Wednesday, December 29, 2010

Check Out This Important Announcement From Ryan Digicrest

Mr. Adam Bergman has made a delightful pledge on his blog. I love his "Rants of a Modern Day Elitist" and the things he has to say about everything.

Occasionally he also virtually invites me into Shoe Culture, though as a Boomer I use the word "Shoe" begrudgingly.

Because as anyone over the age of 45 knows, a shoe is leather, and comes in black, cordovan, or with a certain generosity of spirit, brown. What he writes about are those colorful abominations that pretend to be shoes but are actually souped up Keds. But I forgive him, because he's an amazing guy and an amazing thinker.

But just so we're clear:

This, my friends, is a hot shoe.



This, however, is an overpriced piece of plastic and polyester.



Write on, Mr. Bergman!

Sunday, December 26, 2010

I Wuvs Ya T-Mobile



I just dumped the iPhone for a G2 from T-Mobile. I am so happy. It wasn’t a magical transition. T-Mobile transposed my home phone with my ATT celly number, so that took a day, and then there was a bit of a problem with what services I had ordered. That took another day. But through it all their customer service people were magical. They made it clear that they cared and wanted to put things right.

The G2 is very nice, but not as easy or intuitive as an iPhone. But then, much of the capability of an iPhone was theoretical given that I live in the Bay Area and mostly travel to NYC.

Their Australian partner managed to give me five bars most everywhere I traveled, but ATT itself couldn’t consistently connect me from my bedroom in Oakland.

Oh, I know, the iPhone users on ATT suck down a lot of bandwidth. More than anyone if I remember that market research correctly. But here's the deal, if your network can't handle more iPhones -- phones that cost a mint every month -- perhaps it's time to stop selling them until you throw a few more towers up in t
he SF financial district.

I had no complaints about ATT customer service. There people were lovely as well. Imagine what it is like to deal with jackass digital netizen webizens who are striken with the world’s most overtaxed network.

ATT had been my choice two years ago because of the mind bogglingly dreadful customer service from Sprint. And because they had iPhone. But mostly it was because being a valued Sprint customer, whose calls were very important to them, was equivalent to constant dry heaves.

I swear that their endless IVR reached through the phone and shoved needles in my corneas. Oh my god that company was the worst! I don’t blame the reps. After all, they didn’t create the system that made me wait hours only to tell me I had to call someone else. They weren’t the MFs that sent me four phones I didn’t order, charged me $2000, and then had the audacity to say it was my problem to ship them back. That EVO is darned cool, but nothing is worth the walking on hot coals required to be a Sprint custo—be a warm blooded serf that the Sprint leech drew hemoglobin from.

Off that soapbox. This is about lovely T-Mobile. Cheaper by far than ATT and Sprint were. And get this – I actually have a signal in my living room. Something ATT only managed on cloudless days, and Sprint only managed so they could deliver the cornea needles, or so I always imagined.

I wuvs you T Mobile. I wuvs my new phone. I wuvs actual mobile phone service. I wuvs the T Mobile people. If they got rid of their IVR at the beginning of a call, this would be what I imagine Heaven is like. Being with them hasn’t been perfect, but when they screw up, as everyone and everything does at times, they apologize. That’s all I ask. Well, that and not shoving needles into my eyeballs.

I'm a nice person -- ask anyone. So I suppose I should apologize for my Sprint bile above. But I've wanted to pee on Sprint for years ever since they treated me like so much gum on a shoe solle, and now that I have T-Mobile, I know that a mobile company can actually be pleasant to work with.