After my podcast with David Beckemeyer of TelEvolution, David was kind enough to send me a PhoneGnome to demo. Well, the thing is amazing, just as others have said. It's a neat little box that ties my landline in with it, so that I can still dial 911. Plus, the little bugger is a one-time fee of $119 ($99 if you buy two), which is pretty darn affordable, if you consider there are NO monthly fees, ever. It's really simple-stupid so a regular Joe can just plug it in. It recognizes whether or not the call coming in or going out is a landline or a VoIP call (no long distance to other VoIP calls), and it's standards-based so it's not going to give you compatibility issues. You know I'm all about open source. Heh heh ;) So, anyway, with my weird, twisted sense of humor, I watched with delight today as my husband used our PhoneGnome to torment another telemarketer. Now, I feel I must begin this with the statement that we ARE on the "Do Not Call" list but because this company is calling as a Service Provider that is associated with our Household Bank Credit Card (scum suckers for selling our contact info, btw), their call doesn't fall under that list. So, anyway, we use our PhoneGnome to screen out those types of calls. When you call our house the phone makes that disconnected tone (doo-doo-doooooo) that usually is followed by, 'we're sorry, but the phone number you have reached has been temporarily disconnected or is no longer in service, please check the number and call again.' But, on our phone, it does the 'doo-doo-dooooo, we're sorry, but this number doesn't accept calls from telemarketers and calls from a dialer. If you are not a telemarketer, press 1.' Then, the thing hangs up if you don't press 1. Now, as this lady was particularly persistent in that she pressed 1, I guess, James, said hubby, allowed her to go about her marketing pitch as he got ready to give her the ole heave-ho. She went on and on about charging us for this special insurance plan only available to Household Bank customers, and how Household Bank's payment would be paid if I died or something, blah blah, and finally, how it would only be like $5 a month for this 'great' insurance and then James says, "I'm sorry, I think I missed that, can you repeat the whole thing?" and of course she did... So, it's at this point that he presses like 5 buttons and the PhoneGnome takes over and tells her that we don't accept telemarketing calls and promptly disconnects the call. We just laughed and laughed. Then, my friend who was over at the time starts commenting how we are really sad in that the call was the most fun we've had on a Friday nite in a while. Of course, then I got all depressed...