Sunday, December 19, 2004

Change Agent Sortof

I've been checking out my cell phone stats and noticing I have something like 2000 minutes a month and I'm using 350 in the last few months -- SHEEEEESH -- glad I took a look at it. And I finished up a two-year contract in 2003. And I've had my same phone number for ... nearly five years ... which is a good thing. And I'll port it elsewhere I think now that the numbers are portable and I'm ready to make some changes.

I've had the same amazingly simple, boring hardware (phone that is) for a long time, which suits me fine, since I don't really care about impressing anyone with the newest gadget and I DREAD learning a new interface. I hate complicated things. A feature is not a feature to me if I have to spend more than 5 nanoseconds learning how to use it. The amount of interface learning time most new technologies expect you to swallow is an effrontery to me.

Name any feature of any technology and I'd be happy to tell you I'd much rather spend the time it takes to learn that feature doing something worthwhile like kissing someone, cooking creme brulee or blogging. (Speaking of blogging it's a miracle I bothered to learn how.)

I'm a cell phone company's worst nightmare customer. For instance, I don't store anyone's phone number in my phone. I think this was a holdover from when I had cataracts and couldn't see shit on the display, and so decided not to bother with such things. I don't know how to store a number -- I don't care. I couldn't see them if I stored them anyway. What was I supposed to do, carry around a tiny cell phone and a magnifying glass that was bigger than the phone?

When it comes to radical change, I think I'm pretty cool with changes. I'd change my hair color or even shave all my hair off at the drop of a hat, but trying to figure out cell phone plans and cell phone hardware is the kind of thing I can't stand. And I hate making changes that involve bureaucratic and administrative shit. But I'm going to give this the old college try. It's high time.