Cell Phone Hell

After I wrote about my experiences last month about switching my cell phone carrier from Sprint PCS, I ended up choosing a 1-year contract with T-Mobile and ordered a Sharp TM150 from Amazon.com. Boy, was that a mistake.

I'm quite happy with T-Mobile. Their customer service people have been very helpful when I called to get more information about what my options were after I realized that the Sharp TM150 was truly a terrible phone. It's quite unbelievable that this phone only ships with a single default ringtone. It's even more unbelievable that the default ringer is very quiet, leading to numerous missed calls because I was in the other room or the phone was in my pocket without vibration turned on. After an hour or so of reading the user manual I increased the volume to its maximum setting and it still did not help. I quickly learned that if I wanted just a simple, loud ring, I would be forced to shell out $2 for each one through T-Mobile's RingTones service. Since I have never been and never will be one of those people who will pay for the "hip" new ringtone, I flatly refused to even consider this option. T-Mobile should have realized this and shipped more than a single default ringer with the phone, or at least have shipped it with a few loud ringers for folks like me who don't care for the Crazy Frog stuff.

This past weekend my girlfriend and I drove up to Mystic, CT for a day away from NYC. While there the display screen on the Sharp TM150 went blank, though pressing buttons would make beeps. The phone could still send and receive calls but there was no way to browse menus unless you had them memorized. I tried turning the phone off and on again a few times, took the battery out and powered it back on. The blank display screen was there to stay. By this time I had already decided to return the phone to Amazon.com for a refund, so the failure of the display screen only solidified my decision.

I also realized too late that the Sharp TM150 was incompatible with my Mac OS X laptop, so there would be no way to import an address book from my Mac unless I did it by hand. How tedious! I then realized that there is no easy way to get my pictures off the phone and onto my Mac. I loved the fact that the Sharp TM150 has a 1.1 megapixel camera that takes awesome pictures, but it's completely useless to me if I can't export them directly to my Mac. I then realized that if I wanted these pictures off my phone I would be forced to use T-Mobile's online photo album service, which costs $3/month for 20 picures. Suddenly, the idea of having a cameraphone was not very attractive to me.

Now I am stuck with T-Mobile for a year, which I'm not too happy about. I've ordered a Blackberry 7230 so that I can do more of my email remotely. My girlfriend has a Blackberry, so I know what to expect. Of course, I think she secretly likes the idea of me having a Blackberry so she can email me more frequently. It should be here in a few days.

Final Note: I realize that by going with a Blackberry, I have to add the Internet option to my plan which adds $20-$30/mo onto my total cost. There might be a combo plan or something I can switch to that will save me money, but there's no way for me to price it right now as T-Mobile's Plans & Services portion of their web site is down.

I'm starting to wonder if I'll ever have a decent experience buying a new cell phone.

Religious Right's Hypocrisy on Abortion and Stem Cell Research

Garret over at dangerousmeta has a great post about the hypocrisy of the religious right (and George Bush) in the way they apply their interpretations of the Bible. Sometimes the beliefs and practices of the ultra-religious completely astound me.

I was raised Catholic because my mother is devoted to her church. I do not fault her for wanting to raise my siblings and I to be "good Catholics", but she's a smart woman and when I was 15 or 16 I realized that I did not want to attend church anymore and told her so. She let me make that decision without contesting it and the only time I have set foot in a church since is for weddings or to take photos.

I have a lot of respect for the good things that religion can do for individuals. My mother's faith is one of the things that keeps her going each day, battling a terrible disease that has robbed her of her livelihood and mobility. To think that stem cell research could one day make her life better and to realize that her own church is trying to prevent such research from proceeding is one of the most backwards things I have ever heard of. Religion and faith, in its most pure form, is supposed to help people - not hurt them. This reason alone makes me question God.

I am not a believer and likely never will be, but I respect people for having faith as long as that faith does not end up doing harm to others.

Later: I think the reason I decided I did not want to be Cathloic was that at age 15 or so I came to the conclusion that organized religion was more harmful to people than it was helpful. I grew up not knowing my grandparents on my dad's side as they were devout Jehovah's Witness and disowned most of their 10 children (including my father) when they married out-of-faith. I also recall a story my father told about his brother Clair dying at a young age because their parents would not take him to the hospital and instead insisted that "God would heal him." Such thinking astounds me and makes me want nothing to do with organized religion.

Free Movie Tickets

If you live in a major metro area and would like free pre-screening tickets to major studio releases, keep an eye on this page from Entertainment Weekly. They update it every few weeks with a new movie. In the past 3 weeks I've received pre-screening passes for 2 for both Empire Falls (May 25) and Cinderella Man (June 2).

On June 2, I'll be attending Koyaanisqatsi at Lincoln Centre, followed by the American Premiere of Naqoyqatsi the next day, with a film discussion happening prior to the movie. Longtime readers will know I am a huge fan of these movies.

Since I have a prior engagement on June 2, I can't use the pre-screening passes for Cinderella Man. If you live in NYC and can use my passes, drop me a note. First person to reply gets them.

Recent Links From My Bookmarks

• How to Become an Early Riser
• Economist: Flying on Empty
• Get Rich Slowly!
• Demystifying Depression - Part I
• Demystifying Depression - Part II
• How to Fold a Fitted Sheet
• $4 a Gallon
• What's the Matter with Liberals?
• How to Make Fire from a Can of Coke and a Candy Bar
• Bush's War on the Press

Google Maps + Traffic Conditions

A few weeks ago I was completely blown away at this awesome combination of technology, Housing Maps. It takes RSS feeds from the Craigslist apartment rentals and overlayas it in real-time onto Google Maps using the Google API. it reminded me of the map I built in 2003 when I was looking for an apartment in Park Slope, Brooklyn.

Today, I ran across this news that Yahoo is offering traffic conditions as an RSS feed. I immediately thought that it would be a cool idea to overlay this data with a mapping service like Google Maps. How cool would it be to have a live mapping service in your vehicle via Google Maps with overlaid data: apartments, traffic conditions, restaurants, etc. The opportunities are endless.

Welcome to the World, Fiona Haughey

Matt Haughey is a new father! Congratulations on the successful delivery. She'll be blogging before we know it.