Sam's Blog

Link: http://www.vonbondies.com/vonBondies.htm

So I finally broke down and got a new phone yesterday. It was long overdue. I love my old phone. I've had it for almost 3 years and it still works great except for the pesky battery performance and the dropped calls all of the time. It was becoming a bit annoying. I had been holding off for a long time because I used to have AT&T before it got bought out by Cingular. I had 1,000 anytime minutes (local), free nights and weekends, free mobile to mobile and text messages were 10 cents each. Not too shabby of a plan. It was actually the best plan and I never went over my minutes, ever. In order for me to upgrade to a Cingular phone, I had to switch over my entire rate plan and choose one of theirs. I would lose minutes no matter what plan I chose. Even the 900 minute plan was $20 more than what I was paying. Annoying, yes. I tried to haggle with them, but they were very firm in their policies. The plan that was the same price as my old plan only had 450 national minutes and 5,000 nights and weekends. Bummer. So I waited and waited to see if there was going to be any changes or promotionals. I didn't really like any of their phones anyway, so I wasn't compelled to switch over right away. So 4 months go by and still nothing has changed. I browsed the website last week and then I finally see this phone. It was just released. It was perfect and had everything that I wanted: Bluetooth, large display, non-flip phone (it slides instead), etc. I was sold. I tried to haggle with the salesman for a better plan, but it still didn't work. I got the phone and sighed depply knowing that I had lost 550 minutes per month. That's a sad realization. Though on the bright sode, my minutes are now rolling over (they didn't with my old plan) and it is a national plan, meaning when I go to the East Coast this fall, I won't be paying tons of roaming charges and such. That is comforting. I paid a bit extra to have my nights start at 7pm instead of 9pm and that made me feel a lot better considering that I usually get off work around 7pm or later anyway. I am allowed up to 200 text messages a month, which is good because I am doing that more and more lately. A lot of my friends text me about random things so it's nice to know that they are free now, kinda. So anyway, long story short: I like my new phone (I'm still trying to get used to the sliding feature and it's a lot wider than my old phone) but I will have to be careful with my minutes the first few months. That's going to be the hardest thing to do.

I've been watching Rescue Me a lot. It's a great show and perhaps arguably the best show on TV right now. Raw, edgy, realistic (for the most part) and great drama. I miss watching good TV shows during the summer. Speaking of which, I watched the pilot of Blade and I actually liked it. It has some issues, but overall it was very entertaining. I have always been fascinated with vampires, ever since I was little. Well, almost all vampires - I wasn't a huge fan of Buffy the Vampire Slayer. The movie was cool, but the show was mediocre, at best.