New Cell Phooooone!

Two years.

Two years can seem so short, and at the same time, so long.

In some respects, the past two years seem like a blur. Two of my sisters got married, one of those sisters also had a baby, my “little” brother started college and I changed jobs twice (one that necessitated a move across the country).

During that very same two-year span, millions of fresh-ass phone models have come out and I have been stuck stuntin’ a throwback Blackberry (who’s back plate likes to arbitrarily fall off of the phone housing and let the battery and SIM card fall out-prompting a dropped call, loss of any currently unsaved data, and a 5-minute reboot). So, with respect to my cell phone contract, the past two years have been slooooowly creeping by as I was counting the days until my contract ended and I was a “free agent.”

I refuse to switch up phones before reaching “free agent” status. I will not let those bastards milk me for any more money than they already do. Thus, I like to play out my contract, get the “Free RAZR or $200 toward any new phone with a two-year re-up” option on the table and make outlandish demands to whoever happens to be my current wireless provider.

Most recently, I was Blackberry’d up with T-Mobile. Their service is balls cheap, so I figured, “Why pay more to have the same Blackberry with AT&T?” It worked great until my contract ended and I needed a new Blackberry and realized that the folks at T-Mobile’s corporate offices refused to loosen up their purse strings and outbid AT&T for the exclusive rights to either the Blackberry Storm or the Blackberry Bold. Real cool T-Mo, give AT&T iPhone, BB Storm AND BB Bold. Seriously, STEP…YOUR…GAME…UP. I mean, the RAZR is chilly, I was just hoping you guys would have something a little more fresh to offer me. You know, something that came out after 2004.

My favorite part of cell phone free agency is calling the customer service line to cancel my plan and watch them scramble to keep my business. It is so great to have the proverbial upper hand when you walk into a negotiation. To be successful in these negotiations, you have to realize that the “Free RAZR or $200 toward any new phone with a two-year re-up” offer is weak. When you realize that you pay $100 a month for your plan for two years, this means they will make roughly $2500 on you in two years-and that is if you NEVER have an overage and NEVER have a moment of weakness where you buy a new phone during the span of your contract. So, I actually realize that their “Free RAZR or $200 toward any new phone with a two-year re-up” offer really is about the LEAST they could do considering how much my contract is worth to them over the course of two, four, six or however many years I stay with them. Thus, I always tell them where they can shove their “Free RAZR or $200 toward any new phone with a two-year re-up” offer and proceed with my agenda.

Inevitably, the first guy I speak with at customer service asks me what his firm can do to keep my business and I hammer him with flurry of complaints explaining that I am unhappy with his firm and he should realize that he is in way over his proverbial head, but I do it in a very soft “I realize this is not your fault personally, I am not blaming you,” tone.

Predictably, I get transferred to the first guy’s supervisor (“Supervisor” = someone who has the authority to give away more stuff for free to discontented customers who want to take their business elsewhere). This time, the supervisor was a very sweet lady named Anita. She asked what she could do for me, so I told her. I said “Go to your next managerial meeting and demand that T-Mobile does whatever it takes to breaks AT&T’s exclusivity contracts with Apple and Research In Motion for shared rights to either the iPhone or one of the two new Blackberry’s, give me one of said phones for free once you get them, set me up with a cheap plan for my new device, and throw in one of those magenta button-ups that your in-store employees wear…and I wear a large.” She laughed uncontrollably for nearly 15 seconds and then told me that she was afraid there was nothing she could do about any of those things, save for maybe the magenta shirt. I told her I was going to walk and that she should email me when they get a cool phone. She replied “We do have the G1, which is our equivalent to the iPhone. Have you given any thought to one of those?” Since she obviously did not hear me the first time, I repeated myself by saying “Again, email me when you guys get a cool phone. In the meantime, just send the shirt”

Finding a phone for me, like anything else, is very difficult. I am insatiable when it comes to cell phones...and just life in general. In a phone, I need internet, email, sexy, quick access to notepads for idea jotting, GPS and oh yeah, the ability to call someone.

The size of the phone is also important to me (see “sexy” above). Even though cell phones look uber-dope clipped to your belt with your shirt behind it so everyone knows you're wealthy (if this were 1989), I prefer concealing mine-so I need a phone that will fit in the front left pocket of my jeans.

