The miraculous case of the Lazerus phone

So a while back I managed to find a killer deal on my favorite phone EVER. I got on Craigslisp and managed to find an xv6700 (it's an older, but still cool, smartphone that has the slideout keyboard, wi-fi, etc) for $60!! So, for the last couple months I've been in total tech-love with it, and have been slowly pimping it out with apps and stuff to make it even more badass...

...and then I, through a total act of dumbassery, dropped it in the toilet (the one bright spot is that the toilet had at least been flushed first). As one would expect with a high-end phone, it was instantly gone. The screen turned black, and it wouldn't respond to anything. It was deader than Hillary's presidential hopes. I even tried taking it apart, letting it dry in the 110 degree Phoenix sun, and putting it back together. Nothing.

This happened at work, so for an entire day I was without any means of communicating with most of the outside world. Being the text-whore that I am, I went through major withdrawals for the first few hours. After that I started to actually enjoy being off of the grid for a bit. I'm so used to being super connected all the time, that it was almost a relief not to be...almost. Then it occurred to me that all of the numbers I'd saved since my last sync (which had been a LONG time ago) were also gone. That was the part that bothered me. I could switch back to my old phone, but not having that stuff kinda sucked.

Then, when I got home from work that night, I pulled the phone out of my backpack, and one of the lights was blinking green! Amazingly enough, the phone was working again! Mostly. The backlight for the screen is still not working, but I get the feeling that's fixable.

Best...concert...EVER!

Ok, so I know that by gushing about this I'm in serious danger of losing butch points, but whatever...George Micheal RULES.

John, a few friends, and I went to see George Micheal in concert on Sunday night. Now, I'll preface this by saying that I bought tickets for John and I because John's fan-dom of Mr. Micheal verges on restraining order fodder. He totally adores the guy...more because of his singing talent than his 5 O' clock shadow, but still.

I, honestly, wasn't expecting that much...a singing of some classics, and some new stuff...and a fag-tastic audience to be amused by. Things weren't looking good when we had to get our seats re-assigned because the concert didn't sell out. Because of that, the concert started a good 45 minutes after it was supposed to...which left most of the audience grumpy and whiny.

Until he came out on stage, and what a stage it was...



Can you imagine playing Wii on that thing? Holy crap! The swirls of images and colors they put on the screen were matched perfectly to the songs...and that screen just kicks ass anyway...

And then there was the singing...which was pretty much flawless. Seriously.

And then there was just George himself, whipping all of the homos and housewives into a frenzy with his energy and excitement.

If this concert comes anywhere near you...go...see...it. You won't be sorry. (Unless you totally hate him, then just go listen to your Janis Ian records and paint a watercolor or something)

Modern art?

Na, just an awful reminder of clumsiness. That's what my laptop's screen now looks like after I dropped it. That's what I get for carrying it like an algebra book

Why I'm scared about the upcoming election

As seems to be the case lately, I'm writing as I fly home from somewhere. This time it was the south. Well, not TRULY the south, but a small town in northern coastal Florida called Titusville. (it's not like I was in Alabama or anything). If there's anything I've come to learn about small towns (southern or otherwise) it's that they're usually filled with sweet, genuine people who would give you the shirt off their backs. Those same people, however, are often deathly afraid of change...not to mention the unfamiliar. Now, before anyone who's from a small town starts firing off hate mail, I know that what I've said is a generalization that isn't necessarily true of everyone in said bergs.

But one startling example of this was brought to the fore when I made the mistake of talking politics with someone I thought was somewhat progressive in his world view. After all, he's more than ok with gay folks, and seems to have a live-and-let-live attitude for the most part.

Anyway, I started out by asking him what he thought about the upcoming election. He mentioned favoring McCain, which made me ask what would make him a good candidate. He wasn't really able to come up with any true positives...and then paused to ask me

"Well, you're not gonna vote for that ni**er, are you?"

After I'd collected my jaw off the floor, I explained that, yes, I was going to vote for the most viable and intelligent candidate...which in my opinion is Obama. He went on to spew rediculous vitriol about how "they" were gonna be blasting rap music in the white house and trying to take everything from the wealthy white folks and give it to the black folks. (Can you tell he's a republican?)

