My stupid Sidekick II died this weekend… The radio bit it, so while it functions as a PDA, it’s completely unconnected… Occasionally banging the shit out of it causes it to function again for a little while, but it’s pretty much a goner. I called T-Mobile to have the situation handled, and after 45 minutes on the phone they told me I needed a new phone, but since my warranty expired 5 days before I called I was going to have to pay $100 for the exchange. I tried to fight, but the douchebag on the other end wasn’t hearing any of it. I plan on writing a letter to their Customer Pacification department, but regardless of whether or not they refund the $100 I plan on leaving both T-Mobile and the Sidekick II at the end of my current contract (which I believe ends this summer). I’ve dumped over $600 into T-Mobile and Danger on phones since 2003 and they can’t be bothered to help me out? Fuck them.

Fortunately, they do have a “loaner phone” program, so I was able to have some kind of working phone for the next two weeks… Oh, yeah, did I forget to mention that the SK2 is out of stock? Isn’t that awesome?

I saw Serenity this Sunday with the film club. I picked it based on popular demand, but was pleasantly surprised with both the film and (mostly) with who showed up for the club. My concern going in was that it would either A) not be my thing, like “Buffy” (the tv show), or 2) Only make sense to people who had watched “Firefly” (which I hadn’t). Not only were both these fears unfounded, but I really thought this was one of the best Science Fiction films I’ve seen in a while, and certainly one of the better films I’ve seen this year (which, given this year, isn’t saying much). What surprised me was how accessible Whedon made the film to newbies.

Finally, I’m blackholing my old gti.net email address… As far as I can tell, nobody has used it in years, and I can’t even log into their servers to disable the .forward, so I had to /dev/null it on the CSH side of things. If, for some strange reason, you are still using that address, don’t. I can’t believe that account is still active. Back when I worked at Sears in 1995ish, a rep came into the office center and offered me a free shell account with them if I mentioned their name if people asked for an ISP recommendation. I’m sure this violated Sears policy, now that I think about it, but nobody wanted Prodigy anyway. I told the rep that I actually already had a shell account with them, and asked if he would bump me up to a free PPP account. He agreed, and I’ve had the account ever since. Over the years, I kept thinking they would turn it off, but they never did, I must have fallen between the cracks, or they just kept it alive to thank me for the business I sent their way.