Roonil Wazlib

Ryan and the Deacs used to mock me daily because of my phone, which was a standard motorola clamshell. Nothing fancy--no mp3 playing capability, no cameraphone, not even a color display. But what it did was get the job done. Phone calls? Sent and received. Text messages? See previous answer. And that was it.

Still, I was bullied into upgrading it for the krzr, which besides being the lamest name for a phone, actually is the lamest phone. First of all, the shiny mirror finish constantly collects dust and fingerprints and so to keep it from looking greasy, I am constantly polishing it. Which of course results in a smearjob that looks nothing like the pristine white and silver high gloss it arrived in. But all this is even before I open up the phone to use it.

The menu navigation is so dense and unwieldy, nothing is worth doing. The simplest way to send a text message, for example, I've got to do the following:
12345 1 Select Message
12345 2 Select New Message
12345 3 Select TXT Msg
12345 4 Select Add
12345 5 Select Contacts
12345 6 Click the Contacts I want to send to
12345 7 Select Done
12345 8 Select OK

And that is just to get to the screen so I can begin to type a message.

Most of the options are layered under so many submenus, I don't even bother. Supposedly, it can do all these cute and exciting things. But who cares if you have to spend 3 minutes clicking through menus that don't make sense? No ringtone is worth that. And speaking of ringtones. With music-on-demand capabilities built in to a phone that is advertised as the latest technology in personal music and entertainment, why are all the ringtones callbacks to the mechanical trills of the earliest cell phones? My old brickblock nokia had better integrated sound playback. It also had better games loaded, which is not difficult to do, since the krzr only comes with two "trial versions" that let you play for about 20 seconds before demanding a $9.99 subscription to continue.

And finally. On the website, it actually says that the krzr has a talk time of 225-250 min and 400-435 standby HOURS. I want to point out that I began charging my phone last night at 10pm, and unplugged it this morning at 9. It is now 10:26, I've received 2 text messages and sent 2. I've received one phone call which lasted 1 minute and 14 seconds. My phone is down to 2 bars on its battery. I will guarantee you that by 2p, it will be beeping low battery. And that is if no one tries to get in touch with me.

I'm not so emotionally fragile that this is enough to break me. But yesterday, my new(ish) Dell--my fourth one in 7 years--crashed twice, losing everything I'd been working on for two hours (including my blogpost on Maundy Thursday, which I will have to backpost later), and then told me that there was "No Hard Drive Detected" and advised me to call Dell. As if. For those of you who know what happened to me a couple of months ago when the same thing happened and the Dell person I called walked me through wiping my entire hard drive and THEN asked me if I had backed everything up, you know you can't fool me twice.

But as I sat there, on my bed last night, listening to the alternate beepings of my computer and phone, unable to even call anyone because my battery doesn't last long enough and the AC cord doesn't reach, I took a look around my place: I have a plunger in the lav in case any of the various drains plugs itself up for no reason, as they are wont to do, and fairly often. I don't have a proper bed because it is often used as a couch, and I don't have a proper couch because it is also my bed. My television set is cracked down the middle and has the shakes, and though I don't use it often, I sometimes wish I could see the picture properly. I don't have health insurance, so I ended up getting generic versions of less expensive alternates. Most of my shoes are worn down at the heel, my coats have tears in them, my roots are come in, and I'm feeling like I've taken a veer into Poopsville, Pop. 1.


I feel like Ronald Weasley. Why is everything I own such rubbish?