trend among art students is to obtain a cellphone, program it with any number of odd songs which will play as a ring tone (video game tunes are the most popular), turn the ringer volume up as high as it will go, and then leave it in a room where other people are working. If you want to ride the current trend, make sure to leave your cellphone for at least an hour, during a time when you're certain that you will be receiving numerous calls. If all else fails, call your own cellphone from your dorm or a payphone to make up for the deficit.

If all goes as planned, numerous people will be distracted and annoyed by your aggressive inconsideration, even though you're not in the room!

If I were the type to engage in skullduggery, I would have a nice collection of these phones by now. But surely people must anticipate that. My prediction is that within the next five years, someone will invent a "phone alarm," which will go off whenever someone walks within five feet of the cellphone, including the owner. The owner would simply need to type in a five-digit code to turn the alarm off.

Which, of course, they would get wrong on the first three tries, if they didn't forget the code altogether. They would also neglect to read the instruction manual and thus never learn how to deactivate the alarm, ensuring that no place, indoors or out, would be safe from sound pollution caused by technofetishist knuckleheads.

It's the World of Tomorrow, Today!