me? fakie?... not so much...

four day snowboarding trip. left thursday, came home monday (no boarding on thursday). nice...

okay, so... new board last year, right? huge improvements because i actually had a board that i could move (instead of one that moves me)... well, i'm up on the bunny slopes with my family, and i can actually--um... i think i should go into some background first...

the old board... it was 155, and heavy as... um, well... me. i could carve on the damn thing, and i could swing it around in front of me in case of emergencies (and stop on a dime, fyi... but doing that early's a snowboarding thing...), but i was at its mercy... if i wanted to ride straight, i had to stay on an edge, or else it would catch and edge and fling me into the ground (usually ice on the east coast). so... riding on relatively flat ground was horrible because 1) flat ground means slow speeds, and 2) when you're slow, and you try to keep an edge, it's easy to fall (think riding slowly on a bike and leaning into a turn). plus, there's this whole thing about catching an edge... if i caught any edge on that board, i was flopped over, because it'd anchor itself by its own weight. that, and it was just incredibly hard to force any turns because i didn't weigh enough for it.

back then, i judged "too fast" by how much it would hurt if i fell... if a fall at a speed would hurt more than i was willing to subject myself to, then that was "too fast." you know, since i never know when my board might want to go a different direction than me...

anyway, new board as of last year (ride vista since the salomon ivy was butt-ass ugly... it's a much better board, but i ended up succumbing to vanity... someone kick my ass now...), and my snowboarding progressed at a speed which you wouldn't believe. it's like when rabbit tried to sabotage tigger's bouncing dreams. but nobody knows what i'm talking about...

oh, yeah... so last week, on the slopes, i realized that i was going way faster than i would be willing to fall at. but i didn't have the urge to stop. because i felt comfortable with keeping myself from falling. i did so many things this year that would have been a guaranteed merc-bashing with the heavy board, but i got away with it all (for the most part... a wobble if anything) because i am now the dominant mass in the merc-board setup combination. go me. i could coast (yeah, just coast straight ahead) and relax (for the most part... there's so much play in the boots that i still have to press on the boot to keep the board from doing stuff without me, but that'll change when i get new boots, i hope), and make it over flat ground. which i could kinda do last year (first year with the new board), but i was still scared shitless, so i'd slow down once in a while. so flat terrain was still a no-no.

so... i am thankful for my new board. yes, i realize it's too late for thanksgiving, but my holidays kinda run year-round. you know, presents year-round (non-wrapped, of course) and none at christmas (unless you count the 22 inches of snow from two years ago... that was a great present). and yes, i realize it's not that new, too.

remember the boots i mentioned earlier? i went to try on boots, and... i like burtons. i feel like such a fucking sellout. i mean, i'm always bashing burton for charging so much for that damn arrow... but their liners are just the most comfortable. they're cushy. and no so cushy that the boots kinda have a mind of their own (or at least that's how i feel, since right now the boots i have slide all over the fucking place... but seriously, i've never tried on boots where i didn't get *any* heel lift on flat ground. i don't know how it'll work strapped into the board, but it's nice to know that there's a boot out there that conforms to my foot...).

oh, yeah, the other thing... i'd decided to learn fakie before i even got in the slopes this winter. i got a boost of confidence for the whole thing when it turns out that i didn't need to relearn to snowboard on the first day (for the first season ever, i didn't have a tip-filled first run). well, i tried a little, and my transitions weren't fast, but i could do it. and then suddenly i couldn't. i, uh... bruised my ass. it hurt for about a week. seriously.

because all the girls and michael changed over to snowboarding, and alex and andrew weren't around, i'm now the fastest kid (or, person of my generation. i'm in the kid generation.). so i took over alex's job of, um... sitting on my ass while everybody leaves, and then passing them on the way to the next logical waiting spot. except that i would wait too long sometimes (you know... when i start staring at people that go by or just randomly space out for other reasons... or when i get over-confident.), and they'd get there before i would. i spaced out once, completely lost michael in the sea of little dots, and by the time i realized that i didn't know where he was, he was already waiting for me at the lift. that, and i never really boarded with most of the girls. by the time i found them (the last day they were there), they were, um... done snowboarding.

