Things That Bug Me – My Cell Phone Battery

As you know, I’ve got my list of crap I want to write about for the first twenty-ump entries here. As I was scanning it for the next one I wanted to write about, I noticed a couple trends. So, I’ve decided that I’m going to have a couple running themes for entries. I know, I know, I said I’d be themeless. But there are going to be a couple repeating trends, so I figure why not use it. Now don’t you go getting all excited like it’s going to be so organized to the point like every Sunday is one type of column and every Wednesday is another certain type of column, or that even each themed column will get a weekly or otherwise other seemingly organized scheduled release. It won’t be like that at all. But, there will be at least two repetitive style columns.

"Things That Bug Me" – I think this is pretty self explanatory. I’m going to randomly let you into the inner-workings of this here mind and vent a little bit about things that bug me. It’ll probably be pretty simple things mostly, maybe something obscure once in a while. I’m not necessarily looking for your approval, "hey that bugs me too!!!11!32!!" On the other hand, I sure hope you don’t read it and now you have an immense hatred for something you didn’t before. But mainly, it’s probably going to center on simple things that don’t work the way they’re supposed to. A pretty common phrase I’ve been known to utter, "dammit, I paid $XXXX for YYYY, I sure as hell expect it to ZZZZ like it’s supposed to."

"Life’s Little Victories" – Another simple topic. I’m going to occasionally write about those little situations you have sometimes, where something so simple or inane just seems to be cool. It’s probably nothing to most people in fact, and the normal person doesn’t even think about it. But sometimes, I sit back (figuratively in my head) and chuckle (also figuratively in my head), and think, "wow cool! I sure am lucky because XXXX happened." It won’t be anything crazy or something that took CSI to figure out, just sometimes what might be considered a normal occurrence makes me chuckle and feel a little victorious for the day. Or for at least a couple seconds.

So for the first installment of a themed article on this themeless canvas: Things That Bug Me – My Cell Phone Battery.

I carry two cellphones. All day. Every day.

One is mine, it’s a Sony Walkman phone offered by AT&T (formerly Cingular, formerly Suncom, formerly some other crap). It’s my personal phone. Has a huge memory card, could also serve as a Walkman (fake iPod). But I don’t use it for that, I use it……………….wait for it……………..to call people. It has numbers on it. I dial them in a specific order. People answer. I talk to them. Or, in reverse, they call me. It rings. I answer. I talk to them. Done. That’s it. I like it. It works. It’s a phone. I’m very happy with it. It does what I need it to do. And it generally works like it’s supposed to.

The other, oh the other pile of crap, is my work phone. Supplied by my company. It’s a Verizon phone on that amazing network. I’ll give them a good coverage range, whatever, who doesn’t have that now. But it’s a Samsung Renown (SCH-u810). Which is actually Samsung-ese for (pile of crap).
Look, the image I got from Samsung online is even brown. Hmmmmmmmmm, how fitting. Anyways, due to recent downsizing at my company and changes in plans, and the fact that this is my second phone in a year through them, and blah blah blah – I can’t get a new phone from my company and Verizon until like January. Whatever. I’ll keep carrying around this piece of crap. Samsung and Verizon, can you hear me now? This phone is a pile of cow shit.

According to the specs online, this wonderful phone has "up to" (their words) 300 minutes of talk time, and "up to" 320 hours of idle time - from the standard battery. Quick math, 300 minutes / 60 minutes / hr = 5 hours, I mean, "up to" 5 hours of talk time on this battery. Before this rant continues, I must admit I have no problems with the idle time on this battery. I haven't timed it, or compared it to "up to" 320 hours - but it's plenty long enough. I don't have to charge it every other day................UNLESS............I talk on this phone. Because, Samsung is basically a big fat liar - I call bullshizer on 5 hours of talk time. I would estimate this phone's talk time on the standard battery to be about 45 minutes. If I'm talking on this phone, I can watch the battery dial go down as I'm talking - worse than watching my gas gauge in the Hemi.

So, to start the trend, Things That Bug Me - My Cell Phone Battery. Bullshizer on Samsung's 5 hours of talk time. Then, to top it all off, this phone has the worst, most annoying, warning-beep-my-battery-is-about-to-die sound. The worst. And, if I, heaven forbid, talk on this phone, I get to hear it often.