I found myself raising my voice and getting angry when he started blaming the democratic congress for our current economic quagmire. I explained that if his buddies in the white house, and the previous republican congress, hadn't de-regulated the banking industry then we wouldn't have had the sub-prime loan quagmire that led us here.

It only got worse from there, especially when his girlfriend joined in with even less informed wild ideas about a black president...who she still thinks is muslim. I tapered off the conversation, and made a mental note to NEVER discuss politics with said individuals again. EVER.

More than anything, all this showed me that those of us who consider ourselves progressives, and want to see Obama elected, have a VERY uphill battle to fight to het him there. I had hoped that most of our country might be ready to move on and put someone of color in the white house, but I'm still a bit unsure of that.

Time vs. money

Being an airline employee, I have the truly great benefit of being able to fly pretty much anywhere I want to. Which, given the current state of gas prices, (combined with my extreme cheapness), means I'm willing to fly from Phoenix to Tucson and back.

That I even have this option is fantastic...but it does have it's drawbacks. As I wrote this I was sitting in a broken airplane on the tarmac in Tucson, waiting to find out if the "fault code" that our #2 engine was giving the pilots was something that could be more or less ignored until we got to Phoenix. Yeah, that idea scares me as much as it would any of you, believe me. But, given that I was flying as a guest on another airline, I don't feel like I have the right to bitch.

Well, it turned out that the broken engine on the plane was more of an issue than was originally thought. Moments after I wrote the last paragraph, all of the passengers on said aircraft were uncerimoniously herded back out into the main terminal, where our fate would be determined by one of the customer service folk...who were suddenly inundated with an angry mob who had places to be.

And it's here that I started to contemplate the true nature of my situation. To save money, I had decided to fly to Tucson and back...but it wound up costing me far more in time. So I began to wonder...which, ultimately, is more important? Time or money?

In flying, I saved a good $40 in gas...but spent a good 4 or 5 hours round trip more than I otherwise might have. Now, it was my day off...and I didn't have a lot on my plate...but would the extra few hours spent with my family and friends have been worth that $40? Not to mention the saved frustration of dealing with airplane delays? After all, if time is money, then what's money worth?

Or, more to the point, what are those extra hours and frustration in dealing with the usual hassles of flying (security, etc) worth in a monetary value? So I guess my question is this...would you have flown (provided it was free, but possibly riddled with hassles) or driven (and spent the $40)?

Don't call it a comeback...

..but here I am trying to get back into the swing of blogging again. You would think with all that's been going on in my life lately, that blogging would be easy to do. Lots to talk about, and all that. But it always seems when I have the most interesting things going on in my life is usually the same time that I end up not having enough time to write any of it down.

So now here I am trying to get back into it, and asking myself, do I bother playing catch up on all the stuff that's happened since my last entry? (yeah, I know, it was before gas went over $3 a gallon) Or do I just start clean, telling all the stuff that's new and now? So I guess I will attempt to do a little bit of both.

When I have fun new stuff to talk about, I'll blog about that...if I don't, then I'll go all retro and talk about anything that's happened in the ages since last I posted.

Movin on up...

...to the west side...of Phoenix.

Well, since the last time I updated a few things have happened. So it's time to play catch up. And I figure since I don't want my usual instinct to blather on for several paragraphs about the mundane details of it all to take over, I'll sum it up neatly with bullets!

So, since last I wrote:

-I transferred with the job up to Phoenix (and noticed that I have decidedly more hot co-workers up here than Tucson).

-I moved in with my best buddy Perry (while I'm looking for a good place up here to dwell).

-I attended PHX pride with my friend Sean (and discovered he has a hidden talent for dying someone's hair into the rainbow flag...no not mine)

-I've started learning my way around the city (and have come to realize the advantages of having a functioning freeway system...ahem...I'm talking to you, Tucson urban planners)

-I've been fighting with my laptop to get it to connect wirelessly to secured networks (and have just about gotten on a first name basis with the staff at the Apple store)

-I've taken to using parentheses (more than I probably should)

So that's the latest on my end. Now that I have my wireless working again, I'll do my best to keep up a little more. (And use parentheses a little less)

So that's the latest as of right now.