ArtisticallyChill

My cell phone has been glitching since before our flight from San Diego. I thought it was a memory problem because of all the text messages I sent and received during the vacation. I cleared them all out but my screen is totally frelled. It works fine every time I turn it on, but after a while it just goes blank like it’s dead or the screen freezes.

This is definitely not the best time for me to be without a working phone. My contract doesn’t end until the end of August. By then I’ll be eligible for a free upgrade but that would mean signing another 2 year contract with T-Mobile. Sadly, after about a decade of staying with the same service, I’m ready to make the jump. These last two years with T-mobile have been riddled with too many calls not going through or coming through and text messages not being sent or received quickly enough. Also, the @Home service we got never works when we need it to. Calls never get put through properly and the router itself was poorly designed to handle broadband internet. I would have to constantly reset the router every time the internet connection would drop.

So I guess I’ll have to deal with my phone dying and hope that I’ll have enough money by the end of August to make the switch.

~ LoneWolf

This past Monday, after Sushi-ing It Up, Serena and I hit the mall on the way home in hopes of figuring out why our tMobile bill was unusually high. With an hour left til closing, the mall traffic was pretty wound down. The tMobile store was somewhat busy but we didn’t have to wait long to talk to someone. First thing’s first: Our bill. Apparently I did not have the text messaging service added on to my line so I was getting charged for every text I received (Thanks, Justin! LOL). So we added that to my line, but not Serena’s since she barely gets text messages. Family, please note this for the future. Just send the texts to me and I’ll relay the message to Serena. So instead of paying for each text, I now pay an additional $5 a month to send/receive all the text messages in the world. I rarely text but the $5 a month extra is better than my bill being $10-15 over the norm.

Second: Phone upgrades. It has been a good 5-6 years since we got our cellphones. Yeah, I know. It took a lot of discipline to not jump up and buy a new cell phone every year, or the iPhone for that matter (*ahem* Jason ;p). Since we were in the store we thought we’d ask if there were any deals on phone upgrades. And indeed there were! There were a few phones that were marked FREE (with a 2 year subscription) and others phones were Save $50 (with a 2 year subscription). So we went for the FREE phones. Although they aren’t technically free since you have to $18 + tax as an upgrade fee. Nevertheless, we looked at all our choices of FREE phones. We both decided on the Motorola W490 GSM wireless phone. I got the Black Mandarin color and she got the Bubblegum Pink. Both have a shiny finish and are sexy!

The Motorola W490

Messaging
* AOL®, Yahoo!®, MSN®, and ICQ® Instant Messenger®
* Text messaging*

Fun
* 1.3 Megapixel camera
* Music player

Communication
* Picture messaging
* Easy text input

Information
* High speed data with Edge

Assistants
* Bluetooth® connectivity
* Calculator

Those are a lot of sweet features. I highly doubt I’ll get to use them all. Anyway, after copying our contacts (individually) to our SIMS, our upgrade was complete! We also decided to try out the @Home service. Similar to Vonage, because it is VoIP, but the cost is only $10 a month. As we were finalizing everything, the store manager told us and the employee working with us that there was a severe tornado watch in effect. Minutes later the mall lights flickered. Yes, the entire mall flickered! The thundering from outside could be heard and as I peaked out the store window, I could see lightning flashing like crazy down the corridor beyond the exit. By the second time the mall lights flickered, we were told that security has ordered an evacuation of the mall and that all store were to close immediately. Luckily for us, all that was left was the signing of the paperwork. Alexandra, the employee helping us, was a bit freaked cause her drive home meant going to Skokie.

When we left the mall, the rain was coming down in sheets. And with bad weather, there’s bad drivers. I decided to take the lesser traveled route to the apartment. We made home alive and soaking wet. We still have to buy the phone for the @Home service since we only got the special router. Tmobile did have a 2 handheld set for $60 but that was way too much. I can find a 4 handheld setup for cheaper than $60. I’ve spent most of this week playing with my new phone. I even bought a USB cable and 2x2GB micro SD cards for each of us. Luckily I still had those ringtones I made on my computer and copying to the phone was a snap. With 2gb of storage I could easily have a special ringtone for each my cousins. And they can be full songs too.

Then, in another 6-8 years, I’ll upgrade again. By that time, the current-gen iPhones will be FREE! ;p

~ LoneWolf