I Hate Phones

Last night I made some tentative plans with my sister and her boyfriend to go see a movie this afternoon. The plan was, she would call in the morning to make firm plans.

My phone showed no missed calls when I got up, and nothing until 1600, when I got a voicemail alert. She had called twice, and my phone helpfully decided not to ring. It had been plugged in all night and I get more than adequate signal in my apartment. Piece of shit.

So I set out for the AT&T store intent on purchasing a Pantech Duo. I had originally bought my refurb Blackjack because AT&T did not have a WM6 phone at the time, and I figured, hell, it's my birthday, I'm going to buy myself a new phone.

Well, I ended up balking at the $450 it would have cost. I've only had my phone about three months, so no upgrade pricing for me. The guy at the store suggested adding a line to get a discount, but then I'd be stuck paying $10 extra per month. For two years. So fuck that.

I ultimately chose to do a warranty replacement and get another Blackjack cross-shipped to me. I had been under the impression that the warranty period on my refurb was up, but apparently not.

I still hate the Blackjack, but I hate even more the Byzantine way that phones work. I have three phone numbers: home, work, and cell, but no sane way to link them. I was just looking at GrandCentral. They still claim to be in private beta, though the Wikipedia says they usually extend an invitation to people who sign up through their reserve thing. Looking at the feature list, it looks rather cool. I especially like the email notification of voicemail feature. However, I am weary of GrandCentral for a few reasons:

1. They mention no costs on their site, and Wikipedia says that they basically eat all of the costs at this point. I am weary of becoming dependent on a service with no idea of what it will cost when they exit beta.

2. There is currently no other service that offers those kind of services as far as I can tell, so I would have little choice but to pay what they ask when they go commercial.

3. It is owned by the G-entity, after all. :)

For all the talk I have heard about the end of phones as we know them, it still seems slow in coming.