OMG! Ponies!

AT&T has in many ways screwed the proverbial pooch with the iPhone 3G S upgrade scheme.  And by pooch, I mean their customer base.  Basically, they’ve made it so complicated that even the salespeople in their stores don’t know what’s what.  After some hashing it out, I got it worked out at my local AT&T store on Kings Highway in Brooklyn.

The “New Customer” pricing is $199/$299 plus activation fee with a 2yr. contract.  Here is how to know if you get the “new customer” pricing if you are an existing iPhone 3G person who, like me, bought at launch:

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This weekend I learned one of the benefits of things actually working.  I’ve been having issues with generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) of late and one of the things is I developed a couple of little tics (not physical).  One of them was overchecking my email at home, thinking that a work email came in when, in fact, I had no real reason to expect an after-hours email.  I’d check at 9 p.m., at 11 p.m.  If I woke up in the middle of the night, I’d check my work email.  I’d be going through webmail because emails weren’t being pushed to my iPhone.  If I was out of the office at court, I’d hammer away at the refresh button, anxiously waiting for work emails to come that never would.

Now, my work email is being pushed properly.  Many people think this is bad, like it’s some kind of electronic tether.  To me, it is very freeing.  I can tell in a moment whether there is an email because my phone instantly tells me.  No more obsessive checking.

I also learned that, as of my leaving the house this morning, the webmail service at work was actually down for the count.  I can’t check through webmail even if I wanted.  And to be honest, I won’t miss webmail for a moment.  Knowing that you have a compulsion and not being able to do anything about it is not pleasant.  I probably have some minor undiagnosed bit of OCD and the webmail stuff was a manifestation of it.  Recently, I’ve been able to channel my mild OCD into a more productive office-cleaning binge.  Time is getting written down, tasks are being listed.  I just need to focus more on the doing of the tasks and I’ll be good.

I’m also trying to get into a writing routine.  Most news podcasts don’t actually need to be watched and, since I have a 45 minute train ride in each direction, there’s no reason that the train ride can’t be used for blogging.  It’s quiet and roomy and just seems to be a good time for gathering thoughts and channeling them into diary form.  I’m sorry about the scrambled nature of this post but scrambled is where my thoughts are right now.  I churned out the motion on a new case (which will soon be a dead case).  There’s not a whole helluva lot left for me to – no real cases in which to channel my efforts.

My boss is bringing me in on a new case, heavy from the way he tells it.  That’s good.  I can use the work.  It justifies my existence at work.  I’m a bit worried that a too-clean office will look like an office that can be vacated with ease.  On the other hand, I’ve made it nice and homey for myself.  It’s very professional looking.

As my tweeted rantings might have clued people into, I’ve been having technical problems as of late.  After eight months of gainful employment, I still cannot access my work email from my iPhone.  This is a problem that was traced to a defective iPhone.  The problem iPhone would additionally occassionally run some random app that would cause it to get hot and discharge its battery.  And it would get laggy.  And apps would hang.  This made me all sorts of angry.

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It’s 5:30 a.m. and I just woke up from a nightmare.  I woke with a jolt with a feeling of terror and panic and horror.  It felt very much like in a movie when someone wakes from a horrible nightmare.  It is quite possibly the most horrific nightmare I have ever had.  And I remember it – which is startling because I never remember my dreams.  I saw faces very clearly in this dream and details of people (which I also can never remember ordinarily).

In my dream, it had been a beautiful late spring day in Brooklyn.  It was a Sunday.  My friends and I spent the day walking around the park (this is not the vivid part).  We spent about six hours total walking around.  I got home and went to take a shower.  This is where the absolutely most disgusting thing that I ever dreamed happens. Read the rest of this entry »

For me, the measure of a good commercial is one that gets me to sit up and take notice. As I’ve said, I’ve got a DVR and an itchy finger. If an ad can belay the FF button, then, in my book the ad has done its job.

At first, I thought it was an ad for Dell because there were two Dell computers in it; but it was for Bing.  I find the actual search engine to be decent. It’s not going to get me to switch from Google. For starters, Google has the handy-dandy search box in Firefox which has been my browser of choice for years. Secondly, I just like the simplicity of Google.  Much cleaner.

But, I like the ad.  Best of luck to Mister Softee.