Archive for June, 2011

Shiny!

Monday, June 6th, 2011

I know I’ve been terribly remiss about updating lately but I’ve been distracted.  I heard an acronym the other day that fits it perfectly.  ADOS:  Attention Deficit OH SHINY!

 Justin and I determined that we don’t really watch TV.  So what was the point in paying for it to be delivered to our house?  Justin did a bunch of work chatting with our cable provider and for an additional $5/month, removed about $70 from our monthly bill, cleared space in our media cabinets by taking out the cable boxes, and removed live TV from our lives entirely.

Yay!

We then turned around and put some of that money into Hulu Plus, which will satisfy most of our television wants, along with the websites for those actual shows.  So, TV?  Fixed.

Then we went and ended our relationship with Verizon and started new terms with Sprint.  So far, it’s been a rocky relationship.  I haven’t been able to get access to the information I want on their website and their customer service has been *really* annoying.

On the other hand, I spent my whole weekend playing around with my very shiny new smart phone.  It’s an LG Optiumus S.  It’s purple.  It has things on there that tell me the weather and what movies are showing nearby and where to find cheap gas and MY CALENDAR and my to do list (though that one’s still a work in progress) and oh, my gosh, it’s SO AWESOME.  *cue the kid at the end of The Incredibles movie there*

Unfortunately, it turns out we don’t actually have cell service at our house.  So we’re looking at what we can do about that because phones that don’t actually work, while they’re very pretty, are kind of pointless.  And, since there’s no service, I haven’t set up my voicemail yet, so if you call and get a weird answer, that’d be why.

But it was fun and terribly distracting sitting there with my brand new phone going “Oh!  What does THAT do?!”  Plus, I couldn’t get my contacts list to transfer over so I had to do that all by hand.  The bonus there is that my whole physical address book just became obsolete because it’s all stored electronically now.

Oh!  Our phone numbers stayed the same, by the way.  So you don’t have to worry about that.

And my podcasts upload automatically!  I have so many stories to listen to now!!

Anyway, it’s my first Android phone, so I’m still stumbling my way though stuff.  If any of you more experienced users have any advice, I’d love to hear it.

We went to see the new X-Man movie over the weekend, too!  It was very good.  I enjoyed it a whole lot.  You have to ignore some continuity problems, if you’re the kind of person who notices that type of thing, but I thought it was a lot of fun.  It made me gasp in surprise and alarm and made me really sad in some spots and made me laugh at points and I thought it was an entirely enjoyable experience.

A very happy belated birthday to Amy and Isaac and belated happy anniversary to Mom and Dad!  I’m sorry I didn’t call any of you (or you, Erica, for our regular chat) but I figured you’d mostly be busy, plus, like I said, no cell service.  But I hope you all had a delightful day!!

Edited to add:  I just wanted to say how tickled I am right now about how my phone has improved my outlook for this afternoon.  This morning, while getting ready for work, I checked the weather on my phone.  And it told me that it would rain this afternoon.  So I brought my umbrella into the office, even though there were clear blue skies.  It’s been thundering for the last 30 minutes (I can’t see outside to know what else is happening) and I am SO HAPPY that I have my big umbrella for what sounds like a wet walk out to my car.

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Stooooopid.

Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

I keep meaning to talk about my Memorial Day weekend, but there are pictures and they’re still on my camera and I haven’t had my camera in proximity of my computer all week.  So.  Maybe I’ll get there tomorrow.

Right now, though, the thing stuck on my brain is the absolute stupidity of drivers on the road this morning.

It wasn’t that bad until I got within a handful of miles from work.  I drive though a marshy area and this morning there was a lot of fog.  I was still keeping up my normal pace, which means that I was at or slightly above the speed limit.  The minivan that pulled up behind me, I can only conclude, was going at least 10 MPH over the limit.  In dense fog.  And then it passed me — while going across a bridge.  While another car was just emerging from the fog coming the other direction.

Okay, fine.  So the minivan then pulled up really close to the truck I’d been following at a respectful distance and proceeded to get really well acquainted with that truck’s tail end while also popping out now and then to see if it was safe to pass.  Here’s a hint — it never was.  The truck pulled off after a while and the minivan zoomed ahead again, going at least 55 in a residential area.

I refrained from turning on my brights while it was stuck behind the truck.  I thought about it, though.

I caught up with the minivan at the stoplight of a T-intersection.  Traffic gets heavy at this part of my commute, with buses and semi trucks and lots of people trying to all go the same direction.  So we sat at the light for a while and then, at the green light, as many people as possible tried to fit into the tiny space left on the road running crosswise.  The minivan ahead of me ran the intersection just as the light went from yellow to red.

And then the car BEHIND ME also ran the red light.  I stopped at the red light.  The car behind me passed me while I was stopped, going around me so they could run the red light.

Really?  Is this rational thinking here?  Is there any thought involved in an action like that at all?

On the final stretch before getting to work, I cross three sets of railroad tracks.  One of those crossings was broken this morning, with the arm down blocking my side of the road.  I was following a semi truck at this point, and it pulled into the other lane to cross the tracks.  There was a car coming from the other direction that stopped to let the semi through.  Apparently the guy behind me didn’t see that, because when I stopped instead of following the semi, the he made a rude gesture at me.  But I prefer not to have head-on collisions on my way into work in the morning.  It’s just this weird quirk of mine, I guess.  I find it goes poorly with breakfast.

Sheesh.

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