I have to admit, that is the perfect name for a phone for me.

So I got it! New phone! So excited!

Funny thing was the guy asked how long I’d had my old phone, because he’d never seen a phone look that good after two years. Which is fine, because as soon as I’m sure everything is good, I’m going to donate it. IIRC there was a group collecting phones for soldiers in Walter Reed. Hopefully I can find that.

So here’s the new phone! If the picture isn’t clear, it’s purple.

I’m holding it in my hand to give you a sense of size, however, be aware that I have small hands. If this phone were in my brother’s hands, it’d probably fit in his palm.

And here’s the slide out keyboard, which was the most comfortable of any of the keyboards I played with.

Look out Nathan! No more T9 txting! (happy dance)

I’ve already got my e-mail set up too!

And I have yet to open the manual! (HA!)

ADDENDUM the First:
Found it. Cell phones for soldiers. I’ve got extra batteries and about four chargers, since every phone I had until now used the same charger.

I can’t believe Thanksgiving break is almost over.

Yesterday we had temperatures in the upper 40s and got the outside Christmas lights hung. Mind you, I won’t turn them on until next weekend, but we got them up while it was relatively warm.

Thanks goodness.

Today we made a run to Lowes to get birdseed and a new fire extinguisher, and ended up coming back with speaker wire, since I only have four of my six speakers hooked up. Yes, I’m still excited about the new stereo. And tomorrow is new cell phone day.

I almost feel guilty about this near orgy of spending.

But not guilty enough I won’t be getting my new phone tomorrow. So for tonight I must contemplate: black or purple for the new phone.

So I’ve been complaining for awhile that I need a new stereo receiver.

Mind you, I love my current receiver. It’s a Sony ES series and has been an excellent receiver for years.

(Yes of course it’s tuned to the local public radio station.)

However.

It’s at least 18 years old, if not 19. So it doesn’t have anything close to the number of inputs in the back it needs. XM goes into the tape deck slot, but this is not ideal as the volume is off and there’s a faint buzzing the louder you play it, and although the DVD players goes through the stereo, Dish TV runs only though the TV. Which isn’t that big a deal as Grandmom is the only one who uses the TV, and she’s afraid to touch the stereo.

Nor does it have enough speaker outputs–and I only own six speakers.

And look at my poor remote. The back to the battery case has been held on by a rubber band for about ten years now (at one point it was a black pony tail holder, but that wore out last year and I didn’t have a replacement).

So we’ve known for awhile it needed replaced, we’ve just put it off.

Until browsing the Black Friday sales on Amazon we saw receivers 50% off. Yesterday’s deal, even at 50% off, was way more than we could afford. But today, they have Denon AVR-888 for $350–more than 50% off.

And the thing is sweet. No, I’m not one of those people that can spout specs–my house is too small for that good of a system–but it has everything we were looking for, and it’s a Denon!

I’m sorry I couldn’t find a Sony for a replacement. As I said, my Sony has been excellent for a long time. But never fear, my Sony won’t be heading for a landfill–it’ll head down to the basement so I can listen to something different downstairs than is playing upstairs.

Not that it matters too much. As I said, it’s a small house. But still!

And now I can’t wait for my new receiver!

Too bad we’re not smart enough to figure out what cords we need beforehand.

When Michael got his new cell phone (an Instinct) in August, and we changed our cell phone plan to allow texting and data, I was insanely jealous and wanted a new phone. But alas, but I have to wait until December 1st, lest I pay a zillion dollars instead of pennies for a new phone. (The contact isn’t an issue–there are five of us on the bill–we won’t be changing any time soon.)

I originally thought I wanted a cell phone/PDA. Was sure of it. Knew the phone I wanted to get.

But as the day for getting a new phone grew closer, I started looking at phones in anticipation. And discovered that maybe I didn’t really want a PDA phone. They seemed awfully expensive and bulky for something I keep in my pants pocket.

But there were still some expensive phones on my list that I thought were my top contenders.

Then when we went out to eat yesterday, we stopped by Best Buy, just to peruse what was there. (Black Friday isn’t a big deal with you 1) go late and 2) aren’t planning on buying anything. I discovered that they had the phones I was considering out on display. And once I laid my paws on those little keypads, my top choices plummeted, and the Blackberry, which was on the list as a back-up, fell off entirely (don’t like the keypad–I’m a terrible typist as it is).

The expensive PDA/cell phone I thought I loved had a really flimsy feeling keypad sliding mechanism, and I disliked the layout of the keypad. And the flip phone that had jumped to the top because it had a full alphabet keypad? Unpleasant to type on. Suddenly the phone that was being considered as a backup leaped to the top of the list. I loved the full keypad and the way it typed and the way the letters were separated. It did everything I wanted, and even though it had a slightly smaller screen, I decided it wasn’t that much smaller, since it’s not like I can surf the web easily even on Michael’s phone.

The only drawback is it can’t be used as a modem, which Michael’s phone can’t do either.

But the best part? It’ll cost me about $20 versus $299 if I wait until next week to upgrade.

So it looks like I’ll be getting a Rant, which seems fitting on so very many levels.

Two days!

Grandmom: That’s IT! I’ve had enough! I’m gonna BAN computers! NO MORE COMPUTERS!
Michelle: You realize Michael and I will both be out of a job then.
Grandmom: Then you’ll just have to find ANOTHER job!

When I do photo posts, do you prefer most of the photos to be hidden behind the cut so you have to click through to read them, but otherwise can quickly move past the pictures to read the posts beneath? Or do you like everything to all hang out? Or does it depend upon what the pictures are of?

Currently I put most pictures behind the cut, so the page does not become obscenely long, and so the load time is a little faster for those with less than speedy connections.

Please share your comments about this weighty subject.

And after you’ve given your opinion about images on my page, you can feel free to give your opinion about other subjects. But only after. Any random opinionating that is not preceded by comments on the requested topic will be disemvowelled.

I mean it.

And don’t forget, disemvowelling is forever, because I’ll be damned if I’m going to put all your vowels *back* after you follow the rules.

I’ve modified the Recent Comments bit on the sidebar. It now displays the last 100 comments.

So if you want to keep playing Word Association, you can readily find the last comment there.

That was my head exploding.

I hate Mondays.

ADDENDUM the First:
I’m eating a pumpkin shaped cookie with orange frosting.

That’ll make everything better, right?

When we teach, we request that the students fill out an instructor evaluation, so we can learn from their comments areas where we might need to improve our teaching, as well as areas where we performed well.

I got the BEST evaluation ever today. In the comments it said, “She’s chipper.”

I pinned it to my bulletin board, because it simply makes me happy.

I just spent two &^@&!&@ hours fighting with PivotTables in Excel trying to group my data by year and having Excel tell me to piss off.

Why on earth do you have to copy data between Access and Excel and paste it as text only if you want to format dates as tables? Once I brought the damned date column into Excel I couldn’t do a THING with it to change the formatting.

I hate Access.

In theory, everything is now transferred to Dreamhost.

If you’re poking around, let me know if anything is not working correctly.

MUAH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!

Equals–just maybe–the future of space travel.

Chinese researchers claim they’ve confirmed the theory behind an “impossible” space drive, and are proceeding to build a demonstration version.