***

netzero pisses the hell out of me. "defenders of the free world" my ass. they fucking took over all the free isps and then started charging fucking 10/mo. ooh, it's less than half the price of aol. should i bow down to them and thank them for not charging as much as aol? there are lots of companies that charge about 10. none of them felt the need to lie about what they were doing... bastards.

of course, the netscape commercial (the original one) that compared itself to netzero pissed me off too. everything they offered was available with netzero, but they don't mention it, and the guy just switches. it's not lying, really, just... wrong. misleading. not that i'm defening netzero... but if you're going to compare your product to theirs, you should at least make sure yours is actually better. yeah.

oh, and an update on the heisman thing, because i just realized that i never did mentioned this... lineart didn't even win the mvp for this *team.* if he's not the best on his team, how the hell could he be best in the league? the system needs revamping! and it needs to be done after all the bowl games. yes.

what's wrong with people...?

yeah, so we've decided this is the worst hall ever. between the fights and the idiot scribblings and the holes in the wall (which, i have to admit, they did try to patch up)... there's just something wrong with these people.

yeah, so the fire alarm went off at the same time that the first exam started this morning (7:45 A-fucking-M). did someone need a wakeup call that badly? fuckards.

did i miss something?

where is devean george? when he had surgery, his return was estimated to be mid-november. it's now mid-december, and no word. that i know of.

idle thoughts, part 3

dwyane wade has an oddly suave air about him. like jaleel white when he's not urkel. it's the eyes, i think. the naturally snoop dogg-ish droop.

how can you lose the o'brien and win the heisman?

no, seriously. to lose the o'brien means that you're not the best quarterback. this is not the same as not winning the o'brien, where you might not be a quarterback. no, you lost it, which means someone is better than you are. and not just anybody... someone who plays the same position. to follow that loss by winning a heisman, which now says that you're the best player at any position... is just fucked up.

i think it came down to ou vs. usc. and peterson outperformed reggie bush. and so did jason white. so while peterson and white were drawing ou votes from each other, leinart trampled his own teammate for usc votes. alex smith was a non-issue, like bush.

***

i can't do anything right, but things i leave aren't done right either. there's no win. there is no win.

i am the biggest disappointment. it's not so much a question of what isn't, but what isn't... but could be. i make nothing but mistakes. conscious decisions. i am just one giant mistake.

no, seriously. sometimes, i think about how far my feet are from my head (not that far, considering i'm 5'3"), and i just feel too big. i am too big to disappear.
i want to disappear.

... and i want kenyi back...

***

update: now yellow too...

well... i'm not sure why...

in the shower this morning, i shaved my leg. that's right, one leg. the other hasn't been shaved since i stopped wearing shorts for the winter, or something like that. why? i've no idea...

in other news, my cell phone dropped to two bars battery this afternoon, three-to-four-ish. it's been off the charger since friday night-ish. evening/night, i guess. still not as good as matt's, but i'm excited. my phone doesn't suck as much as i thought it did.

i still don't see how the moto razr v3 could have better battery life than my phone, though. i mean, the thing's non-existant. poopy. i want a v265. maybe.

oops...

i think i made a mistake on that v265 blog. i don't think the outside is silver. that's a different phone, i think... though the rest of that thing is still accurate, as far as i know...

also... i love it when i find pants that fit. my new pants fit. that makes me happy. you have no idea.

matt's still all mucus-ed up, but i just seem to be leaking from the nose...

aah... i hate me...

the phlegm chronicles?

i was sick. and then matt was sick. and then matt was really sick. now he's got a high fever every 24 hours (staved off with acetaminophen last night), a really bad, mucus-rattling cough, and, um... intermittent cough-induced vomiting (along with regular vomiting early on). i'm afraid he might get me sick back, so i'm proposing chronicles... hopefully the question mark will be vital.

