smartphone phase 2 or a fragment or 2

weighing options, making selections

Everyday we are making selections, deciding the next move, up, down, left, or right.  Often the choice only effects the taste of your lunch.  Other times it could result in you being lunch for a hungry animal.  Could you imagine what cavemen/cavewomen would have posted if they had blogs and could write?

They had much more to worry about than a slow internet connection.

The internet compared to ice cream - 
I enjoy both and both can give me a brain freeze.

The time had come to jump into the smartphone craze.  However I picked too big of a smart thing to handle.  The lack of reasoning behind my selection was explained in a previous post.

latter part of my career involved the engineering of the Airfone system.

I remember using IM back at my Airfone job. I didn’t see a big advantage over email but the boss was on it so I was on it. With JUST my old flip phone and it’s keypad with the fill-in/guess the word software I could text. Never long texts but I assumed texts were always supposed to be short. Most of my IM exchanges were through laptops. LOL OMG LMAO came from the IM short length texting world.

So now I finally concede and get a smartphone. Of course with it, texting now is easier and I’m more likely to express myself with whole words. R U gettin my pt.?

Will a smartphone fragment my mind even more?

I saw the smartphone trend growing rapidly.  I didn't want to stick my head in the sand.  Besides even using a flip phone under the sand is not easy.

The other day I had my first misdirected text exchange.  Sent a question to the wrong daughter.  The ease of sending text on this smartphone compared to my old flipper phone also makes to quicker to screw up.

I got a reply of "what".  Then I explained my question.  Then I realized I wasn't "talking" to the right person (remember how with voice conversations you often knew the other end's voice).  The damn smartphone outsmarted me.

This post has been linked to the Friday Fragments blog game over at A Star In My Own Universe.

smartphone tragedy

Today with light hearts, we here at the Lisleman Institute for Better Posting feel compelled to report on a terrible first world problem has hit the urban hipster population hard:

The I-phone 6 bends in hipster jeans.

TOO BIG for anyone's pocket

The problem is this latest ultimate high-classed thin smartphone was not designed to bend ( I’m not sure if the hipster jeans were meant to bend either). Can you imagine the angst running through you after finishing your hipster chai, you stand up to discover your new I-phone 6 is bent and broken? The very gadget you paid hundreds of dollars for someone to stand in line so that you could be the first one at the club with one. (a moment of silence please)

hipster jean pic from tumblr

The Lisleman solution - 
Bring back the fanny pack (oh “fanny” would not be a good descriptor for Brit slang speaking hipsters) and make it hip again. Hey, it’s retro right? The expensive I-phone 6 would be secure in your skinny fanny pack.

Please understand I’m a big apple fan. I researched and wrote this post on a MacBook (I think it was a hip gadget once). However, I believe Apple messed up on this recent product release. I would not go as far as (but do find it hilarious) dissing the company with a fake ad like this one:

(Disclosure: I have NEVER slipped on a pair of hipster jeans since attempting it would test the laws of physics and leave those embarrassing jeans stuck on my ass.)

a pro

I’m pro at procrastination. I did get our taxes done weeks early so maybe there is some hope for me. Other things like oil changes and fixing stuff, I just don’t want to rush into them. Everything needs a certain amount of consideration time.

Oh the phrase, “if it ain’t broke don’t fix it” is a mantra for me.

The problem is I modify that phrase with “if it ain’t broke bad enough” or “duct tape will work”.

My latest example of this was my cellphone.

This one would be hard to drop or lift

Sometime this year, perhaps in February, I dropped my cellphone from a waist high pocket. Typically no big deal. This time it hit on the corner of the hinge just right (or wrong) and a piece of it cracked off. That same day I tried unsuccessfully to super glue the piece back on. No go - it would not hold so I resorted to a duck tape fix.

The duck tape fix was marginally workable. If you didn’t carefully hold the phone it would start to separate. I suspect if it fully separated it would probably never work again. I placed very careful calls for a many weeks.

Finally after too many “next weeks”, I took it to the Verizon store. I had a plan with both an option A and option B. Option A was to convince them that their long time customer should just get this too easily breakable phone replaced. Option B was to activate my last phone which I still had but had been replaced by the now broken newer model.

The good news - Option A was a success. They shipped my a new replacement phone within two days.

It was this clam shell type but a new version with no antenna stub

Once in awhile during a brief reflective mood, I’ll think about changing my less than appealing characteristic. A few seconds later I tell myself, yeah maybe next week.

Here's Ellen Degeneres take on procrastination.

Hey you overachievers - any advice?

another circus