Sleek, Sexy, And Just Plain Cool. And My New Phone Is Pretty Neat, Too

As mentioned in my last post, I finally picked up my new cell phone, the HTC Fuze.
After Scott, Jamie, and I met at the food court and ate, we headed to the AT&T store and found that they had the phone. The sales guy brought one out so that we could play around with it, at which point we discovered that the reviewer who said it was sluggish and unresponsive was either a. smoking crack or b. didn’t bother calibrating the touch screen before playing around with it.
It did take forever for it to start the first time, as it had to install a bunch of stuff, but after that it was fine. Admittedly, when sifting through photos via “flicking,” it’s not as fast as an iPhone or iPod Touch, but that’s hardly a deal-breaker.
After playing with it, the question of whether or not one or more of us was actually going to buy it arose. Scott needed to talk it over with Stacy, while Jamie had already gotten the go-ahead from Casey, but was still somewhat reluctant to do so, and I, of course, had the “advantage” of being a loveless loner who doesn’t have to clear anything with anyone.
Even so, I was leaning towards waiting until after payday, but ultimately decided that I didn’t want to wait.
While I was being rung up and getting my service plan upgraded, Jamie decided to buy it as well.
I went with the accessories pack, which included a car charger, 2 GB microSD card, case (more on that in a bit), and a Bluetooth headset. There was some sort of issue with the headset that it was supposed to come with it – I guess they didn’t have it – so I ended up getting a better one, apparently. It is a pretty nice LG headset. Now I can be one of those jack-offs walking around everywhere with a Bluetooth headset stuck in his ear who, upon initial inspection, appears to be talking to himself. Of course, in my case the odds are pretty good that I really would be talking to myself.
Scott and I waited around while Jamie was being rung up, and were approached by another sales guy who was especially chatty. Turns out that he had worked at AOL for a while last year. He tried doing some namedropping of various AOL bigwigs he had worked with, but neither Scott, nor Jamie, nor I recognized the names, so when he dropped them they just kept on falling.
At some point – weirdly – he started telling Scott and I all of these places where we could get really good deals on unlocked phone.
We were both thinking, “Uh, you do know that you work at a place that’s in business to sell locked phones, right?”
Jamie, still being rung up, told Scott and I that we could leave if we wanted. Scott offered to stay, and I would have been willing to, but it was getting a bit late, given that we had yet to start Riff Trax night, so when Jamie found out that we had plans to watch movies she said again that we could leave, and when Scott started to demur, I said, “Meh, we can just ditch her.”
So we did.
When we got to my house and I started going through everything that came with the phone I discovered that I hadn’t gotten a case.
I also remembered that I’d intended to go to Wilsons Leather Store while I was at the Town Center to buy some gloves. I figured that because they’re (sadly) going out of business I could get a good deal.
So to deal with the issues of the case and the gloves, I stopped at the Town Center on my way home from work on Friday and I learned that I didn’t get a case because they were all out, and that the Wilsons has already closed and been replaced by some other store.
It was only two strikes, but I was still out.
In any case, so far I’m digging the phone, not because it’s somehow life-altering, but because it’s just got a lot of little “Hey, that’s cool!” features that set it apart from the simple functionality of my old phone.
And besides that, it’s sleek and sexy.
In terms of actual functionality that sets it apart from my old phone, it has a better keyboard that has the most commonly-used special characters (@, for example) right on the keyboard without requiring pressing the Function key, and it includes a full-fledged Web browser (Opera Mobile). Beyond that, the Touch Flo 3D interface is a marked improvement over the default Windows Mobile interface.
The 3.2 Megapixel camera takes unusually sharp and clear pictures, has an auto-focus feature, and has really good image-stabilization so that pictures don’t turn out nearly as blurry as they do on most cell phone cameras.
Among the “that’s cool” features are the fact that the stylus is secured in its storage spot with a magnet – something Jamie discovered – that actually pulls the stylus into place as you’re pushing it in, and the fact that the screen automatically unlocks when you pull the stylus out.
If you’re in a meeting and the phone rings, you can simply turn it over so that it’s face down and it will stop ringing. You can also set it so that it automatically switches to vibrate during times that there are appointments on your calendar.
It comes with a game called Teeter that takes advantage of the phone’s accelerometer (the video features the slide-out keyboard-less version of my phone). You have to guide a ball into a specific hole, past obstacles like walls and other holes, by tilting the phone. It even gives some tactile feedback so that you can feel when the ball “hits” one of the walls or goes into a hole.
It’s kind of addictive – and maddening.
Speaking of the accelerometer, there is one sort of…well, not complaint, exactly, but more of an observation about the phone that I have. Unlike the iPhone or iPod Touch, the screen’s orientation doesn’t automatically change with the orientation of the phone. At least, not always; it seems to be application-specific.
If I’m browsing in Opera, or using the camera, for example, and I turn it on its side, the orientation of the screen will change. But if I’m using the actual phone, or say Bubble Breaker, and tilt it, the orientation does not change.
Like I said, it’s not really a complaint; it’s just different from what I would have expected, thanks to my iPod Touch.
When I was upgrading my service plan, the sales guy asked me if I text at all. I said that I don’t do a lot of texting, but it is a feature that I use. I wondered why he was asking, as I thought that I had unlimited data and texting on my existing plan. He said that I didn’t have unlimited texting. Evidently I’ve been paying per text, which, given that I never noticed any major increases in my monthly bill, says a lot about how much, or rather, how little, I text.
In any case, I went with a different plan that covered texting. I also opted to add the GPS service. I doubt that I’ll get that much use out of it, but I might as well have it. I tried out the GPS software yesterday and was pretty impressed by its accuracy.
So, yeah. Digging the sleek, sexy new phone.
But what, you may ask, about my old, not-so sleek and sexy but still perfectly functional phone?
When I was home for my mom’s birthday I was talking to my niece Jourdan about the new phone I was eventually going to buy, and she jokingly asked if she could have my old one. The thought hadn’t occurred to me; I figured on just dropping it off in one of those charity boxes or whatever. So I said that she could, which surprised her. I’m not sure why; it’s not like I was going to have any further use for it.
Apparently ever since that time she’s been periodically asking my mom “Did Jon buy his new phone yet?”
So this morning when I headed out to go to the comic shop and go grocery stopping I stopped at the Postal Connections to ship it to her. When I got home I sent her a message on Facebook letting her know that I had shipped it out.
In response she said that I “must be the best uncle ever.”
Ha! In your face, Stuart and Brad, and Dean’s brother Rick! I rule!
Apart from the activities mentioned above, I haven’t done much today. After getting home and eating lunch, I took a rather lengthy nap.
I spent most of last night watching the recorded TV piled up on my DVR, and still have a few more shows to watch tonight.
In fact, I think I’ll go do that now.