anyway... his temperature only goes up late at night, when schiffert is closed, and they only require a doctor's appointment if your temperature is above 100.5 at the time of your visit (don't ask me where they got that number). otherwise, they just throw drugs at you.

well, not exactly. they give you otc meds that you request. you get your choice of cough syrup (with expectorant), throat lozenges, sinus decongestant, pain reliever/fever reducer, and pain killers (last two being acetamenophen and ibprofen). all generic, of course.

anyway, matt got a bag of acetamenophen (generic tylenol) on thursday because the only symptom that was *really* bothering him was the fever. funny thing... he dropped the bag when i was getting food, and someone swiped the pills. of all the things to steal... free pills? okay, so they're not really free, but most people there are students that have the same access to the stuff that we do. incredibly strange.

matt went back for some syrup/expectorant on friday because the phlegm worsened. that, and the cough-induced hurling. that wasn't so pleasant. one time, matt got up to go to the bathroom (not to throw up), and i stalled him at the door... resulting in him coughing up a storm puking into the trashcan by the door... and i need to be an attention whore because...? i still feel bad for that...

***

i think i've finally solved the phone issues. pissed off that my phone dropped the first bar so quickly, i swapped my phone spot for matt's phone spot while he was confined to the bed (a better arrangement anyway because my phone's usually closer to the bed). well, his phone went from well-charged to crying for power, all while my phone was still on two bars. in fact, my phone was still on two bars when matt's phone turned itself off. we'll see how long the battery life is when it's not in that horrible spot (where you randomly drop signal or go into analog... or it does that thing where it shows signal, but it can't receive or make calls... you know, the three-ring syndrome. which was a tower issue for my parents, but it seems to be a position issue in this room, since matt's phone did it too, and it only happens in one place... in the *cave*!)

new issue: i need to figure out where the hell my headset came from. it's exactly like the jabra earbud, but it's got the onetouch button for motorola phones. it's also marketed under the motorola name, but there's no trace of its existance on motorola's site... or anywhere else on the web. including walmart's site (i bought the thing at walmart), but that's not a huge surprise because they don't have most of their cell stuff online. lots of belkin stuff, though...

anyway, the reason is... i love the headset, but i want a boom. i want the jabra earboom. yeah, i know they have new shit out, but the earboom uses the original eargels (against which the only complaint i have is that each is only compatible with one ear... but i've been putting up with it because it's better than anything i've ever used), has a wind guard (how many headsets boast *that*?)... and only offers the damn button on a 2.5 plug for samsungs. in fact, jabra doesn't make onetouch (motorola mark) things.

which then confuses the hell out of me because i don't see how anybody (other than jabra) could manufacture my headset without getting sued. seriously, when matt gets his earwave, i'll photograph the plugs. except for the part number, they could have come out of the same mold. and the inline mic/onetouch button is exactly the same as on the jabra earbud.

anyway, whoever made my headset needs to make a boom version. preferably exactly like the jabra earboom, but with the onetouch. because the onetouch makes me happy.

though i guess... if the time comes to replace my headset from something stupid i did (or if it just fails), and walmart doesn't have my black market baby anymore... i'll get a universal jabra earboom. because the motorola oem ones all look like they suck.

oh, except for the bt ones. but don't get me started on bt...

i give up!

i can't play minesweeper. i suck at it.

it's not the logic... i just have *no* mouse control.

you have any idea how frustrating that is...?

ring, ring, phone, phone... it's a PHONE!

yeah, so my phone did the six-hour thing one more time, so i discharged it all the way (until it turned itself off), charged it all the way... and now it's been off the charger for about 34 hours. and it's down to two bars (out of three... but the top bar lasts longer than the second... don't ask...) not the amazing battery jump from last weekend, but i'll take it over what it was doing for the past couple of days. i'll let it kill itself at least one more time.

