I don't know if anyone else finds this recent Charlie Sheen media frenzy utterly hilarious, but I certainly do. If you don't know what I'm talking about, all you need to do is watch this, both to catch up on what is going on and to realize that this guy is very strange.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5aSa4tmVNM (sorry, but for some reason I cannot embed the video here, but this link works nonetheless)
First off, allow me to add the disclaimer that I pay absolutely zero attention to the comings and goings of Hollywood, because I really couldn't care less what these people do in their personal lives. I just want to see them act. It's as if we play pretend middle school drama with the celebrities as some obscure form of entertainment, in which we watch couples get together only to inevitably break up, pass judgments on what everyone wears to awards shows... I could go on, but I'm just saying that I typically do not keep up with the current events of TMZ and all the grocery store check-out aisle magazines.
But I cannot help but to notice this Charlie Sheen fiasco, and the ensuing hilarity that his interviews have, for all practical purposes, guaranteed. I knew it was bad when I turned on SNL and was absolutely positive that they would mock him a considerable amount, only the see that the first sketch of the show was a parody of a talk show that Sheen could host, called "Duh-Winning!" Now, mostly what I'm talking about here is not his period of arguably irrational drug use and partying, even though it was the catalyst for all of this, but rather his interview tour that he has embarked on in these recent days after the fact. Let's be honest, when you are saying things like, "Dying is for fools" and "[My brain] fires in a way that is maybe not from this particular terrestrial realm, " either you must be acting for people's entertainment, or you are just completely delusional. And the truth is, I honestly do not know which Charlie Sheen falls under. I figure that we are, for the most part, taking him for his word as he is indirectly recognizing his craziness. But I also stopped and wondered if maybe he is just playing us, and portraying this loony of a celebrity just for the fun of it. I suppose we could analyze everything he is doing and possibly make a conclusion, but frankly I don't have the time or motivation to watch hours of Charlie Sheen footage. But if any of you, my peers, feel this urge, then by all means go right ahead. I'm sure you will be entertained for the most part. I know one thing is for certain though, and that is that any publicity is good publicity. And in that sense, Charlie Sheen is definitely "winning."
Thursday, March 10, 2011
Thursday, March 3, 2011
My Cell Phone
My cell phone has a mind of its own. I swear, it does. Now that I think about it, it must be some kind of revolutionary, scientific breakthrough. After all, isn't a machine that is self-aware a kind of technology that we have been after for decades? I suppose with such a bold claim, I should make my case, and justify my phone's remarkable capabilities with examples. And by remarkable capabilities, I mean horrible errors of programing and design that are immeasurably cruel.
I should first let you know that I have an HTC Droid Incredible -- a very nice, critically well reviewed, competitive, and expensive cell phone. It was a birthday present this past summer, as I was overdue for a two-year upgrade. It pretty much does everything you could imagine. You can do a Google search by taking a picture of something, you can go on YouTube and Facebook and anywhere else on the internet at what Verizon touts as "blazingly" fast speeds, you can play all kinds of games, you can e-mail, use it as a flashlight, keep a calendar, get automatic weather updates, get turn-by-turn driving directions via Google Maps, and so much more with all of the applications you can find on the App Market. If you were to ask me, I would say it definitely competes with the iPhone, which needs little introduction.
So, with so many amazing features in what one might call a technological marvel, it would be safe to suggest that it performs rudimentary tasks with efficiency and ease. And for the most part, it does. Call quality is excellent, text messages are sent and received quickly, and reception is hardly ever a problem. But, it seems that capabilities arguably even less strenuous than those are quite problematic for my "Incredible" phone (come on, you saw this pun coming sooner or later). You see, my phone has adapted this habit of changing my settings and erasing things under its own will, as if it gets bored when I'm not using it. It has changed my settings for e-mail notification, internet connectivity, and automatic updates, specifically not updating the current weather automatically, a setting I definitely had enabled. It also keeps me logged onto Facebook, and tells people that I am online and that they can send chat messages to me. This is not a problem, but somehow it decides that Facebook just isn't important enough, and then doesn't notify me of the message, leaving it unintentionally ignored.