New Toy

For quite some time now I've been waiting for/drooling over the HTC Touch Pro, or, as AT&T calls it, the Fuze, with the intention of making it my next phone.
Scott has as well, so for the past few months we've been sharing any news we happened to find about its imminent release in the US with each other, as well as any reviews we happened upon.
Yesterday I found a review that stated that the touch screen was sluggish and unresponsive. This was disheartening news for me and for Scott.
I had been planning for us to order pizza for our rescheduled Riff Trax night, but the pizza delivery mishap on Wednesday put an end to that plan, so I was weighing the potential dinner options when it occurred to me that we could meet at the Dulles Town Center, eat at the food court, and check to see if they had it in stock yet at the AT&T store, so that's what I proposed.
In the meantime, Jamie had gotten a look at the phone as well and wanted to join us.
Long story short, they had the phone, it was not sluggish or unresponsive, and I ended up buying it.
(So did Jamie.)
Still having fun playing around with it, and of course I've got the whole work thing to deal with, so I'll post more details later.

The Perfect Way To Start Your Day!

What's the best way to get your morning started and set the tone for the day? Why, taking a good old-fashioned tumble down the stairs! Who needs a nutritious breakfast or a cup of joe when you can just fly gracelessly through the air and land on your ass?
The past few mornings have been frosty, so this morning when I got up I decided that my first order of business would be to check out what the weather was like and, if necessary, start up the car so that it would be defrosted by the time I finished showering and getting dressed.
Three stairs away from the bottom I apparently stepped on an invisible banana peel and my feet went completely out from under me, causing me to bang my arm against the railing, and land butt-first on the floor.
So that was fun.
The worst part was that it was all a waste of time; it was considerably warmer today than it has been, so there was no frost on the car.

