The Asshole Factor
If you're wondering where I've been, I'll tell you. Working. Way. Too. Much.
Last Friday night at 2am, I punched out and headed home after a 41 hour workday. That's right: I showed up for work at 9am on Thursday and didn't return until Friday night at 2am. That's 41 hours straight, no sleep, no poop, no special massage, no internets, no steakhouse dinners, no champagne, caviar, or bubble baths. No relief of any kind. I must have downed 18 cups of coffee in the 41 hours. Somehow, my bowels held up.
By the end of the 41 I was punch-drunk and wobbly and I had lost control of my thoughts and movements. Words were coming out of my mouth before I could think to say them, and as a result most of them made no sense. It was a really unhealthy, disorienting kind of fatigue/nausea/panic/depression that I can't quite describe. I think it's probably sort of what The Bends feels like. You tweakers probably know what I was dealing with. Same goes for doctors who's worked multiple shifts back to back, anyone who's ever been trapped in a building collapse, anyone who's watched a Real World marathon on MTV, and Jack Torrance.
As I groggily stepped into a cab at the end of this monstrous shift, the ass of my pants ripped spectacularly -- right up the seam, a good eight inches. It was all too appropriate.
I won't say any more about any of this other than how gratifying it was that all our efforts paid off: we saved that ten year-old boy's life.
Oh, wait...we actually didn't. We just made some stuff and sent it out to the people for consumption.
One thing I really wanted to do was an iPhone review, but I haven't had time. Now I have like eight minutes, so here goes.
Cons:
1. internet is painfully slow unless connected to wifi
2. rarely connects to wifi; how many hotspots are big enough to stay with you as you walk or drive around? zero.
3. cannot create your own ringtones by yelling stuff into phone
4. camera fairly well sucks; if you twitch or if your subject twitches you get a blurry piece of shit. if it's dark, you'd be better off just making a quick pencil sketch. however, if conditions are good, you can get a decent shot. here is a cute one of Baby Bungle:
5. touch-screen typing sucks, you must stare at screen to type and still get frequent key misses
6. vibrate mode is not vibratey enough, leading to numerous missed calls
7. ATT service sucks, leading to dropped calls, missed calls, and lots of what?-based conversations
8. need to press multiple buttons to dial a call
9. iPod interface kinda sucks. not enough controls handy and need to press buttons more than once to register a press all the damn time. then accidentally starts or stops playing at random moments because it brushes against a piece of lint in your pocket
10. battery does not last as long as they say it does, i forgot to charge the phone one night and it actually died the next day; this never happened to me before with a phone
11. The Asshole Factor: it is hard to walk around with a $500 phone and not feel like an asshole. As a result, when I make calls on it at work I find myself sneaking away so nobody can see it. I went to a bachelor party a few years ago for a friend who I hadn't seen much in recent years. There were some people I knew there and then some other dudes who I'd never met. One of these new dudes had some fancy-ass cell phone with a sliding spinning panel thing on it, and he kept showing it off and bragging about it. Finally, somebody (possibly me) made a sarcastic comment about it and he replied, "You have no idea how much pussy this phone has gotten me." I let this declaration of assholery stand instead of piling on top of it, a decision I now regret. Whatever, the point is that people who have $300, $400, or $500 cell phones are usually assholes. Pussy-gettin' assholes, but assholes nonetheless. So I need to distance myself from them -- I assume it will be easier now with the price drop and the ensuing ubiquity of the iPhone.
12. touch screen in general activates too often by accident, and not often enough when you want it to
13. no cutting and pasting
14. cannot use blogger for some reason
15. hands-free does not sound all that good
Pros:
1. Every time I hold it I feel so irrationally happy that I nearly pee myself.
That's it.
Seriously, I also like the voicemail interface a lot -- you can see a readout on the screen of your messages and choose which ones to listen to and in what order. And one thing I never thought I'd care about, but I do -- having all my devices in one unit. I love not bringing an iPod to work anymore.
There are lots of other cool grabby features and stuff but they get old after awhile. Overall I would say that I love having it but I expect the one that comes out in 6 months to be 85% better than this one (and cheaper, too).