Of course these things aren't so bad, they are merely extraneous issues, and I can deal with them. But the involuntary erasing of information is extremely frustrating. Around Christmas time it deleted every single last one of my text messages dating back to when I received the phone. With a large memory capacity, that's a lot of text messages. I didn't discover this until I received a text and opened the messaging screen, only to find that unopened text all by it self, completely alone in an abyss of white LED screen glow, once filled with months worth of improper grammar usage and misspelling. I got over this though, because nothing truly profound was lost.
But the final straw came two days ago, when overnight my phone deleted all of my contacts. Every phone number I had saved to my phone was gone. Vanished, as if into thin air. Needless to say, I was in a fit of fiery rage. I'd say that having your contacts is up there as one of the most vitally important functions of the cell phone in the modern day. You would imagine that a phone of this caliber could expend the energy to maintain those contacts on the phone's memory. Well, after some attempts at reacquiring them with the people at Verizon, my mom let into the woman on the phone at customer service, and two minutes later, they decided to send me a replacement. Astonishingly, It came to us in the mail in only two days, and today I took it to be activated. Unfortunately, they could not recover my contacts. But hopefully this new phone is not a lemon... Or a brilliant technological breakthrough, depending on how you look at it.
Oh, and P.S.
Verizon could not find my contacts... but I could. They we're hiding in my online backup. Well, not exactly... I had to look in the ever so convenient "Trash" section, where all of my phone numbers were waiting for me, to be recovered and swiftly synced back to my phone... I still don't know how they got there.
I should first let you know that I have an HTC Droid Incredible -- a very nice, critically well reviewed, competitive, and expensive cell phone. It was a birthday present this past summer, as I was overdue for a two-year upgrade. It pretty much does everything you could imagine. You can do a Google search by taking a picture of something, you can go on YouTube and Facebook and anywhere else on the internet at what Verizon touts as "blazingly" fast speeds, you can play all kinds of games, you can e-mail, use it as a flashlight, keep a calendar, get automatic weather updates, get turn-by-turn driving directions via Google Maps, and so much more with all of the applications you can find on the App Market. If you were to ask me, I would say it definitely competes with the iPhone, which needs little introduction.
So, with so many amazing features in what one might call a technological marvel, it would be safe to suggest that it performs rudimentary tasks with efficiency and ease. And for the most part, it does. Call quality is excellent, text messages are sent and received quickly, and reception is hardly ever a problem. But, it seems that capabilities arguably even less strenuous than those are quite problematic for my "Incredible" phone (come on, you saw this pun coming sooner or later). You see, my phone has adapted this habit of changing my settings and erasing things under its own will, as if it gets bored when I'm not using it. It has changed my settings for e-mail notification, internet connectivity, and automatic updates, specifically not updating the current weather automatically, a setting I definitely had enabled. It also keeps me logged onto Facebook, and tells people that I am online and that they can send chat messages to me. This is not a problem, but somehow it decides that Facebook just isn't important enough, and then doesn't notify me of the message, leaving it unintentionally ignored.
Of course these things aren't so bad, they are merely extraneous issues, and I can deal with them. But the involuntary erasing of information is extremely frustrating. Around Christmas time it deleted every single last one of my text messages dating back to when I received the phone. With a large memory capacity, that's a lot of text messages. I didn't discover this until I received a text and opened the messaging screen, only to find that unopened text all by it self, completely alone in an abyss of white LED screen glow, once filled with months worth of improper grammar usage and misspelling. I got over this though, because nothing truly profound was lost.
But the final straw came two days ago, when overnight my phone deleted all of my contacts. Every phone number I had saved to my phone was gone. Vanished, as if into thin air. Needless to say, I was in a fit of fiery rage. I'd say that having your contacts is up there as one of the most vitally important functions of the cell phone in the modern day. You would imagine that a phone of this caliber could expend the energy to maintain those contacts on the phone's memory. Well, after some attempts at reacquiring them with the people at Verizon, my mom let into the woman on the phone at customer service, and two minutes later, they decided to send me a replacement. Astonishingly, It came to us in the mail in only two days, and today I took it to be activated. Unfortunately, they could not recover my contacts. But hopefully this new phone is not a lemon... Or a brilliant technological breakthrough, depending on how you look at it.
Oh, and P.S.
Verizon could not find my contacts... but I could. They we're hiding in my online backup. Well, not exactly... I had to look in the ever so convenient "Trash" section, where all of my phone numbers were waiting for me, to be recovered and swiftly synced back to my phone... I still don't know how they got there.
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