31.8.06

A little birthday fuss

For my grandfather's 89th birthday today, I gave him an ang pow (red packet with a gift of money inside) and taught him how to answer and disconnect calls on his cell phone. Although I tried to simplify things by saying "press green to answer and red to hang up the phone", I realised that part of the difficulty was that the buttons on his phone are way too small for the coloured symbols to be easily identified by someone of his age --- which makes me think that cell phone makers better start thinking about geriatric-friendly versions soon (bigger buttons and screens, with fonts, symbols and buttons that are easy to read), or at least continue to produce chunkier versions of their top-of-the-line models. My eyesight may fade when I get older (actually, it's already fading now) but I'm still gonna want my many-megapixel camera and internet capabilities, dammit.

While we didn't have a birthday cake, my grandfather had a celebratory ice kachang and the aunts (his daughters) tried to sneak the little cookies that came with our coffees onto his plate --- perhaps reckoning that with his hale and hearty constitution at the age of 89, he might enjoy the extra sweet treats more.

Now some of us grandkids are thinking we ought to throw Gong a big bash for his 90th next year. Any suggestions on what makes a great nonagenenarian birthday party?

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3 Comments:

At 8/31/2006 10:15 am , Anonymous Anonymous said...

aging country Japan has actually come up with phones that are elderly friendly. for example:
http://www.nttdocomo.co.jp/product/easy_phone/simple/index.html
http://www.vodafone.jp/japanese/products/kisyu/v501t/index.html

sure they're not the savviest of phones but it does the job! (sorry they're all in Japanese)

 
At 8/31/2006 12:02 pm , Blogger strangemessages said...

haha, the teaching-yr-grandpa-how-to-use-a-handphone is rather cute!

 
At 8/31/2006 1:02 pm , Blogger  said...

haha! reminds me of 2 weekends ago we spent at NAB's mum's. Grandad was there and also complaining that it was difficult for him to text. Can't see the number pad and can't see text on screen!

We ended up all taking out our phones and letting him "try out" which one was the best. Mine won! =)

 

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