kicking and screaming.

so this post (and several more) is way overdue. life has kind of sucked for a while.

anyway.

about 2 months ago, my phone started getting stupid. it was kind of a halfway smartphone, a nokia e71x running symbian 60. it had all of about 2 apps, which didn't bother me. it surfed the web fine with a real browser, which was something of a novelty when i got it. the only real main issue i had with it was google refused to make a gmail app for it, and i couldn't sync my calendars live over the air. instead i had to remember to do it manually from my mac via bluetooth.

then, suddenly, it lost the ability to cross-reference incoming text messages with the address book. all text messages were coming in labelled with just the sending phone number. which was fine when it was his and i had memorized it, but i was sending a lot of "my phone has gone stupid, who is this?" text messages back to people because i had no idea who they were or what they were talking about. grr, etc.

so i log into my account and discover, hey, i'm eligible for a new phone upgrade. w00t.

i was thinking maybe a blackberry. he said he thought it would be the best option for me. i am just not a fan of the iphone. not that i'm an anti-apple person, i like my macbookpro and ipod nano just fine. but i don't like the iphone. the touchscreen feels weird under my fingers and i like to keep my email accounts separated, which apple disapproves of.

so i'm wandering around the store, playing with some of the demos, and i see this motorola phone running android. it looks interesting. one of my co-workers loves his droid. and it's all googly, so i know i can get my email on it. and not only my regular email, but school went google too a while back, so i could use it to check both, which i thought might be helpful, since i'm a TA this semester and i am not giving out my phone number. and it's smaller than the blackberry torch.

also, much to my surprise, the sales guy seems to know what he's talking about when it comes to technology, and while he's an iphone fan, he says that people have been having problems with the blackberry torch and complaining about it.

so i buy the motorola atrix. somehow, when it rings up, it's $50 less than he quoted me, but i'm not arguing.

then i go home and set it up and start googling it.

turns out, it's a brand new phone and i got it - again, somehow - before the quoted launch date on the internet. wtf? i'm an early adopter??

i can say, having used it for a bit now, it's pretty cool. it uses different glass than the iphone and doesn't feel so weird under my fingertips. and i'm getting email and calendar updates on the fly, which is pretty cool. it flashes a little green LED at me when i have email or a text message. i like it. and you can remove the battery, unlike the iphone, which was really nice when the fingerprint scanner/unlock button decided working. i started freaking out, all "oh shit, my brand new phone has a hardware issue," but always the first thing to try is a hard reboot. which you can't do on an iphone. pulled the battery out of my atrix, popped it back in, turned the phone on, and hey, it's working again.

i'm not into apps, so i've only downloaded like, 3. got the sony reader app, so all of my purchased ebooks are on the phone, but the screen is tiny and bright, so reading them kind of sucks. the southwest airline app is pretty cool, though. we took a vacation to boston last month and i checked into our flight home while laying in bed in the hotel. got in the 'A' boarding group too (if you've ever flown southwest, you know what that means. if you haven't, just know it's a Good Thing).

also, the browser crashes occasionally, but as android is based on linux, i just have to go into the applications menu and force quit. yay.

so yeah. apparently, i'm an accidental early adopter. huh. i have joined the twenty first century. or something.

i hate march.

yes, there's been a lot going on and no, i haven't blogged about anything.

i fucking hate march. suicide watch month almost over.

for the time being: my parents and my brother are safe in tokyo. he lives on the southwest tip of honshu and has been mostly unaffected by the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear power station repercussions. will be picking mom and dad up friday night.

when is it going back to 70F? seriously.

march. bah.

deception.

so earlier this week, it was sunny, with temperatures in the 60s F. i was driving around with my sunroof open.

now they are forecasting 1-3 inches of snow tonight.

i know, i know, it's still winter. that doesn't make me any happier about it. what the hell is going on, getting a taste of spring in the middle of february?

damn you, weather!

i suppose on the plus side, we've been cleaning out our house in order to get it ready to sell. i found all my warm, thick winter sweaters yesterday.

i have been remiss.