Last Friday night at 2am, I punched out and headed home after a 41 hour workday. That's right: I showed up for work at 9am on Thursday and didn't return until Friday night at 2am. That's 41 hours straight, no sleep, no poop, no special massage, no internets, no steakhouse dinners, no champagne, caviar, or bubble baths. No relief of any kind. I must have downed 18 cups of coffee in the 41 hours. Somehow, my bowels held up.
By the end of the 41 I was punch-drunk and wobbly and I had lost control of my thoughts and movements. Words were coming out of my mouth before I could think to say them, and as a result most of them made no sense. It was a really unhealthy, disorienting kind of fatigue/nausea/panic/depression that I can't quite describe. I think it's probably sort of what The Bends feels like. You tweakers probably know what I was dealing with. Same goes for doctors who's worked multiple shifts back to back, anyone who's ever been trapped in a building collapse, anyone who's watched a Real World marathon on MTV, and Jack Torrance.
As I groggily stepped into a cab at the end of this monstrous shift, the ass of my pants ripped spectacularly -- right up the seam, a good eight inches. It was all too appropriate.
I won't say any more about any of this other than how gratifying it was that all our efforts paid off: we saved that ten year-old boy's life.
Oh, wait...we actually didn't. We just made some stuff and sent it out to the people for consumption.
One thing I really wanted to do was an iPhone review, but I haven't had time. Now I have like eight minutes, so here goes.
Cons:
1. internet is painfully slow unless connected to wifi
2. rarely connects to wifi; how many hotspots are big enough to stay with you as you walk or drive around? zero.
3. cannot create your own ringtones by yelling stuff into phone
4. camera fairly well sucks; if you twitch or if your subject twitches you get a blurry piece of shit. if it's dark, you'd be better off just making a quick pencil sketch. however, if conditions are good, you can get a decent shot. here is a cute one of Baby Bungle:
5. touch-screen typing sucks, you must stare at screen to type and still get frequent key misses6. vibrate mode is not vibratey enough, leading to numerous missed calls
7. ATT service sucks, leading to dropped calls, missed calls, and lots of what?-based conversations
8. need to press multiple buttons to dial a call
9. iPod interface kinda sucks. not enough controls handy and need to press buttons more than once to register a press all the damn time. then accidentally starts or stops playing at random moments because it brushes against a piece of lint in your pocket
10. battery does not last as long as they say it does, i forgot to charge the phone one night and it actually died the next day; this never happened to me before with a phone
11. The Asshole Factor: it is hard to walk around with a $500 phone and not feel like an asshole. As a result, when I make calls on it at work I find myself sneaking away so nobody can see it. I went to a bachelor party a few years ago for a friend who I hadn't seen much in recent years. There were some people I knew there and then some other dudes who I'd never met. One of these new dudes had some fancy-ass cell phone with a sliding spinning panel thing on it, and he kept showing it off and bragging about it. Finally, somebody (possibly me) made a sarcastic comment about it and he replied, "You have no idea how much pussy this phone has gotten me." I let this declaration of assholery stand instead of piling on top of it, a decision I now regret. Whatever, the point is that people who have $300, $400, or $500 cell phones are usually assholes. Pussy-gettin' assholes, but assholes nonetheless. So I need to distance myself from them -- I assume it will be easier now with the price drop and the ensuing ubiquity of the iPhone.
12. touch screen in general activates too often by accident, and not often enough when you want it to
13. no cutting and pasting
14. cannot use blogger for some reason
15. hands-free does not sound all that good
Pros:
1. Every time I hold it I feel so irrationally happy that I nearly pee myself.
That's it.
Seriously, I also like the voicemail interface a lot -- you can see a readout on the screen of your messages and choose which ones to listen to and in what order. And one thing I never thought I'd care about, but I do -- having all my devices in one unit. I love not bringing an iPod to work anymore.
There are lots of other cool grabby features and stuff but they get old after awhile. Overall I would say that I love having it but I expect the one that comes out in 6 months to be 85% better than this one (and cheaper, too).
posted by hans q. bungle at 01:31
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