Boo!
...to phones not working for no reason anyone can understand. I was down at my dad's on Monday night, in the middle of a scintillating conversation with my friend about her ex-husband's shenanigans no less, when the phone went dead. It was showing a blank screen and a charge meter that said the battery was almost fully charged, but none of the buttons would do anything. I tried turning it off and turning it back on - nothing. I tried taking the battery out and putting it back in - same result. The only thing I could think of was that the battery was actually dead and I just hadn't heard the little warning beep, which was pretty unlikely because I have that autistic "super hearing" thing, but since it had been working literally seconds earlier I didn't know what else to think. I couldn't test this theory because I didn't bring a charger with me, since I was only going to be gone for a week and charging it just before I leave usually gives me more than enough talk time. I didn't want to drive to a store where I could get a "qualified" person to look at it, which would have forced me to get more gas before heading back to WI and make my mom mad (because she pays for my gas through a gas card for a specific local chain that they don't have down there, getting a sizeable discount in the process), and I really didn't want to interrupt what little family time I get these days with such a comparatively trivial thing, so I just sent my friend an email explaining what happened and planned to come back to WI earlier so I could get the stupid thing fixed. So I went to the phone store Friday, and the manager says he has no idea what the hell happened to my phone as he has never seen one do this. He keeps asking me if I dropped it or if it got wet. Um, NO, I was literally using it at the moment it just died for no reason. He then informs me that the kind of insurance I've been paying $2/month for for 4 years is now useless because my phone company has switched to a different kind of insurance that costs $6/month. Well, that makes the decision of whether to insure my new phone easier, since there's no way we can afford that and if I have this problem again they'll probably just tell me my insurance is invalid because they've just switched to a new kind that costs $20/month anyway. I get a $50 credit towards a new phone every 2 years anyway, so even though it was a huge pain in the ass to have to learn how to use a different company's phone in an evening and not be able to transfer any of my contacts, I told him to just give me the cheapest phone in the store. I still had to pay $30 for it, and it's driving me nuts because it's black and I can see every fingerprint I've ever left on it, but at least I don't have to use my mom's wretched landline phone anymore. (They're old and are losing their hearing, so the earpiece volume is so high that it always sounds like I'm trying to call an all-night rave, and I can't decypher the gadget hieroglyphics that would show me how to turn it down.) By the time I could get into my voicemail for the past week, it was 9 PM, which wouldn't be late except that the only friend who gave me her phone number in the message is often in bed by then. I had called her husband earlier from my mom's phone because I had his number written on a sticky note in my room, but his voicemail said he would be unavailable until the 30th (!). I have since dug my organizer out of the basement and replaced most of my lost numbers, but my sister's is going to be especially hard to get because she doesn't check her email. Anyway, to those of you who expected to see me Friday night, I'm really sorry I didn't get in contact with you. Little things like this really still amaze me with how helpless I can be, especially for a 33-year-old.
Anyway, I had a great time down in IL watching and talking about soccer with the fam. When I first got there on Saturday, they said they hadn't really been watching (EM 2008) and didn't seem that interested. When the last quarterfinal between Spain and Italy came down to penalty kicks, I told them that Germany and Turkey on Wednesday would be much better...and boy, was it ever. The only thing was that a TV tower in Switzerland got struck by lightning 3 times during the match, so we missed huge parts of it, including the last 2 goals. They discovered I was right about the non-lopsidedness of the match, and about the fact that the American desk commentators really like saying "Schweinsteiger". :) My stepmom came home from the work-related dinner she was having at the closest thing their town has to a fancy restaurant and told us that there were people with thick accents and Germany jerseys watching the match in the bar area. She didn't ask them WTF they were doing in a backwater like this. I have to admit that the Spain vs. Russia semifinal the next day was not very exciting. In fact, I started to wonder if Russian mobsters had instructed their countrymen to lose at all costs. But at least a Germany vs Spain final probably means less headaches for the Austrian cops (than Germany vs Russia). I was wondering why the captain of each team read an anti-racism statement in his own language during the semifinals, but didn't have a chance to find out until I got home. Apparently, some Croatian fans were waving Nazi banners and making racist chants during Croatia's quarterfinal loss to Turkey. Boo!! As if the way they lost that match wasn't heartbreaking enough, now the players have to worry about making it clear to the local press that they don't agree with these assholes. And we think we have it bad in American sports with fan interference, vomiting drunk people, and streakers.
So, those of you in my time zone will be watching this afternoon at 1:30 on ABC as Germany takes on Spain for the European title, right? Come on, you know you want to see 22 ridiculously fit young gentlemen take the pitch to secure bragging rights for their countries on network TV. They'll probably take their shirts off afterwards and everything.
LOL...this radio station is playing a song called "(Ja) Wir haben ein Idol...Jogi Löw!", set to the tune of "Michael, row the boat ashore". The guy's George-Thorogood-like voice only makes it more hilarious. Joachim Löw coaches the German men's national soccer team, natürlich.
Anyway, I had a great time down in IL watching and talking about soccer with the fam. When I first got there on Saturday, they said they hadn't really been watching (EM 2008) and didn't seem that interested. When the last quarterfinal between Spain and Italy came down to penalty kicks, I told them that Germany and Turkey on Wednesday would be much better...and boy, was it ever. The only thing was that a TV tower in Switzerland got struck by lightning 3 times during the match, so we missed huge parts of it, including the last 2 goals. They discovered I was right about the non-lopsidedness of the match, and about the fact that the American desk commentators really like saying "Schweinsteiger". :) My stepmom came home from the work-related dinner she was having at the closest thing their town has to a fancy restaurant and told us that there were people with thick accents and Germany jerseys watching the match in the bar area. She didn't ask them WTF they were doing in a backwater like this. I have to admit that the Spain vs. Russia semifinal the next day was not very exciting. In fact, I started to wonder if Russian mobsters had instructed their countrymen to lose at all costs. But at least a Germany vs Spain final probably means less headaches for the Austrian cops (than Germany vs Russia). I was wondering why the captain of each team read an anti-racism statement in his own language during the semifinals, but didn't have a chance to find out until I got home. Apparently, some Croatian fans were waving Nazi banners and making racist chants during Croatia's quarterfinal loss to Turkey. Boo!! As if the way they lost that match wasn't heartbreaking enough, now the players have to worry about making it clear to the local press that they don't agree with these assholes. And we think we have it bad in American sports with fan interference, vomiting drunk people, and streakers.
So, those of you in my time zone will be watching this afternoon at 1:30 on ABC as Germany takes on Spain for the European title, right? Come on, you know you want to see 22 ridiculously fit young gentlemen take the pitch to secure bragging rights for their countries on network TV. They'll probably take their shirts off afterwards and everything.
LOL...this radio station is playing a song called "(Ja) Wir haben ein Idol...Jogi Löw!", set to the tune of "Michael, row the boat ashore". The guy's George-Thorogood-like voice only makes it more hilarious. Joachim Löw coaches the German men's national soccer team, natürlich.