Ring Ring Ring...

                                 "Don't need quarters, don't need dimes
                                   to call a friend of mine."

                                 "It's a real live mama and papa phone,
                                  a brother and sister and a dogaphone,
                                  a grandpa phone and a grammophone!
                                 My cellular, bananular phone!"

Yes, we've been singing to the tune of Raffi's "Banana Phone" a lot lately. This is what we have lovingly come to call our MagicJack and other, various low cost methods of calling home like Google Voice, Skype etc. which work about as well as holding a banana to your ear and trying to have a conversation.


Of them all I'd say Google Voice has the best call quality when the internet decides to cooperate so I use it the most for my outgoing calls. As for MJ and Skype, both really leave much to be desired as you may have read in the abundance of negative reviews across the internet.

Add our $130.00USD/mo internet service into the mix, you know, the one that offers us a whopping 1 mb of download speed and well... never mind then, just go ahead and laugh!

So, if you can imagine this... me trying to carry on a conversation with someone in Canada using one of the aforementioned methods until I melt down and can't take it anymore "#@%&*! BANANAPHONE!" This is usually followed by me dancing around the room singing the Raffi song quite loudly until I'm joined by the younger members of the household. Of course by this time someone has turned the YouTube video on (it's a favorite) and we're all dancing and laughing hysterically.

Yes, we are a crazy bunch down here but I mean, what are you going to do? You get what you pay for, right? Are you kidding me? I'm never going to break down and pay for a landline to call Canada. I'll just keep on using my "cellular, bananular phone!" (We just love this song waay too much!)