My current cell phone has been acting whacky for awhile, now -- i.e. dropping calls for no reason when I have bars up the wazoo and off and into forever; freezing, not ringing when a call comes in, then alerting me to a voice mail...no, that wasn't what happened with you, Mom [sorry!] that was total and complete PEBKAK [Problem Exists Between Keyboard and Chair]; showing that I have, again, bars up the wazoo, yet it tells me that there's "No Network", and so on. Actually, it used to do that when I first got it, though less frequently...but enough to make me go out and buy a whole new phone after only having that one about five or six months.
I loved the replacement; it was a tiny little thing. A "Zoolander" phone as my brother Andrew and my friend Jen called it. It was also referred to as my little spy phone; it was -- still is, really -- the world's smallest camera phone. Folded open it was about the length of a credit card and a quarter more; closed, half that, not including the little 3/4 inch antenna.
It was a fairly basic phone (fine for me, since I just used it to make and receive calls; plus it has to be fairly basic to be that tiny), but it kept giving me a heart attack when it would either get loose from its pocket in my purse or I'd simply drop it in because I couldn't find it right away. I was then beset with a rollicking F-15 loop-de-loop of panic as I'd think, "Oh, my God! My cell phone's gone!" I'd, of course, find it...but I got really tired of the cell-phone-and-purse equivalent of a Jack-in-the-Box.
So I went back to my other phone a little while after moving into my new place. One of the other reasons I got the 007 / Zoolander phone was that it got crappy reception at best. I'm sure the position of my apartment (second floor, in a shaded area) had something to do with it, as my little phone sometimes -- though not at all as much -- had trouble.
It was a more heart-friendly phone to switch back to, but I was gradually reminded why I replaced it. Then it began getting worse. Oh -- the other thing it would do was constantly chime with it's little ding! noise it makes when you plug it in to charge. It would sit there on my table going ding!....ding....ding!....ding! -- sometimes for several minutes or more. Pulling out the charger cord and reinserting it would sometimes clear that error...but not always. And then it would stop.
I thought I could stretch that particular phone out farther, but its technological legs began getting more and more spindly. I knew I could go back to 007, but I really didn't feel like having the accompanying panic attacks again. I've been a "free agent" with AT&T for the last year or so, waiting for the right replacement phone to come along. I always intended to stay with them, but the standard free phones were unappealing, as were the ones that ended up around $40 or so / less with a rebate. I just didn't want another rinky-dink phone that would be, as someone put it, the "cell phone equivalent of a disposable camera".
Yes, if something happens to it, you can get a refurbished model -- but sometimes you still have to pay for that, too, so you end up getting the same crappy phone again with the same crappy problems. I know someone who had to replace theirs three times in one year to a tune of about $150 -- and that was in addition to the original amount he spent when he got it (a more expensive one with a rebate).
So, on Thursday, I woke up with a decision made in my head (well, I think actually I made it the day before, and began making it after a conversation with Andrew about different models). It was one I've been hemming and hawing about, balancing out want over need, etc. for quite some time now. Well, really ever since Andrew drank the Kool-Aid and crossed over to the Dark Side (shiiiiiiiiiii...poohhhhh...shiiiiiiiii...poohhh....), and probably for the last four or five months or so.
I spent my lunch break getting this (drum roll, please / fan fare taa daaaa!) (Andrew -- that's "tahhhh dahhhh", by the way):
I have an iPhone! It was a serious chunk o' change to plunk down at the moment, but I really just could not bear the idea of another two-year contract with a disposable cell phone. I looked at this as an investment my psychological well-being and happiness. I (heart) my new phone.
Then I went app-crazy. There are little software programs -- applications -- you can download. Some I got were games, some just plain goofy (nearly everything I got was free), some fun (ohhhh....like the military jet app where it has multiple pictures of all the jets the US Armed Forces use; classified first by branch, then by type and gives all the specs of each one and what it does); Google Earth; a planet and star tracker; the full dictionary.com and thesaurus it offers (American Heritage wanted $24.99 for only the dictionary!); NPR; PDXBus; Wickipedia; and, the best of all, one where your iPhone can sound like a lightsaber as you swing it around. Among other things, that is.
(That was -- ahem -- the first one I downloaded....so no I'm not a geek or anything kthxbye).
But the ones I really wanted (the others were just ones I happened across as I browsed the apps) were the little apps for budgeting, tracking your spending / cash. I realize it's kind of ironic that you have to buy a (spendy) phone to manage your budget...but it fit in just fine into mine. There's also one where I can log into my Chase account and do stuff from there, just like if I were on a "regular" computer. That means I no longer have to carry around my check register to mark off my debit card purchases, because the current info will be literally at my fingertips. I also found another (free!) app for a grocery list-maker. It has tens of thousands of items you can plug in, plus with the ability to write your own in and stick it in the correct category.
And...ha ha...the Family Guy app I downloaded had me in hysterics last night; there's little games, plus the ability to string together a bunch of scene clips, as well as watch ones that other people have strung together. I keep forgetting how much I really like that show.
The other thing about the phone I've been really wanting for awhile is the GPS feature; this phone also has a compass in it (Army Ranger / Navy Seal accurate, yo!) that's integrated with the map / GPS system so the map turns with you as you drive so you'll always be oriented in the right way.
You just have to make sure you, um, turn that feature on, 'cause then you like -- you know -- still have to drive up and down the street eighty billion times to figure out where the pesky little red dot is that's marking your destination.
Well -- you do if you're me, I guess.
It also has a little note pad and a voice recorder, both of which I really like. I've been working on a new book for the last few months, and I can either just speak a note about it or type it in using the QWERTY keyboard (which you use essentially by hunting and pecking with your thumbs...something that's taking some getting used to for me, as I'm not a hunt-and-pecker. I'm discovering I have to watch my thumbs as I type, not the screen as I habitually do).
Oh, and the weather feature is nice, too -- as is the traffic-showing feature of the map. The map is also the same thing you can pull up in Google Maps, so I can get directions and have a satellite image of the surroundings to follow. Makes, say -- finding a landmark easy to look for.
I'm very happy with this purchase. No buyer's remorse at all. I even found an alarm clock app I like so I can get rid of my stupid, clunky LCD clock that has the world's weakest radio tuner in it. Instead of music I wake up to mostly crackling static. I just have to use my wall charger for my phone at night...which is okay. Besides -- that puts my phone in my room, whereas before, it charged out in my living room. If anyone called in the middle of the night (nobody ever has, but you never know), I wouldn't know until the morning.
Oh -- my garden. Well -- with the crazy hot, cool, warm, cold, warm, HOTTER THAN A FRYING PAN, back to cool weather...things went kaput. Some flowers did just fine, others not so much. Both attempts at beans went south. The tomato and bell pepper plant kept putting out flowers, which then got fried. My jasmine and plants loved the weather; the bamboo, however -- in one pot at least -- sorta didn't really like it.
I discovered that it's the radiant heat coming up from the blacktop and the cars that singed everything. Though during that run of terribly hot days, it got to be an oven out there. One day I came home and it was 115 degrees out on my terrace. Bleah.
The pepper and tomato plants are putting out decent flowers now; it's a good thing we have long, warm falls. This may be a year of failure. Oh well.
So -- yes. As I've pretty much decided on a MacBook next spring (Holy Cats it's a slick thing; Andrew has one and what sold me was the battery life on them -- many hours, even with browsing), I'm now officially another minion of Steve Jobs.
I wonder if there's an app for that?
-- H
P.S. The 3G(how fast the phone browses / downloads from the Internet) is smokin' fast!
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