currently in EdnaLand

Well, currently I seem to be completely neglecting OD. I don’t write, I don’t read, I don’t note, I’m the worst ODer ever! I apologize. I’m pretty much neglecting everything that it’s possible to neglect, so don’t feel all singled out, OD. It’s not you. It’s me.

But hey, currents are a really easy way to make a long-overdue entry, so here’s some Late August Currents:

Current weather: Not scary like the NC coast, of course, which is reportedly being walloped by Irene as I write. But we’re getting the rain, even way over here in the mountains. It’s poured for hours. Naturally Ray-The-Not-A-Meteorologist said we would not have any bad weather at all, but instead we’d have a lovely sunny hot weekend. So we were planning to finally stain the deck. Oh, well. Okay, I do realize that whining about not being able to stain the deck this weekend is in very poor taste, considering how many people closer to the coast are in the path of a major hurricane and may be doing without electricity and running water for days, in a best-case scenario. I think my point is never EVER listen to Ray. Like we didn’t already know that. I actually laughed at Baker B yesterday when he declared this to be Deck Staining Weekend. Since Ray said we would have fine weather, Irene is probably going to veer west and smack the hell out of us. I do hope Irene is not as bad to the east as it’s forecast to be, though. 

Current annoyance: My main current annoyance is my new phone. (I know, I KNOW. Small potatoes compared to oncoming hurricanes.) I came due for an upgrade a few weeks ago. I actually really really liked my old phone — an LG Envy. I was perfectly happy with my old phone. Except for its annoying lock button, which is on the face of the phone and is convex instead of concave, so is always getting pushed and unlocked no matter how hard I tried to store it in ways that would keep it from getting unlocked. That idiotic button really sticks out, and no case I could find was rigid enough to keep it from getting pushed and unlocked. But I even solved that a few months ago, with a weird case I got from TJ Max for like three dollars on clearance- it’s just a very hard shell that I think was intended for a Blackberry, but apparently it didn’t work out. There were a bunch on clearance, all obviously opened and then returned. But for my purposes, it was great- I just put the phone in the shell and secured it with a rubber band, and voila! No more accidental unlocks!

But that has nothing to do with my new phone. That’s just the one and only thing I didn’t like about my old one. So I’d have been perfectly happy with keeping my old one… except I’m up for a new one. And that means I WANT a new one. Because a New One is MUCH more fun than my old one! New Ones are always cooler and better and full of modern updated fun features! And the final push was Baker B. Who had a ridiculously cheap phone from Consumer Cellular with a ridiculously cheap plan — $15 a month, but no minutes. Since he rarely used it, paying for minutes was still cheaper than bumping up to the next level plan, but adding him to my Verizon plan was only a few dollars more. And much more convenient, and the final straw was his Really Cheap phone’s flip thing broke halfway off so it seemed like fate. (As did the fact that practically the MINUTE I called and cancelled his plan, I got an email that the rates were going up by $5 a month. Fate!) ANYHOW, signs were all pointing towards just adding him to my plan. That way I could upgrade to a New Fun Nifty Fancy Phone, he could have my old phone (which he actually really likes), we’d share minutes so he could actually USE his phone and not always be using my phone in the rare event that he makes a call, and Bob’s your uncle.

SO. I of course debated and debated over what to get, although I have to say I didn’t have nearly as much choice in my upgrade as I have in the past. Because of course the upgrade they want you to go to is a Smart Phone, and although I’d looooove a Smart Phone, I don’t actually NEED a Smart Phone, and I don’t want to pay the $30 extra a month for a data plan that I’d have to pay if I got a Smart Phone. And I kind of think it’s a really really bad idea to be connected 24/7 to the internet. As much as I’d like to be connected 24/7 to the internet. I already spend way way WAY too much time online. That would just make it a zillion times easier to always be online and never be offline, and even though Facebook and Farmville and Open Diary and all those neverending random sites I can spend hours on would be right there at my fingertips…. NO. NONONONONO!!!

Well, as it turned out, if I wasn’t going to a Smart Phone, I could either A) get a phone similar to my LG ENVY, but not get another LG ENVY since they apparently don’t make them anymore, which would not be exciting and fun and thrilling and different since it would be getting something like what I already had, or, B) get an LG Cosmos Touch. Which has the cool nifty fun aspects of a Smart Phone, like a fun nifty touch screen, without actually requiring you to sign up for a data plan.

Of course I went with the LG Touch. Even though it did not get the best of reviews. Especially on Amazon, which naturally I did not read until after I’d already bought it. I did check out the Verizon reviews, where it was rated 3 1/2 out of five stars — on the high side of Verizon reviews, actually. I think it had 2 1/2 on Amazon. And it IS a fun phone. It has a touch screen, and it has a really nice calendar feature which I liked a lot. Very easy to access- my LG ENVY has a calendar too but it’s hard to get to and not as easy to add appointments to as this ones. It’s fun to use and has that Smart Phone feel without the Smart Phone price. And I could add a data plan later if I decide I really DO want to be online 24/7 after all.

But. OMG. Okay, first of all, the battery runs down every night. I go to bed with a full charge; I wake up with a dead battery. And it takes nearly FOUR HOURS to charge it. There is some weird application called The Daily Scoop which everyone on the forums is ranting and raving about — it’s preloaded and you can’t get rid of it, and it is always popping up and lighting up the phone and draining the battery, apparently. I have actually not seen it, but word on the street is that it shows up in the middle of the night so that’s probably what’s happening. Also, it sometimes has fine reception and sometimes has horrible reception – Baker B has called me from his office, while I was in my office, and can’t even hear what I’m saying because it’s fading in and out. He’s also called me from his office when I was in my office and it’s been perfectly fine. AND the touch screen, while nifty and cool and fun, is also very, ummmmm, touchy. Sometimes it’s really easy to use; sometimes it is way WAY too sensitive; sometimes I have to practically bang on it to get it to work. And I’ve calibrated it several times.

SO. All these weird problems are adding up to a lot of unneeded stress and anxiety and I think I’m taking it back tomorrow. Luckily I went to the Verizon store and got it instead of doing it online, since I was upgrading while adding a line and wanting to keep my original number and take the new upgraded phone whilegiving Baker B my old phone. I was afraid it would be complicated, and yeah, it was. It took Verizon Guy like FORTY FIVE MINUTES to get it all worked out. But now I can just take the phone back there, and hopefully exchange it without a big fight. I think I’m just going to get whatever is currently comparable to my old LG ENVY. Which is disappointing, since it won’t be cool and fun and full of exciting features my old one didn’t have. It won’t be much of an upgrade. I’m used to upgrading to something a whole lot better than my old version. Hence the jump to the touch screen. I dread taking it back since I’m sure they’ll try to talk me into just exchanging the LG Touch for another LG Touch, and not downgrading to a cheaper one. And given the awful reviews, I don’t want to do that. So I’ll have to be all assertive and stuff, which is not my nature at all. Ewwww.

Oh, look at this. I’ve gone on and on and on about my phone troubles, and now it’s twenty till two in the morning and I must get off the computer. That wasn’t much of a "currents". Perhaps I’ll actually continue tomorrow with more than two questions.