Or really bad ones, depends on how you look at that sort of thing. I’m not complaining, I find it quite hilarious, especially considering that there *is* decent voice recognition going on in the software world today. It’s just, none of that’s happening anywhere near the Google Voice division, for some bizarre reason I can’t even begin to speculate on.

OK, that just cracks me up.

I am not fond of air travel, and haven’t been on an airplane since … hmm, thinking … 1999? My desire not to fly has increased steadily with each new regulation requiring the violation of personal space, but this one really takes the biscuit. “…during the final hour of flight passengers must remain seated. They won’t be allowed access to carry-on baggage or to have any items on their laps.” Are you fucking kidding me? Really? For the final hour of every flight, I’m to be tortured? Can’t go pee, can’t have anything in my lap at all, can’t do anything but sit quietly with my hands folded in my lap for an hour? Please. I play Solitaire on my Droid while I’m waiting in line, or taking a cigarette break at work (yes, I even get bored smoking), even while I … well you get the idea. I don’t do sitting quietly doing nothing very well at all. To the extent I find it hard to even imagine doing so for an hour, let alone actually doing it.

It would take a lot to get me on an airplane – and by a lot, I mean, Xanax. Lots and lots of Xanax. And if the airlines aren’t going to start handing those out like candy with the boarding passes, I think I’ll take the train. Or just not go.

i’d been reading and reading about it, perhaps selectively. i am a phone-looker – i look at phones all. the. time. up until now, none of them have had that perfect combination of stuff (when i say “phone”, understand i mean “smartphone” and by that, i mean i want it all — internet, camera, social networking, music, video, games, gps, wifi, a real keyboard, you name it, i want it.)

and i’d been planning on leaving tmobile for awhile, though the reason why has (apparently) since been fixed – they finally got around to 3G-ing my area. the internet on my blackberry 8900 was freakishly, painfully slow. but, even knowing i could upgrade and get something with 3G, and even though tmobile has the Motorola Cliq with Android and a 5MP camera, all comparisons between the two consisted of disappointment with the Cliq and raves about the Droid.

i went to Best Buy to think about getting a Droid. hint: if you want to think about buying something, don’t stop hurriedly at a store on your way somewhere, pounce on the first salesperson you find, and start actually buying it. thinking about buying while in the process of buying is a terrible experience for both you and the salesperson you happen to be dragging through the twisted thought process that led you to buy while thinking about buying in the first place.

at one point, i changed my mind. something about insurance in case the screen cracked? my BlackBerry is virtually indestructible, i can put it in my jeans pocket and sit on it, i can toss it in my vast hellhole of a purse, it’s a sturdy workhorse of a device. what was i thinking, a phone whose entire front was a shimmering sheet of delicate *glass*? besides i knew i shouldn’t buy it anyway, i was supposed to wait until my tmobile contract was up, i was going to do Xmas first and me later, and didn’t i just buy a fucking computer? i did. but by the time i changed my mind, the deposit was already processed. “i don’t even know how long it’ll take for them to refund the deposit”, said the beleagured salesperson, “no one’s ever done this before.”

so i dithered awhile longer. i asked about cases, he showed me this plastic thing that didn’t have any protection for the screen at all. i said, what? are you kidding me? i opened my purse to illustrate the issue at hand, 5 pounds of miscellaneous crap, all pointy and hazardous, and said, i need something that will protect the phone. a *case*. i picked up a real phone case (holster, holder, whatever) and showed him. “like this,” i said. so he brought a nice leather case, and, well, i bought a Droid.

i have 30 days to take it back, and i am either totally going to do that, or … you know, not.

i have spent the past six hours literally unable to put it down. my hands hurt. i am amazed, annoyed, and a little bit in love with it.

i’ll follow up tomorrow with something less insane and hopefully more informative about my potential future ex-phone, but right now it’s kinda late and it’s over there whispering “droid” to me in that sexy, husky robovoice, and i need to go see what it wants.

so i was gonna sit here on the porch & upgrade my MT but you just know the damn cheapass mofos would interrupt me. hmmph. comin’ to my g.r.o.j. (get rid of junk) sale insulting my uglyass old lady dining room table & such with offers so low you could use ‘em to scrape the mousey dung of’n the legs. i happen to know it’s a very fine piece of uglyass furniture & people pay big money for uglyass shit all the time. i mean fuck. offers so raggedy i could use ‘em to chase them black widder spiders out of that ‘antique’ card table holding up that cool yamaha keyboard, it has a whole orchystraw inside it somewheres and it gots some fancy edjumication module, it’ll teach any idiot how to play lit’rally whole buncha cheesy songs for crimeny’s sake, same model right now on ebay goin’ fer a hunnert fifty bucks, all i’m askin’ is seventy five and i’ll go fifty it’s sunday & all i sold so far is a slow clothes dryer, coupla shelves, some fat pants & a frog tool, it is sunday & i find i have a hankerin’ i mean i am settin’ here on the porch positively pinin’ for some tightwads to come insult me like they did yesterday early, i woudn’t be near as fluffy about it today.

