Friday, October 28, 2005

Phoning Butterfly

The led light blinks at me every few seconds. Innocent and harmless, flashing in the corner of my eye. The light changes colour, purple, teal, green, white, chasing each other like a dog chasing its tail. There it sits on my desk - my new ebay purchase. My first ebay purchase. And quite possibly, my last ebay purchase.

How to explain? Put into words? Attempt at eloquence?

I bought a Panasonic vs3 on ebay last week after much ummhing and ahhing. And it arrived bright and early this morning. I’ve been sitting here looking at it, and the led has been winking back at me. And so here I sit with a big case of buyers remorse.

No hands free (even though it’s a mp3 player, and there’s no point having a mp3 player if there’s no hands free to listen to it), no software disk, even though it’s got infrared, and just because I didn’t buy a usb cable doesn’t mean I won’t want to connect this mobile to my computer, and who wants a crappy lcd screen sticker anyway? We rip those things off the minute we get them. Not to mention the fact that the cover provided was different to the girly cover I wanted. And then there’s the fact that the gprs browser is in bloody chinese. Remind me again how I can surf with that? Not of course that I would ever be using gprs anyway – so bloody expensive.

But, for 200 dollars less than retail price, oh ok, maybe 100 less once you include shipping etc, I guess I shouldn’t really complain. And it does have a nifty English-chinese dictionary which is kinda cool. Although all the java games just elude me – like I’d really be sitting there playing sonic the hedgehog.

The phone’s a little bigger than my old trustworthy 6610, and I must say that should this phone die on me, chances are I’m going back to nokia, cap in hand. Nokias may not be as pretty as they once were, but hey, at least they have all the features I know, trust and love. Predictive text that continues to be predictive after I go away from the word, the ability to add to the dictionary by pressing on the star key. The size so contoured to my hand that I only need to use one hand to answer calls, write sms’s and navigate the menu. With this phone, I have to use two hands to write sms, it’s difficult to close properly with one hand, and the swinging hinge makes it difficult to have it open at certain angles.

My friend suggested yesterday that if I didn’t like it I could just go and sell it again off ebay. But I don’t know if people will appreciate what I’d be selling. It just seems such a hassle. And me being me, chances are I’ll regret selling it afterwards – just like I regretted buying health insurance, cancelled it, and then regretted cancelling it. I hate my guilt mentality.

Lots of other things going on in my life. Currently trying to sort out my broadband connection at home, so I can be back online. Surfing the net, or just bludging around there just isn’t the same when you do it at work. So I’m waiting excitedly while Telstra go and check out our line for adsl compatibility before I sign on with the devil (exetel). Well, not really the devil. It was the best deal I could go with. After a while, and lots of bad press from friends, I realised that unwired was not the way to go. When Telstra, the most trusted of telcos, well not so much trusted, but at least the most reliable in some ways, has bad wireless broadband, you just know that none of its competitors is going to be good. So a phone activation with Telstra, and a purchase of a 30 dollar phone (that I later found for 24 bucks at officeworks) later, we’re just about as set up as we’re ever going to be for broadband. Now if they’d just pull their finger out, we could get connected and I could stop feeling so lonely….

I’ve discovered I have to count every penny again. I’m constantly looking for bargains, and I’m desperately trying to keep afloat. Christmas is coming and I’m going to have to go find a decent Christmas present for my boyfriend.

They moved my desk at work, and I must admit I like this spot much better – if only because I feel safer ‘in the crowd’ than on the fringes of civilisation, next to the door where the big wig clients and high faluting executives constantly walk by. Not to mention the fact that my boss used to have a direct eyeline to my computer screen. At least there’s a few pods in the way now. Although it’s still fairly easy to sneak up on me without me knowing – especially when I’ve got my headphones on.

Looks like I’m back to stream-of-conscious rambling again. It’s 9.23 and I have to get to work.

Purchases, purchases, purchases. It’s all expenses these days.

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