There’s something inherently wrong with cell phone companies these days.

Case in point: my switching from a Sidekick to a G1 today, or, more specifically, my attempt to.  Since I had a  Sidekick I already had an account with T-Mobile, so switching to a different phone should be a non-issue.  Just pay the money, update the account, and voilla. Or… not.

It seems that killing my Sidekick’s service was almost instantaneous. Of course, in the process I lost all the data that was in it, but I knew that was going to happen, even if it is stupid. I’d already paid the $10 to get the Intellisync app to sync it with Outlook (first time i booted into windows in probably 2 years), and then exported that and imported it into GMail so that it would be ready for me when the new phone got activated, and that brings me to what’s wrong with cell phone companies.

Switching my account to G1 data services from Sidekick wasn’t an issue. But then the real problem arose. Even though I took the sim card out of the Sidekick and put it in the G1 I couldn’t do anything with it. It just says:

There is a problem communicating with the Google servers.

This could be a temporary problem or your SIM card may not be provisioned for data services. If it continues, call Customer Care.

Now, I’ve talked to T-mobile customer support, and, as always, they were excellent. But the problem is that it can take “up to 24 hours” for it to actually take effect. My old phone does work for calls if I stick my sim card in it, but it’s lost all of the numbers stored in it.  The G1’s setup screens were written with the assumption that when you got the phone, the phone company would be ready for you to use it. As a result, I’m sitting here hitting “try again” every 10 minutes hoping that it may have actually gotten activated.

This is freaking crazy. Electrons move at nearly the speed of light. Computer configurations don’t get stuck in someone’s in box  waiting for them to get back from break. Once you save your changes they’re saved. That should be the end of it. They turn on G1 data plan and I should be ready to go, but no…. “up to 24 hours”.

I’m sure there’s some issue of data propagating through caches but seriously, it shouldn’t be that hard to configure the caches so that they can get updates of new users almost immediately. Because they haven’t been, you end up with customers all psyched to use their new phone sitting around getting pissed off that they can’t actually do anything with their $400 lump of metal and plastic.

And don’t even get me started on the BS situation where you can only get an iPhone with AT & T, or G1 or Sidekick with T-Mobile. Yes, I realize special servers are required to enable the data syncing and such but I’m sure each of the companies would happily install them if that was the only thing preventing them from selling the other phone too.  Or, the fact that it takes up to 24 hours to switch your phone number from one provider to another.

We have moved into a world were people’s cell phones are their only phone, and that means not having it for 24 hours can be a real bitch.

Wonderfully Terrible!
This is not a movie that’s so bad it’s funny. No, every moment of camp and comedy is intentional and successful. Without a doubt this is the best campy zombie comedy I’ve ever seen, and, unlike many films, the trailer gives you a very good idea of what to expect. The dialogue is simultaneously well written, and intentionally terrible. The makeup is bad, and it doesn’t matter in the least, actually it may add to the humor. With protagonists named Woody Invincible, and Crazy Bee, and the Sushi Boy in love transformed into a zombie in love, you can’t go wrong, well… you could, but they didn’t.

“What about Shaun of the Dead?” you ask. Shaun’s a favorite of mine, but it’s not a cheesy campy film. Plus, with Bio Zombie you get “Engrish” subtitles and bad dubbing. Actually it’s dubbed well, but there’s been no attempt to match it to the lips and the intentionally bad dialogue makes it like watching an old kung-fu flick. We thoroughly enjoyed watching it with the dubbing AND the Engrish subtitles for added humor. If you’re looking for a campy zombie film to laugh at with your friends, this is an excellent choice.

World Trade Center: directed by Oliver Stone and Starring Nicolas Cage

Summary:
The movie was essentially: We’re cops. Oh @#$% we’re trapped! Hooray, a marine! And, the occasional “Where’s my husband?”

Details:
I was in the mood for some pathos, but from a source that wouldn’t leave me depressed for days. I figured World Trade Center would follow Nicolas Cage, who plays a Port Authority Police officer, as the WTC was hit, he would encounter some unexpected difficulty in his attempts to rescue people, and ultimately prevail over it. And while technically that’s exactly what happens, I was also expecting something of a typical story arc along the way.