taking into consideration the deep dip in my prices as the time has passed, & figuring that at least some & mayhap most of the folks who go garagesale-ing understand the psychology of desperation, i’m figuring the offers will be considerably more insulting, here in the middle of sunday. especially the way my sign’s looking, i figure they can smell the desperation at least a couple hundred feet away, if they know what they’re smellin’ for. and if they do, i assure you that they will be entirely accurate in that olfactory assessment.

i will have to take a picture of my sign. it is quite likely the world’s worst-taped piece of public information ever affixed to a power pole, i shit you not.

and since the flow of penny-pinchers has slowed to a trickle that is, well, nonexistent, i may as well run that upgrade.

“you’re not one of those people who are afraid of high places, are you?”

she asks me this as i’m swinging the second leg over the windowsill and dropping softly to the roof below, a nice flat bit of roof a good 4 feet wide at least.

“up until last year i couldn’t even stand on a chair. i would edge along second floor apartment balconies as close to pressed up against the wall as possible, because it felt like i was getting sucked over the edge.”

she grabs my hand to steady me, “i didn’t know!”

i gently pull away, tell her i’m fine, no way to express just how good this is, this standing here on the first roof of my whole life, picking up the two errant window screens and (as instructed) tossing them onto the patio below.

i’m surprised i hadn’t told her, i’ve certainly recounted the story countless times, how i conquered my fears of heights and spiders by climbing up on furniture with my camera. now, when i say conquer, i don’t mean conquer like clobber, crush, lick, master, overcome, prevail, surmount, trample underfoot, trash, or vanquish, not like that. no, my story has more of a conquistador vibe: travel to undiscovered lands, glance around nervously, claim some shit i have absolutely no right to, run home. sit around talking long shit about my journey to the cobwebs and beyond. and boring the living snot out of anyone who would sit still looking like they might be listening.

it’s gonna be even worse now. i’ve been on a roof.

so you know, when you’re driving along & doing … i dunno, something, *not* picking your nose, but something involving some vigorous hand-related activity in the vicinity your face, something like maybe rubbing your itchy nose (externally) & you accidentally jam a finger right up your nose & it happens to be one of the ones with the actual fingernails & it hurts like a mofo & so then you’re driving along sniffling with your eyes watering like mad hoping your nose is just running & not actually bleeding, thinking damn why is everything a metaphor for my life?

yeah.

so there was rammstein. there were the four boys playing PS2, by committee apparently, loud to be heard over the game itself, which was way too loud. just not loud enough to drown out the sound fucking rammstein taking themselves way, way too seriously. overlooking the fundamental absurdity of everything in general & teutonic manic industrious industrial march metal in particular. i considered being amused by the irony of it all but that would mean thinking & i was fading fast

my captors continued to torment me, using one of the most lethal psychological attacks ever invented: being a room full of small boys. i mean, it catches you by surprise, again & again, you look at their shiny little faces & think, oh, it can’t be that bad, sure a little annoying, but harmless. oh yeah they’re real harmless. oh. yeah. shiny happy faces holding your MIND in their grubby little hands because they are that special kind of annoying that wears you down in the most remorseless relentless manner imaginable oh don’t let this happen to you run run while there’s still time
i cracked, man, i mean i lost it, dude. there i was with some pudding & a doll arm with a hand eye stuck to an ex bottle of glitterpolish & some pudding. ok not stuck to the pudding so much as stuck in the pudding.

butterscotch.

conversing with a six year old:
kid: what kind of games did you like?
me: oh, monopoly, clue, stuff like that.
kid: on playstation?
me: no, we didn’t have playstations.
kid: on computers?
me: we didn’t have computers.
me: we didn’t have video games, we didn’t have computers, we didn’t have cable tv. we had three channels and we had to get them with an antenna on the roof. sometimes we couldn’t get them.
kid: … what did you do?
me: we read books.
kid: oh. i guess you were really smart.
me: yeah …

so remember in jurassic park when jeff goldblum says “life finds a way” (& then it turned out somebody used frog dna & sure enough, a butterfly farted in tiannanman square & so forth, right?) riiiight. anyway.

i find a way.

notice the modem perched from the three inch long phonecord. notice the hairbrush holding up the upside down plug because that’s the only way i can have the modem & the puter both plugged in (it was complicated, okay?)

reptiles don’t need frog dna. we just find a way.

fuck i love earthquakes.