so... at the verizon store, all i heard from the employees showing the non-business solution phones was that the motorola v265 sucked. they kept showing customers the moto's screen vs. the lg screen. any lg screen. don't get this phone, it sucks.

well... i wonder if they know the difference in reception. i mean, isn't the first function of a cell phone to be a phone? if i wanted a damn camera i could make calls on, i would have taped a phone to matt's w1. now that's a camera. i don't understand why people keep thinking that they're going to get any sort of quality picture out of a small phone. how much room is there for camera circuity, optics and the ccd? yeah...

from what i can tell, the reception and sound quality on the v265 are among the best verizon has to offer. though i'm not sure because people keep comparing them to lgs. (no, i will not let you swap my phone for an lg. bitch.) either way, it doesn't look as if i'm going to find a phone for me without having a camera integrated in the damn thing, since the lack of a camera seems to be a fucking con now. boo hoo, your phone doesn't have a camera. it's also smaller, lighter, and better as a phone than the one with a camera. but you don't care because you want to be cool. idiots.

of course, there could be a legitimate need for a camera phone. if you need to take and transmit pictures quickly, as long as you don't need too much detail in the picture. but most people that bitch about the lack of a camera... don't need it. want a camera that bad? get a keychain camera. you may actually be able to use the damn thing when you have to turn off your phone, too... or! you can attach the keychain camera to your phone via the wrist strap loop thing. voila, a camera cell dangly. if you simply must pay your carrier to send picture messages, then pick a phone with a camera, don't bitch that the one you picked doesn't have one.

okay, i've gotten off course. anyway, so yeah... if i were to pick a phone now, it would be the v265. it has the mono outside display that can actually be read in the sun (i don't care what you say about the quality of the other displays... enough sun will wipe out any color display). and, of course, the most important part is the reception, followed by sound. i was afraid i was going to have to settle for a samsung with a color outer screen and maybe even an all-digital handset for that end. if i do end up back with verizon, i only hope verizon hasn't pulled this phone from poor sales because of the idiot salespeople.

yeah, it's not as solid as the v60 series, but it's a consumer phone, not a business phone (yes, they are classified that way). it's a cstn display and the camera sucks. cosmetics? my current phone (t730) is a cstn, and the color depth is not as good as the v265. it's usable. and i've already bitched about the camera thing. i'd choose a cameraless cstn with great reception and sound over a camera-able (relatively speaking) tft with iffy reception and bugged sound any day.

the biggest gripes about the v265 are the camera, the screen, and the lack of date display, none of which really bother me. *my* biggest gripe is that they chose to keep the light-on-dark external display even though verizon swapped the black faceplate for a silver one. seems out of place and a waste of energy. but, for all i know, that screen turns off black, so i'll hold off judgement for that part until i know more...

as for me wanting to switch a phone... it's not that i regret picking the phone i have. i love volume buttons on the side, so i pretty much have something against candy bars right off the bat. then there's the tri-mode part. sound quality turns out to be top-notch. reception... above average. (actually, maybe even better than that. i always thought the nokia matt and my parents have, the 3589i, had better reception... but it turns out that it just starts showing bars later. i could make a call with no bars. as far as we can tell, they can't. of course, i think that's all changed with my new firmware. i'm showing bars earlier now...) given the selection at the time, i wouldn't have made any other choice. perhaps a more informed choice, but not a different one. which always makes me feel better (i hate feeling that i've made the wrong choice, don't you?)

... is it so much to ask for a consumer-level, solidly-built clamshell with good reception and sound and a mono external display that *doesn't* have a camera?

...now that i look at it, it does seem pretty specific... good thing i didn't get into my weak vibrate mode (because of the missed calls, thank-you-very-much) or battery life (i'm still perplexed).

oh... and it would be nice if headsets with inline controls were available for the phone, too... why are samsungs and nokias always the focus of headsets? (of course, i already have one for moto, so... this works out nicely... in my fantasy-world, where i drive a blue s4...)