Instead, we have a few minutes of establishing shots in which we learn that he gets up early, has a lot of kids, and is generally looked up to at work. The WTC is hit, he grabs some men and starts foraging for the air tanks they’ll need, and then the building falls down on him. From that point until about two minutes from the end we can only see his face poking out of the rubble. He’s twenty feet below the debris, and two of his fellow officers have survived, although one dies pretty quickly. The other one, who we can actually see a whole head and arms on keeps him company, when not hallucinating jesus with a water bottle. They chat about nothing in particular just to keep each other from falling asleep, and we have flashbacks of totally mundane life events interspersed with shots of their wives and families being generally upset that no-one knows what happened to their men.

Somewhere along the way an ex-marine is watching on TV in his office, says something to the effect of “You may not know it, but we’re at war now” goes off, gets a military haircut, and spends the night looking through the rubble for survivors even though they’ve called it off until morning. Our survivors are found, dug out, wives cry, the movie ends. Nobody overcomes anything, beyond not dying for over 24 hrs with internal bleeding.

<sarcasm>Obviously, I was terribly moved by this. </sarcasm>

Listen, I appreciate that you want to monetize your web site. I appreciate that advertising is the economic engine that drives the web, and that without it I’d have far fewer high quality sites to peruse, and all the good ones would probably have subscription fees. So, I’m actually quite comfortable with ads being on your site.

But seriously? There is a limit to what I will accept, and if you continue to exceed it one of two things will happen: either I will stop coming to your site, or worse (for you) I will continue to consume your sites resources (bandwidth and CPU) but use an ad blocker to prevent my from ever seeing your $@$#% ads.

In case you, as a web site owner, are unsure as to where this limit is, here is an example of a site well past it, but, unfortunately, not unusual. Please, take a hint from Google.com folks. They’ve figured out how to put a whole pile of ads on the page without making it difficult to read the page you actually came there for.

And yet, as if to prove that we still have a long way to go, proposition 8, which creates a constitutional amendment that bans gay marriage, has passed in California, the state that had the guts to open up gay marriage.

I think we became complacent. None of us believed that, in California of all states, such bigotry could prevail.

As monumental as Obama’s accomplishment is today, bigotry, is far from dead in this country.

There are children in America today who will have only ever known a world where a black man has been president, where there truly is nothing that any of us can’t accomplish.

The world at large has breathed a collective sigh of relief, that we have chosen a president who will try and restore the good  name that our country once had, a president who will no longer allow the U.S. to be the world’s bully. This is a president who, throughout his campaign, has pushed for things like paying teachers what they’re worth. Issues that won’t ever win a U.S. election, that we, as a people, don’t seem particularly motivated to do anything about, yet still have a dramatic effect on our economy, and world standing. This is a president who admits, that yes, humans are responsible for global warming, and yes, we can not afford to keep pretending it is something we don’t have to address right now.

Last night I dreamed I had a chance to talk with Michelle Obama, and I thanked her for what she and her husband have accomplished, thanked her for changing the world for our children. Because, there is no doubt in my mind, that he or anyone like him, could have accomplished what he has, without the support and love of an incredible partner.

Growing up I never believed that a black man would be elected before a white woman. I have never been so happy to be so wrong.

Thank you President Obama, for helping to restore my faith in the United States of America.

If you have any doubt, consider this. Don’t you want a president with fire in his heart? A president who is deeply frustrated by the current state of things? A president who will fight for real change? Climatologists tell us we have ten years, or less, to address climate change or the tipping point will have passed us, and there will be nothing we can do. The United States is responsible for using 25% of the fossil fuel on the planet. If we do not address this problem in THIS PRESIDENTIAL TERM we will be screwed. McCain isn’t convinced that we’re really responsible for global warming, despite the overwhelming scientific evidence that we are. Palin is convinced that humans and dinosaurs walked the planet at the same time…

Don’t you want a president who, in these final days, is campaigning about issues, instead of trying to convince the American people that his opponent is a terrorist?

I have never been convinced of a candidate as truly representing real change, as being truly different until this campaign. I have never been truly scared of the potential for one of the candidates getting into office, until this campaign.

I want this man, this fire:

Vote to make a difference. Vote for a president with morals, and real concern for the people of our country. Vote for Obama.