After loads of research, I settled on an iPhone (which I claimed I would never own). I was initially apprehensive about iPhones because of the touch screen. My friends that have touch screen phones are always dialing numbers with their cheeks while they have their phones pressed against their faces for our conversations. This sort of thing bothers me, so I didn't want to be doing it to other people. Further, I have messed around with iPhones in the past and did not have a lot of luck with its texting. My skinny fingers are apparently too fat and I always press the letter on either side of the one that I actually intended. In the end, I decided iPhone was the lesser of all the cell phone evils-and had 3G, so I made it official.

To be honest, iPhones are really well-built. And by “well-built,” I mean “do NOT have any moving parts that will stop locking to each other and commence randomly coming apart.” The internet is the only “mobile internet” that I find tolerable, the options are cool and the GPS saves me daily whilst I attempt to navigate the second largest city in the United States. All in all, I feel that iPhone is a superior product. Those things should be $800; $199 is a steal for real.

In addition, transferring your contacts from one phone to another totally blows. I loathe this more than anything else about switching phones. I personally feel like Apple is going to take the entire cell phone game over in the next 5-10 years, so I am hoping that I just keep buying new Apple phones (that will hopefully transfer information seemlessly to one another) and will never have to deal with manually entering data that my new wireless provider was unable to get from my old device into my new one.

My new iPhone is a solid choice that gives me relatively no “buyer’s remorse” (and if you knew me, you would know how big of a deal that is). It does almost everything anyone could seriously ask of a phone device. If your heart is not entirely set on a 1993 RAZR, I recommend that you look into one.

I wonder what will happen during the span of this two-year contract…

Here’s to hoping that in 2010 Apple releases a new phone shaped like either a banana or a roll of quarters…

You’re welcome.

-Toddness

Reality Blows.

This past weekend, I took a “self-enrichment” weekend. What this basically means is that I came home Friday night after work and did not leave my apartment until Monday morning when I went to work. Well, I did walk over to Panera (71 feet from my apartment) twice to get food. In addition, I took a bike ride down to the local video store to rent three movies that I have been meaning to watch for about ten years.

Two of the movies I rented, you need not concern yourselves with. The third of my three rentals was Reality Bites. Again, I have wanted to see this film for years. It is one of those films that you always have on that imaginary video store list in the back of your mind, yet somehow always seem to overlook in favor of something from the outer “New Releases” ring of the store.

(TANGENT)

I feel sorry for all of the old movies that get removed from the “New Releases” perimeter and cast out into that sea of obscurity in the middle aisles of the store. It’s got to be rough out there. How can old movies compete with that huge, eye-catching, pink, cardboard Sex and the City display that holds 100 copies of the movie when all an old movie gets is one copy of itself and one small sign above its entire section classifying it as “Drama?” I don’t even know what drama is. All I know is that the sheer sound of the word makes me not want to rent anything from the section beneath the sign bearing it.

It appears as if video stores have given up alphabetizing their middle aisles because the employees themselves don’t believe anyone is going to walk down those aisles. When I popped out of the middle of my video store with Reality Bites, everyone looked at me like I sat up out of a coffin. I thought someone was going to have to head to an off-site warehouse to get the DVD that went inside the case for my movie. Luckily, the movie was still on-site.

(END TANGENT)

For the past five years, whenever I was preparing to leave work early, I would send a company-wide email explaining my reasons for leaving. The subject line of these emails would always be “premature evacuation.” I always thought it was clever and people always replied back with emails about how funny I was (glorious).

After watching Reality Bites, where I saw a young Ethan Hawke deliver the phrase “premature evacuation” in a line of dialogue whilst speaking to Winona Ryder as she headed out the door on a date with Ben Stiller, I felt like a total fraud. I didn’t knowingly rip that line off, but it still makes me feel fraudulent. I really thought I had something.

And another thing, WHY didn’t anyone tell me about how hot Winona Ryder was circa 1993? Holy men’s Levi’s and throwback Ray Bans in the gas station scene. Unbelievable. It’s probably for the best that I didn’t know about Winona in ‘93. If I had been in the know about this, I would have probably tracked her down and done something to get myself arrested (and by “probably,” I of course mean “without any doubt”).

You’re welcome.

-Todd