“Friends don’t let friends drink and phone blog.”

It all starts with a night out. A few drinks and you get creative. All of a sudden the urge to blog takes over – you have all this brilliance and no access to a computer (or no ability to type, whatever)?!?! What to do, what to do?

Well, according to WordPress, you can now phone it in. Literally.

A good idea? Perhaps, but a dangerous one. Yes, there are people who just need to blog (sober) and can’t get to a computer or own a non-smartphone and would use this for good. (Though if you own a non-smartphone in this day and age, I’m gonna say you don’t have a blog. I could be wrong.) However, I see this being used for the drunken post. The one at 2am, after a ton of drinks out with the gang, on a pub crawl. Granted, you do have to enable the feature, so there’s that.

This could rank right up there with drunk texting the inappropriate. Actually, that’s where I’m ranking it. Having had my cell phone forcibly removed from my hands for drunk texting (more than once), I think that I’m going to not enable that feature. (Though I think it’d be hilarious to read the blogs of people who do. Just sayin’. Schadenfraude and all. I’m no angel.) When texting Dani today, I mentioned this and all she had to say was “Friends don’t let friends drink and phone blog.” I promised her that I wasn’t going to be enabling this technology… as she’s the person who’s taken my cell away from me on those drunk texting nights.

Hello again, old friend.

The new toy! And that's just the first page... the most used apps. I am a sucker, lol.

With the changes in my life that I anticipate happening within the next few months, I decided that my BlackBerry would be too much phone for me… That’s just weird to type, but there it is. Among the many issues that I had were that not all the OS’s were stable and AT&T was slow to roll out any new one (which is why I beta tested a lot of the “leaked” ones out there – which I will definitely miss), and the apps for BB, quite frankly, suck.

After lots of thinking about it, I decided that I wanted to give the iPhone another try. Of course, I wasn’t going to fire up my old 2G, 1st gen phone, no. I had to get a brand-new 3G. Yes, I know that Apple will more than likely be introducing their new, 4th gen phone at WWDC – but I really didn’t want to wait, I don’t anticipate there being a whole hell of a bunch of difference in the platforms from what I’ve read… and, to be totally girly, it’s not pretty. From the leaked pictures online, it looks like a bulky iPhone. Which is not what I want in a phone, anyway.

With all the issues that I’ve had with AT&T in the past (and with their doing away with their unlimited data plan… we will need to have a come-to-jesus about that one, AT&T), I’ve been a loyal customer for 13 years now – I’ve had this number and this account since 1997! WTF?! – and when push comes to shove, they’ll bend over backwards to make me happy. (And if they don’t, I keep going up the chain of command until I get someone who realizes that for a company having issues with customer retention rates it would be foolish to let someone who’s been with the company as long as I have go to another service. Holy run on sentence, Batman! Sorry about that.) I ordered the phone last Friday, late Friday night got a FedEx tracking number, saying it had shipped out 2 day air and would arrive Wednesday… FedEx delivered it on Tuesday! By that night I was uploading apps again and getting used to using it…

There has definitely been a learning curve in re-learning the iPhone. I find myself looking for the buttons I had set on the side of my BlackBerry for the camera and screenshots, or I find myself cursing the ultra sensitive touch screen while texting. Overall, after having had it for 2 days and a night, I’m loving it, but with two back to back trips on the horizon, I’ll see how it travels. (I have no doubt it’ll be great with that, hell, I took the old one to Australia!)

So, Steve Jobs, you’ve won me over again. You and  your slick Apple products… I can’t quit you! And I’m not sorry about that. Heh.

*sigh*

Dear Verizon,

I completely understand that occasional outages occur and no one internet provider can guarantee that there will never be any… However, saying that there are outages in my area code/prefix with no idea of when they might be resolved or way of you contacting me when they are is unacceptable. I run a business that is very dependent upon the internet to accept credit cards – our main source of revenue. While I can write up transactions and process them later, most people don’t want to wait for that. That equals lost revenue, which equals it being harder for me to pay the bills – including yours. With this service, is it any wonder that people are exercising their options and leaving you? Food for thought, Verizon.

The good and the bad of November

For me, there are few things that signal the happiness (and the start) of the holiday season like the first Gingercrack – ummm, I mean, Gingerbread Latte of the season. There’s just something about the warmth of it (flavor-wise) that delights me. However, it’s an easy drink to screw up – not that it’s hard or anything, but if you let the shots sit just a few seconds too long, it’s really bitter and isn’t hidden by the syrup. I can always tell how a day will go from my Gingerbread Latte. (Yes, it sounds stupid. I know this.) If it’s a good drink (like yesterday’s) I know that the day will be a good one. If it sucks, it’s going to be crap.

Granted, my crappy day started at 12:30 this morning. Let us have a moment of silence to mourn my nameless iPhone. Yes, it is dead. Deader than a doornail. I will be taking it to Apple this afternoon and begging them to give me a new one. (I’m leaving out the part where it may have been my fault.) Then couple that with the insomnia that kept me up until 4am… you get the picture. Maybe I’ll get another Gingerbread Latte and it’ll get better. So, if you need to call me, hold off until tomorrow. If I can get the phone replaced.

Oh, and will someone tell me why people are convinced that we can sell yarn at a price lower than our wholesale and make a profit? It just doesn’t work that way. Cheap people suck.

iPhone and stuff…

So, no, I’m not playing with an iPhone as we speak. Not because I didn’t go, though. (I did have some really good persuading that almost worked to keep me from going…) I got to the store and saw that the line was long, but not too long. (I really should have left work early. LOL.) I actually thought about taking pictures, but realized I’d left the camera in the car. I spent my time in the line reading and chatting with the two guys in front of me (who were cute!) about the phone, Cingular/AT&T, and the rudeness of some of the staff and people in the line.

About an hour and a half later, I’m about 5 people away from the front – I had started to think that maybe, just maybe I’d get a phone tonight. Especially when a person in front of me called out, "I’m just here to pay a bill!". Then the rude person who’d been coming out all night "updating" us came out again to tell us that the last phone had sold. He said something about Direct Fulfillment, blah, blah, blah. Of course, I ordered it. It’s supposed to arrive Monday or Tuesday.

On a completely unrelated note, how freakin’ sad is it that I’m excited about this?? I admit, they’re one of my not-so-secret-anymore guilty pleasures. You know, that music group that you wouldn’t admit to in large groups, but amongst your friends, after a few beers, you might? All right, enough for tonight…