What’s Jaouen Jonesing For?

When I got my first job out of college, I was brimming with excitement. For once, I would be able to afford all of the cool shit that I want, including a sick new phone. There were two phones at the time that really stood out. There was a $600 iPhone (Early adopters must be pissed that it is only $200 now) and the $400 Helio Ocean. The Ocean was touted by many as the iPhone killer. It was an impressive phone, with double sliding action, a full keyboard, access to the internet and a complete all-in-one plan. I decided to go with the cheap, iPhone killer. It took a few months, but eventually I realized that the vaunted Helio Ocean was a dismal disappointment. The realization came when I decided that my Big Pimpin’ ringtone was not work appropriate. I searched and searched for a new ring tone, one that just sounds like a normal phone ringing. After much searching, I figured out that my Ocean was actually designed for teenagers, who as we all know, don’t have a clue. There are no “normal ring tones” for the Helio. I also started to realize that the internet functionality of my Helio was sub standard. An iPhone user can check their bank account, email, and watch the best porn that the internet has to offer with ease, using an intuitive, fast and slick interface. The Helio user on the other hand has to navigate through several screens of menus just to find a browser, which seems to translate every web page into some unintelligible form of Aramaic. Now, a year later, I’m stuck in a 2 year contract with a phone that seems to die every time it is opened. The screen barely works, the operating system crashes about once an hour, and I don’t even feel comfortable using the phone as an alarm to wake up in the morning. I have explored the other telephone offerings from Helio and have come to one conclusion; there is a very good reason that Helio nearly went bankrupt, their phones are perplexingly unintuitive offerings with substandard support and software, designed for twelfth grade girls who wear too much makeup and aspire to marry doctors but probably won’t because they have the intellectual capacity of inbred Dodos. A new phone from Helio would be like shooting myself in the foot and then pouring salt in the wound. I need to explore the other options available to me. Two phones strike me as good options. The first is the G1, which uses the open source operating system from Google. The G1’s only selling point is the operating system. Other than that, it seems about as nice as my Ocean. The iPhone is the other option, but it comes with an expensive plan and a tyrannical overlord named Steve Jobs. I think I will probably end up getting the iPhone, but it’s still up in the air. Please feel free to weigh in with your opinion in the comment area below. Oh, and don’t suggest a phone that doesn’t have an app store, like the crackberry Storm; I’m not interested.

Nothing scares me…well, almost nothing. Among the short list of things that do scare me, I have one misunderstood fear. Vacuums cleaners. When hearing of this fear, some have remarked, “What are you, a dog?” The truth is that I am no so much scared of vacuums as I am scared of their users. Growing up, my mother kept the house orderly and neat. She would vacuum often because she had kids and cats, 2 things that stink up a house (As a side note, I hate children, especially the sound of their laughter.) Vacuuming didn’t represent cleaning to me though; it represented a mood in the house. It was a foreboding mood. It was a tense mood similar to that of the Cuban missile crisis. It meant, watch your ass, don’t make a wrong move or you will regret it. Maybe my view of the whole thing is clouded by the haze of time, but it always seemed that when the vacuum turned on, my mother transformed from a lovely woman to a creature of horror and anger. The slightest misstep could result in the scolding of a lifetime or worse…grounding. This was before the time of the internets and computers; it was a time when being sent to your room meant that there would be absolutely no fun that day. I was deathly afraid of being sent to my room for the afternoon. I was terrified of being yelled at by the witch with the vacuum. As a result of the hair trigger that the vacuum instilled in my mother’s temper, to this day I fear the use of vacuums. Call me crazy, but that just seems normal.

Oh, and my mother is a wonderful woman.