Since my phone number changed, I’ve been calling various places to update my record. One such place was the EB Games in Park Royal – sounds innocuous, but as I have 4 games on pre-order and they contact me by phone, it’s in my best interest to make sure they can get hold of me.

I called the store (yes, they’re in my phone as a contact – shut up) and explained that I have games on pre-order but a new phone number, and could they please update my info in their computer.

The EB guy said sure, and asked for my old number which I rattled off.

Then he *laughed* at me, saying “I knew it was you!”. We joked about my anal retentive video game ordering, he asked if I had an iPhone, and I somehow felt compelled to explain the beauty of mobile IGN reviews.

My number has been changed so I won’t miss out on any of my games, but *still*. I am beyond embarrassed (and yet somehow proud) that my reputation precedes me to such an extent.

I did a lot of fast talking over the weekend, and the end result is that I, too, can haz iPhone.

I was a masterful spin doctor of lies and half-truths. The justifications were far-fetched and plausible only if you missed every second word I was saying. I made some concessions, talked up my hand-me-downs, and I am fairly confident there was wheedling. And lo – for all my efforts and thinking out loud, I have a wee flat phone that has been dubbed Teh Hellophone 2.0 (also known as iChing, because I am funny in my own head).

Some of the things I said in order to justify the purchase to myself and Ed (mostly Ed):

• My productivity will suffer without it
• This isn’t the gadget whore in me speaking, it’s common sense
• We’d be able to completely rid ourselves of the Telus monkey on our backs once and for all
• The 6 GB plan is a limited time offer! (this one is true)
• If I go with Fido instead of Rogers, it’ll be slightly less evil – Fido has puppies and cute gay men making out whereas Rogers has 5 annoying everyteens as spokespeople
• It has GPS – I’ll never get lost again! (note: I am famous for my built in DPS, and I never, ever get lost)
• Four words: mobile IGN game reviews
• I’m getting the 8gb model, not the 16gb – we’re saving $100!

There are cons, of course. My cell phone bill just went up by quite a lot (which is offset by the decrease in Ed’s phone bill, but still). If I move to the middle of nowhere, I won’t be able to get service – Fido’s network isn’t the largest in Canada. I had to pay a zillion dollars to get out of Ed’s Telus contract (I’m ignoring that for now). And perhaps worst of all: the iPhone has no spot for danglies. I LOVE my cell phone danglies. I have a great many of them, and now I can’t use them on my phone. Boo!

As you can see, it really does suck to be me.

I’m still excited, though. I just got my work email, calendar, and secret email accounts set up and it’s working marvelously. It really is a sexy piece of technology, and I’m glad I took the plunge. Yeah, I’m now just like everybody else in my trendy phone ways, but I think I can offset the drone syndrome if I make this (NWS!) my wallpaper.

I’m so edgy. Edgy and connected.

Words cannot properly convey how much I want one of these.

Good gravy, that is brilliant. If only I had somewhere to put it – zombies could come up out of hardwood flooring, right?

I truly, deeply, completely, enjoy these.

I may have to buy several.

POOP SIGN!

Holy mother of all things holy and divine.

Beyond Good and Evil is one of my favouritest games ever, and this is fucking awesome news. YAY! I AM A LESS-SAD MONKEY!

So hey, meet Banjo.

I had priced out a bunch of machines at several different vendors, but everything was insanely expensive. It looked like I was going to have to go through Dell and use their evil financing program to get a halfway decent laptop, but the relatively debt-free rebel in me refused to pay $80 a month for four years for something that would be obsolete within 2.

Then I went to Future Shop to pick up a video game. Out of sheer curiosity, I went over to look at the laptop selection. Hey, these are pretty neat. Hey, these have the same specs as what I’ve been eyeballing online. Hey, these laptops are $500-900 less than what I priced out ..

I went home and did a bunch of research, and then went back out and bought the laptop linked above. His name is Banjo. I spent most of last night removing HP bloatware and trying to get Vista to look and behave as much like XP as possible. If I ever find XP drivers, I’m wiping it and starting fresh. In fact, the whole setup process was completely alien to me – I *never* use a machine right out of the box; I always wipe the HD completely and install something that doesn’t suck. Okay, I guess I didn’t do that with my MacBook, but you get the picture. Formatting things is awesome.

It’ll take me a couple days to have everything setup properly (both the machine and my desk), but I rather like Banjo’s shiny newness already. Plus: fingerprint scanner. All my secrets, safe at last (until someone cuts off my right index finger to use the scanner and get at my unmentionables)!

It’s good that I drove into the office today only to have the torrential rains dry up an hour later. It’s also good that the bank machine made scary noises and spit out a message saying “this transaction cannot be completed; please try again later” yet on the statement, it had already taken the money from my account. It’s super duper good that the assholes across the street are busy creating another abused yard dog, and that no one in a 3-block radius got any sleep last night because the poor thing was howling and barking all night long, so much so that the cops had to be called and yet animal control will not do anything because they’re on reserve land and therefore have a free pass to abuse animals and/or the law.

Yes. Good.