Finally Getting Around To It

Recently (and by recently I mean in the month of October...yeah, I'm a little more than behind) a friend posted this blog:

Dear Jo,
Why do you hate your Blackberry so? Inquiring minds want to know.
Sincerely,
Research in Motion

First, we should probably list why I like the BlackBerry. Not love, per se, but like the BlackBerry:

• It takes wonderful pictures. Comparing them to the Samsung pictures that I used to take, it looks like professional photography.
• I can see more of websites than I could with my Samsung (the Samsung seemed to show websites in DOS or something).
• There's a place for a charm. As is the case with most heterosexual girls, I love to accessorize.
• It has an alarm that buzzes even if I have shut the ringer off.
• The ringtone is the complete song of "Viva La Vida," by Coldplay.

And, drum roll, why I loathe my BlackBerry:

• It fills in the damn words for me when I text, whether I program it to or not. I have actually changed it to NOT do this several times and it changes its mind half way through a message and starts picking out my words for me.
• It's not a clamshell design. It's like this brick on the side of my head. This was going to be a forgivable point when I bought it because it was supposed to be wonderful in all other aspects.
• It doesn't change in the time change. (Found that out this morning.) You have to manually change it. The Samsung you could just open and there's the time according to the nearest free tower. With BlackBerry, you have to reprogram.
• About every eight weeks the BlackBerry decides to "lock up." By lock up I mean you can't get internet, followed by your texts disappear on their own, followed by taking 7 minutes to connect a call. To remedy this situation you could just power off the phone as the directions say (shocking...the BlackBerry people knowingly have something on the market that will collapse every eight weeks...so much for the 21st century), but that has never worked. Instead, I use my brother MS's technique, which is to take the battery out of the phone for the length of a typical song on the radio, listen to the song (this part is supposed to calm me down about my piece-of-shit phone), and re-insert the battery. Beginning with the last time I did this I had to do it multiple times. My brother suggested a follow-up procedure: go to the top of the TransAmerica Pyramid and throw the phone.
• The phone dials people with the slightest push of keys--EVEN WHEN LOCKED.
• The "pearl" scroll ball in the middle of the phone. How does one clean this? How does one teach this thing to roll with the same sensitivity every time? And what moron thought it would be a good idea to take away the side scroll wheel and give me this marble of debatable reliability to operate scrolling with?

I hope there is no ambiguity in the sugar-coating that I did of the BlackBerry faults, above. If there is, I can certainly ratchet up the expletives.

And, before you say, "I think you got a lemon," know this. My brother's BlackBerry has the same damn issues, save the fact that he doesn't have to wrestle with the track-ball. I don't trust the company. Also, if you encounter these issues and go to a Verizon store with them, you have to wait in line through two clerks who will be empowered to tell you to go home and call Verizon from another phone.

Great tower strength, rotten phones.

I miss Motorola. But I understand they are laying off...

So I honestly don't know WHAT phone I would get next. They all look too delicate and pretty to eat, let alone make calls.

WHICH IS WHAT A PHONE IS FOR, INITIALLY, AFTER ALL.

Research, please let me know if there are any more questions. ;)