so, it's already wednesday. and apparently, i forgot to tell people that i got a new laptop last saturday. whoops.

my sister lost her job in the fall, but just started a new one at the beginning of the year. her new job gave her a mac. and the only computer she has at home is an ancient dell that dad bought her when she was in college (i don't know why i got laptops and she got a clunky desktop. i assume it's what she asked for). so we agreed that she would buy my old macbook and we would set it up for her and teach her how to use it.

so i now have a brand new, shiny macbook pro. the smallest, cheapest one, admittedly, made cheaper by apple's edumacation pricing. there are some weirdnesses to it, like why did apple change the functions of the F-keys? and the tap-to-click functionality of the giant mouse pad/button comes turned off by default, another wtf? and oh, there's a difference between mini-dvi and mini-display-port? well, shit. that's two more adapters i had to buy and i couldn't use my nice 19" lcd monitor until yesterday.

but in general, it's a nice upgrade over a macbook. the backlit keyboard alone is almost enough to justify the price. and the 4gb of ram ought to make running windows on it a lot easier, so maybe i'll finally get rid of my giant gaming box that i keep for playing the odd windows game and writing papers in wordperfect (i hate word. hate, hate, hate).

if a cheap white macbook lasted me 3 1/2 years with only a ram upgrade, i'm hoping this one will last me at least as long. so, through the end of this degree (2 1/2 years left, including the semester that starts saturday), and then some. i guess my next computer will be bought just before i start my ph.d.?

and i'm an addict.

i've been saying it facetiously for years, but i really am addicted to caffeine. when i get up in the morning, "is there coffee?" is usually the first thing i say. if there isn't, anxiety levels shoot up. when i go somewhere else that isn't home, i have to plan how to get coffee in the morning before i can go to sleep, or i'll be thinking about it all night.

admittedly, there are much worse things to be addicted to, and as addictions go, caffeine is pretty mild. plus i like coffee, tea, chocolate, and coke zero. i'm not about to try to cure myself.

but it's an interesting insight into the mental state of addiction. the amount of preoccupation and anxiety i have that revolves around getting that morning cup of coffee is a little bit alarming. i remember being late to class back when i was an undergrad and forgetting which class i would be on the way to because i had run out the door without coffee. these days, i refuse to drive in the morning if i haven't had it because i don't trust myself to a) remember where i'm going and how to get there and b) remember to do things like stop at intersections or start turning soon enough. but these, combined with my aforementioned obsession of the first "hit of the day," are indicators of a pretty thorough-going dependency.

i suppose since i've given up smoking i need to have something to replace it. there's a certain kind of ennui and world-weary nonchalance that goes with the acceptance of an addiction. while some people obsess over control and find the idea of an addiction abhorrent, i don't mind it. what i minded about cigarettes, mostly, was that lung cancer is a very painful and messy way to die. anyone who tells you smoking is not pleasurable is either lying through their teeth or has never done it. the addiction bit never bothered me. i don't mind being pushed around by chemicals in my brain. that's what they're there for anyway.

happy new year.

yes, a bit late. but still.

they have inaugurated curbside recycling this year! i am way too excited about this. i have already gone out and bought the bin, and i tugged it out to the curb this morning. it was still there when i got back from work, but decorously emptied and placed upside down.

the township hasn't had any recycling, and it makes me almost sick to think about all the metal and glass and plastic that i've seen thrown out in my neighbourhood the past several years.

so. happy new year. to the earth as well.

precipitation.

a white day-after-christmas just isn't the same.

on the other hand, no work for 2 days, yay!

winter.

the sun is not dead.

happy winter holidays. the festival of lights was early this year. lunar calendars vs solar calendars.

holidays are funny things. winter holidays seem especially centered around the weather; everyone's winter holiday is about light and fattening food to get you through the dark and the cold. mmm... fried things and cookies.

disease.

i'm sick.

i'm not supposed to be sick. finals are this week! i can't get sick until after finals. bah.

i am so tired.

stupid septa left me in the sub-freezing temperatures last night for over an hour and a half.

rrg. zzz.