Personally, I always enjoy listening to my iPod while on my cell phone - tho I prefer to "posh" it up a little and refer to it only as a "mobile" (mõ'•bil).
I am curious as to what percentage of your fellow bus-denizens were doing the same - oh, and if any of them were using the new iTunes phone, which aparently gives you whe worst of both worlds.

12 letter word for the nickname of a person who wrote the first cell-phone related insight to make me laugh in a long time...

yeah. obvious.

“absent presence,” a state where “one is physically present but is absorbed by a technologically mediated world of elsewhere.”

Canuck: Where is that term from? Because it perfectly describes what I'm talking about.

I see it becoming the default state of consciousness in much of the modern world.

I've had trouble articulating why I think bus-bound cell phone usage is so rude; that nails it.

There was a free seat next to Des on the (mostly white) bus this morning, and I wondered if our chatter was breaking the bus non-interaction social contract. Did the (mostly white) people feel we were invading their personal silent space? Not that I care, mind you; I'm just wondering.

I would pretend to be listening to my iPod on the bus even if I didn't have an iPod just to avoid having to make the small talk with the crazy crazies that ride the buses around here.

I remember one guy thought it was the height of wit to repeat everything the driver announced in a sing-song voice until the driver announced something new (like the next stop). Funny how no one would sit anywhere near that guy.

I hate taking the bus though.

i'm so anti-social my bubble has to be car-sized. and the f@!#ers won't let me take it on the bus. sigh.

No sooner had I written this when I had a bus ride with one of the most. annoying. passengers. ever!He was stricken with never-shuts-up-for-any-reason-and-always-speaks-in-loud-declamatory-tone-when-he's-not-SINGING-syndrome. It made me long for an iPod. Or a 40 volt cattle prod.

Sometimes bubbles are good.