Monday, September 20, 2010

Technology Week (and a half?)

Since I last posted (more than a week ago?!) I've had even more distractions than before.  (Well, and I've also been translating German advertisements that were directed at women, which are simultaneously funny and terrifying, but I'll have to blog about that later.) 

So, a few months ago, Chris got a text message from our cellphone company saying that we'd be eligible for upgrades soon, and that we could get free smartphones if we signed up for a data plan.  This text message conveniently arrived a few weeks after we finally canceled the data plan we'd gotten so that we didn't have to pay a few hundred dollars when Chris text messaged himself an mp3 of the Saskatchewan Roughrider cheer song.  My response was "Well, of course they want us to spend more money again."  Chris's response was "I can get a smartphone?" 

I was so insistent that I was going to hold on to my "old" (only two years old!) phone, and that when I did upgrade, I was just going to get a regular old phone.  But then it turned out that, because my account is the "parent account" for our family plan, the only way Chris could get a smartphone was for me to get a smartphone data plan (and a smartphone) and to share my plan with him.  Which meant I had to get a new phone, similar to whatever Chris got.  And then it turned out that smartphone data plans are a lot more expensive than regular old phone data plans (like the ones we had before). 

I was ready to walk away at that point, but Chris got puppy dog eyes (and his old phone, admittedly, wasn't really working anymore).  So I started to negotiate, and got the connection fees waived, and then it turned out that their student plans are really inexpensive, and I happen to be a student.  (Why didn't I get a student phone plan before?)

The moral of the story is that I'm now one of Those People, who is always checking the internet on her touch-screen phone.  I seriously haven't been parted from it since I got it last Wednesday.  (It runs Android!)

And then it got worse today: the phone company came to my house and hooked up our Nice! New! Cable! And Faster Internet! (The phone company finally offers cable here, which is cheaper than our old cable company, and because it runs through the internet the deal we got included faster internet.)  As a result of this, I spent a few hours today playing with the new toys that arrived with the cable: a PVR (I put the VCR into storage!) and a new wireless router.  (The router might actually be the most exciting part; apparently our old router was what was preventing me from printing over the network all these years!)

And then then I found out that my Kindle arrives on Friday. 

4 comments:

The Blog Fodder said...

You are becoming a regular Techno Bill.
http://search.dilbert.com/search?w=techno+bill&x=29&y=10

Queen of West Procrastination said...

I know! It's the strangest thing.

Anonymous said...

Hey, I know that Chris will figure this out. The PVR box does have a limited memory, unlike just popping a new tape into a VCR. How do you get item off of a PVR into permanent storage like a computer or disk?

Arlen

Queen of West Procrastination said...

We're not so worried about permanent storage so far (and can still use the VCR if needed), but my sister has some sort of method. I'll have to ask her.