Category: tech

Can You Hear Me Now? II

I woke up this morning to discover Tmobile had terminated my cell service. I get to Starbucks in the Castro expecting to log on, pay some bills, blah blah blah except no signal. I’m like “oh k, What gives?” So I call’em up, on someone else’s phone mind you, and “oops! we are sorry sir, we cancelled your account for no apparent reason”. With a little digging, we discovered the mysterious error. You’ll remember I lost my cellphone a few weeks back. Well, Tmoblie forgot to remove the automatic account termination after 30 days. I did get a very sincere apology and 50 extra minutes so I guess I can’t complain too much. I think they did it on purpose just to make sure the account wasn’t stolen. Bitches!

Tmobile overall has been a decent service. I haven’t had any trouble w/their cell coverage. Plus, I’m not currently on a contract so they know they have to be nice to me! hehehe

Die SBC DIE!

I hate SBC! Or the artist formerly known as Pacific Bell. I much prefer cable internet over DSL as the speeds are often much faster for what you pay. However, when I moved into this building, Comcrack had not yet wired it for high speed internet. I was left w/SBC or nothing.

Apparently, because SBC contracts out for DSL, even though the bill has their name on it, I have different billing cycles for my phone and DSL servcie. This creates a problem in that one month I get billed for just my phone line and the next I get billed for my phone line and 2 months worth of DSL. It’s not breaking me but it is annoying. I call today to try and resolve the issue and I’m given lip service by both sides (after being on hold for a whopping 16 minutes) about how they can’t change my contract, blah blah blah.

Were it not for my investment in books, tuition, etc for school, I’d pay the termination fee and switch today. However, reason has overriden my anger to strangle the life out of my phone.

OY! I feel better now.

And The Karma Wheel Turns

I found my phone!

I can’t believe it. I am sooo giddy right now. Remeber when I said I called Starbucks to see if maybe I’d left it there. Well today, on a whim, I stopped by thinking mabye the night crew didn’t know about it since I’d been there during the day. And as fate would have it, they did! I’m still in shock. They said some homeless guy tried to claim it but since it has my name on the startup screen it foiled his attempt.

Another glaring example of my karma coming back to me I think. Switched the sim chips back over and I’m back in business.

I be so happy!!!

Cellphone Hell

I’m trying to get over my anger at myself for losing my phone. There isn’t much I can do about it now. As annoyed as I am, its not the end of the world in the scope of things. I mean I could be living in Iraq and fearful my house might be blown up at any minute.

I’ve decided for the time being to activate my old cellphone until I get back from TX. The old phone is a pda as well albeit a bit fragile. The original Tmobile pocket pc phones were metal w/glass screens. An accident waiting to happen. And let’s face it, I’m hard on my toys.

I’m not sure if I’ll get a pda again. Now that I have the laptop, I’m not sure I really need it. Don’t get me wrong, I used it plenty. I used it to track my workouts from the gym, play mp3’s, looking up movie tickets, surfing blogs via RSS, etc. I’m just not in a place where I can drop $300-$500 on a new gadget. Especially, with school starting. Audiovox has their new cell/pda combo on sale for $299.00 w/new service. Basically, the same as the one I had just different maker/model and a slighter faster chip.

My first priority right now is school of course. I have to make sure I have enough cash in the bank to cover tuition, books, etc as I make way too much to qualify for a grant. Damn prioirities…

Can You Hear Me Now? NO!

My phone still hasn’t surfaced. If I don’t find it today, I’m resigned to having to replace it. I’m beyond annoyed at this point.

The odd part is I have GPS program on the phone that uses the cellular gps to tell me where it is. However, the program only works while the phone is on. No luck so far. *sigh* I’m so incredibly bummed right now.

Now Here’s Using Your Head

I don’t buy music cd’s anymore. Primarily due to the greed of the industry and their strong arm approach to file sharing. I’d be a liar if I said I never ripped music. What is the difference from copying it off the radio or copying a file? Same quality, same music? Never understood that one. I also see the need for the artists’ to make a buck. What I don’t get is the flat grab for cash that the RIAA has made to prevent online sharing. Their tactics are shameful at best. Beating up your consumer base does nothing to encourage them to buy your product. Duh! To date, illegal file sharing has only made the smallest dent in the music industry’s sales. All their fake studies have fallen by the wayside.

Being a huge movie fan, I’ve been fearful the movie industry would go the same route. This article from Wired mag gives me hope that maybe, just maybe the movie industry isn’t as anxious to squash their only source of income.

“We’re going to bypass what the music industry had to come up with, and that’s to get ahead of the whole piracy thing,” Freeman told reporters at Sun Valley. (full story)

Apparently, Morgan Freeman has joined forces w/some big logos in attempt to make online movie sharing easy. Time will tell I guess but w/more forward thinking and less backward thinking, I think we’ll find a middle ground that is acceptable to all involved.

Whats In Your MP3 Player?

I often see people post their playlists from their mp3 players so I thought I’d give it a whirl. First, I don’t have ipod. I have a thing for simplicity and even a little synchronicity thrown in for good measure. I use my Ipaq 6315 phone/pda as my mp3 player. It serves as an all-in-one device for me which is perfect!

So anyway, this weeks list:

1. Madonna – Die Another Die
2. Tom Jones – Sex Bomb (remix)
3. Amber – We need to be Naked (remix)
4. Sophie – Murder On The Dance Floor
5. Moony – Dove (original mix)
6. Sugar Babes – Round & Round (extended mix)
7. Elvis vs JXL – A Little Less Conversation.
8. The Tamperer – Can You Feel It.
9. Dina Carroll – Without Love
10. ? – The Ketchup song
11. M People – One Night In Heaven (Oakenfeld remix)
12. Alice Deejay – Celebrate Our Love.
13. Cher – The Music’s No Good W/O You. (my fave)
14. Lio – Rapture
15. Kylie Minogue – Better The Devil You Know
16. 3SL – Take It Easy
17. Jean Jacques Smoothie – 2 People
18. Atomic Kitten – It’s Ok
19. Madonna – Impressive Instant
20. M People – Search For The Hero Inside Yourself (Vasquez remix)
21. H & Claire – DJ
22. Sophie Ellis Baxter – Take Me Home
23. Louise – 2 faced
24. The Faces – I Wish I Knew What You Know (remix)
25. Nora Jones – Don’t Know Why (remix)

New Microphone

I went out and got a new microphone today. I hated the cheesey generic one that I was using before. I don’t sound quite as gay when you hear me now at least. (I always think I sound like such a fag but hey, I am)

What say you? Better or worse?

So Now What?



I’ve got the podcast setup so now what do I do? I haven’t really decided yet how I plan to go about it. Should I only podcast conversations I think relevant or should I podcast my regular blog entries for that extra ummph that is Moby? Shit, I dunno.

For now, I think I’ll randomly do audio for posts from home. But don’t hold me to it.