Finally, Something Happened

No Riff Trax night tonight, so earlier this evening I decided to give my mom a call.
While I was on the phone someone started pounding on my door.
When I opened the door I was greeted by a delivery person from Papa John's who said, "Here's your pizza."
I didn't want to be a walking cliché, but given that I hadn't ordered a pizza, I had no choice but to say, "I didn't order a pizza."
She confirmed that this was the correct address, and I considered the notion that someone had played a prank on me, but that didn't really make any sense. I have even fewer enemies than I do friends, so who would pull a pizza prank on me?
However, when she tried to confirm the phone number, it wasn't mine, but it sounded vaguely familiar, and in an instant I had figured out what had happened. I set down the phone, then picked up my cell phone to look through my list of contacts to confirm it, but before I could, she said, "The name is Scott?"
Several Riff Trax nights ago, Scott and I ordered a pizza. As I had some coupons, we opted for Papa John's. I have an account on papajohns.com, but I couldn't remember my login for it, so Scott used his account and had it delivered here.
Obviously he had gone online tonight to order a pizza and had neglected to change the address back.
I explained this to the delivery person, and she asked, "Where does he live?" She rolled her eyes and sighed when I said, "Manassas," and said, "Well, I guess we'll be giving him a call."
To give him a head's up - and, more importantly, to laugh at him - I called Scott and said, "Good luck getting your pizza," and then explained it all to him.
It's a good thing I'm not a dick, otherwise, when I figured out what was going on, I would have said, "Oh, right; the pizza that I definitely did order! Thanks!" After all, I was pretty hungry at the time...
Still, I think I was better served by gaining something to blog about.

I Can't Even Come Up With A Title

Crap, it’s December already.
I guess it’s a good thing that I’m not having fun, because if I were time would be going supersonic.
Not much new or noteworthy going on here, I’m afraid.
Probably the most significant thing that’s happened is that Scott requested that we move Riff Trax night to Thursday this week.
Seriously, that’s it. Even I’m amazed at how dull the past couple of days have been.
Oh sure, I’m back in the grind after my all-too brief long weekend, but not much is going on there, either.
I am finding that I’m getting really impatient for my new furniture to arrive, and the anticipation is making me hate my current couch more and more each day. I suppose that, to spite me, time will now choose to slow down.
Okay, I’ve seriously got nothing. Maybe next time.

Statistically Significant?

In my last post, I stated that the number of people who would be amused by it was statistically insignificant. However, I later learned that the number of people at least interested in looking at it actually was statistically significant:



Well, significant in terms of the statistics of people who come to my blog.
Yeah, my little blog that couldn't was featured on Reddit, and as a result had a fairly large influx of traffic, some of my biggest numbers ever.
Not that those numbers are especially big, mind you, but even so, it was odd to see that many people flocking here.
Of course, having a lot of people look at my blog also means having a lot of people quickly navigate away, as there's nothing particularly engaging that would keep them here (or get them to come back).
Still, it was fun while it lasted.
Honestly, having a lot of people come here doesn't really mean anything anyway; I don't have any ads, so there's no revenue that would come from it. I don't have any particular axe to grind, so it's not like I'm looking for like-minded fans or followers.
Nobody clicked on the link to Heroic Portraits, so it didn't drum up any business - and anyway, when people do go there, they look around, briefly, are unimpressed, and then leave.
Really, all that having a lot of traffic to Threshold would do for me is increase the likelihood of someone saying something insulting in the comments.
Actually, I'm almost disappointed that with all the people who came here, not one took the time to pop into the comments and say "your retarded" or "FAIL!" or something along those lines.
Ah well.
Anyway, the hits have stopped coming, and it's back to obscurity, which is probably just as well.
Not much of note going on today. I talked to my mom, did the laundry, and am about to eat dinner.