11.26.06
Sentient cell phone
B & I have been meaning to put our cell phone plans together for a while now, and today I finally got down to the researching and deciding part. Now, my Motorola v60g has served me well for over 3.5 years, with its 3 lines of text, aluminum exterior, and 5-day battery life. But hey, when you sign a new contract, you’d better take advantage of the opportunity, right? (It’s hard to believe how messed up our phone system/companies are compared to the rest of the world.)
So after some online research, trips to the T-Mobile, Sprint, and US Cellular stores, some more research at letstalk.com and review sites, and another trip to Sprint and US Cellular, I finally came home and ordered us 2 KRZR phones via Sprint’s 550-minute shared plan.
Now I’d like to take a moment, just sit right here, I’ll tell you… well, that these cell phone names are really dumb, first thing. My first guess was “cruzer”, but the T-Mobile guy emphatically asserted that the proper pronunciation was “craazer”. Of course, then I said “craazer” and the Radio Shack guy said “cruzer”. It’s impressive that these Motorola phones are so popular despite there names. “Hi, I’d like a silver please… or is it a sliver?” And the music phone? “Hi, I’d like 2 Al Roeker phones please!” Okay, rant over.
So B & I have fallen to calling them “the Craisins”. Name aside, I’m getting some noticeable geek-excitement over them. They’re basically like razers, but skinnier (not thinner or shorter) - which was the only problem I had with the razer in the first place. So yeah. Free phones that are Bond-worthy (well, his could probably shoot poison darts), Sprint has a tower on the Tech building so I can get reception even through 4 floors of concrete, and we’ll still have plenty of minutes on the smallest plan available.
And the sentient cell phone? NOT the craisins - it’s my good old v60. An hour after I ordered the new phones, I pulled it out of my pocket to start the process of getting the 140 phone number off of it - and the antenna was broken. Folks, that phone has served me without fail for over 1300 days - and it breaks the hour after I get a new one! I as well as anyone know exactly how technology works and how silly anthropomorphizing it is, but I can’t help feeling that it was just heartbroken and lost the will to live. Sniff. We’ll give you a good funeral, v60.
