Kicking and screaming (with delight)

Hello 20th century !

Yes, I know it’s the 21st right now, but that’s how far behind the times I’ve been. UNTIL NOW!

So the other day, my oldest sister was over, we were celebrating her birthday, and she shows us her brand new, husband-bought-it-for-her-birthday-present iPhone 4s. She’d had a crackberry for years, used it as a work expense so it was cheaper to manage, but when her hubby retired last Winter, she bought him an iPhone for Christmas. Previously where he worked, they were not allowed to bring smartphones on base for security reasons, so he was thrilled to finally have his first smartphone.

Anyway, she’s showing us her spiffy new phone, and we all get to talking about phone plans and costs and such. I was already pretty pissed off that I was paying for my phone and Cindy’s phone on a Family plan, with unlimited talk and text, and the bill was $107 and change a month … for what? I was paying a fortune and getting very little indeed. We didn’t have smartphones, we had special-needs phones, and no data plan.

So my soon-to-be-nephew in-law (wedding’s August 4th) said that for very little more, even with the two phone plan, we could get everything and share it. I told him I’d done some preliminary calculating and thought it was gonna be outragious, but he explained Verizon’s new plans because he’d recently gone to upgrade himself, and put my niece on his plan, and it wasn’t all that bad.

Well we shrugged it off. I mean seriously, who needs a smart phone? Why would you need to see the Internet while you’re out and about? Or get emails when you’re not at home or at work?

Sure, a while back Cindy and I were out trying to find a place and couldn’t, then realized NO ONE has phone books anywhere … we had no way of finding this place’s phone number or address – so we had to text Kim, who looked it up and texted us back. It was a little pathetic.

We admired her phone, then handed it back and thought very little of it … for about ten minutes. I’m not sure which one of us suggested it first – but Cindy did admit she really wanted to see about upgrading us to “grown up phones.” That’s when I admitted I was seriously jealous of our sister’s phone …

Long story short, we’re now the proud users of two iPhone 4s smartphones with shared data plan. I’ll now be paying slightly more a month, but getting SO much more than I had been. Unlimited talk, unlimited text, and shared 4g data. Plus when we’re at home, the phones connect via our wireless internet and use that, saving the data usage for when we’re not at home. I find that uber cool.

And yes, we have Siri. I was ignorning her for a while, but then my friend Pete suggested I give her a try, for a lark, and ask her really odd questions. I have to admit, she’s amusing.

Being slightly geeky, my sister and I Face Time each other 😀 It’s awesome, except the part about being able to see yourself on that screen … yipes.

And is it just me … or is that compass function a hoot?

So here I am, square in the middle of the 20th century, gazing at the 21st to see if it has anything interesting I might wanna get ….