...and just having it makes me feel like an idiot...

i got this phone here:
K7 Rave
from Virgin Mobile. it's one of those pre-paid phones. because of the cost of my home phone line and DSL, i rather not pay another $30-$50 a month for another phone that i might use almost as little as my home line. so pre-paid made a lot of sense to me. TracFone is the most popular pre-paid phone that i know of in my area, mostly because it is the oldest in the area. Virgin Mobile is relatively new here, and i've heard a few people recommend it over other services like TracFone.

so i get the phone, and read that i can get a $5 credit by registering my credit card and adding money to the account. so i add my card, and add $20 to the account. well, $20 shows up, and not $25 like i was expecting. i call tech support, and they mentioned something about me registering the card and adding funds in the wrong order or some shit. i dont know how i did something like that, but obviously computers dont lie. they said the $5 would be added the next time i add funds.
next, i go to set up my voice mail, and end up spending $1.50 on the phone call before finding out that i can set up my voice mail from another phone.

while using some features on the phone, i find that my web site selection is a bit restrictive. it even charges me $0.10 to access some features on the phone. i heard that i could read news on the phone, so i pay the dime to get to the News section... i could find only Music related news...it turns out that is the ONLY thing you can get on the Virgin Mobile phones. its basically a push technology for MTV and VH1. PointCast was the originator of "Push" technology. that company is long dead now, because that kind of crap just didn't catch on - and i find out my phone does push for MTV and VH1 - two media outlets i care LITTLE for. i dont care about the latest news regarding the latest flavor of the day bullshit top 40 "artist" or anything else in the music industry. during a call to tech support, i was told that the web browser in the phone was crippled to ONLY work with the MTV and VH1 sites.

while poking around in the Ringtone section, i wanted to view information on one ringtone, and was welcomed with a screen thanking me for my $2 purchase...! sure enough, my account balance dropped $2.00. so where was the ringtone? it wasnt on my phone, so i went back to the ringtone section and tried to view info on the ringtone again to see if it told me how to download it. so what happens? it thanks me again for another $2 purchase of the same ringtone...!

so with the $4 worth of ringtones i never wanted, $5 of credit that never showed up, and a $1.50 phone call i didn't need to make (but was told to by the manual) - i'm out $10.50 that could of been used for REAL phone calls. i also realize that half the features on my phone will never be of any use to me, so that makes me question the higher up-front price i paid for the phone compared to the phones offered by other services (AT&T's pre paid service was highly recommended as well).

basically, i never felt more like an idiot with such simple technology that i did with this phone.

i have had my labret pierced (the part of the body right under your bottom lip) for the past 5 weeks. well, yesterday i noticed that it was wearing away at my gums. i read something today that said that is a very bad thing, so i promptly removed it. i rather keep my teeth than a piercing... :/

i was about a 40 minute drive from my house, flying down Hwy 70, and i hear a "thud" - like i had hit a small pot hole. i know i didnt see anything in the street before hand or i would have swerved, and when i checked my rear
view mirror, i didnt see anything there quickly zooming away into the distance. so i knew it wasn't a pot hole.

it was a little weird, and i thought "what if that was my tire?" the car was driving fine still, so i never gave it a thought after that.

a few minutes later, my car started shaking... a bad shake. like a horribly fucked up alignment shake, or a "oh shit something's fucked with my engine" shake.

i was on the highway, and there was a shit load of ice and snow on the shoulder, so i couldn't pull over... so i had to find the next off ramp, and even after getting off the highway, i still had to find someplace to pull to since there was no shoulder room. the entire time, i was freaked out, thinking that my INVINCIBLE Kia was falling apart or something. i started to think then "i wonder if this has to do with that thud i heard earlier? maybe i have a flat tire."

i ended up pulling into the parking lot of a hospital, shut the car off and got out. sure enough, my rear driver side tire was flat.

i only had a paper-thin wind breaker on (i didnt expect to be out of my car more than 2 minutes), and the temperature was like 17 degrees F, and the wind was blowing. so basically it was fucking COLD.

i bust out my jack and lugnut-tool-thing, and proceed to struggle with the lugnuts for the next 15 minutes, trying to get them loose. the tool was so small, i didnt have any leverage to hit it or step on it to loosen anything up. i found the best method was to fucking pull as hard as i could - which almost lifted the car up. the wind was really blowing, and it was making my skin STING because of how cold it was. this was the first time i ever had to change a flat tire - and it just happened to be far away from my home, on a super fucking cold day.

so i just started going to College this week for some computer technology classes.

this was my second day, and because of what i already know, i was able to test out of the course with a 96%. so tomorrow with be my 3rd and final day of the 10 week course. i will go back to school in March when the next course starts. of course in that i will review the stuff and then possible make an attempt to test out of that if it seems i already know everything about it.

i know i'm not going to be able to test out of everything. i almost nothing about Novell Networking, so that course will definitely be a challange, and there is still a ton I can learn about TCP/IP networking. however, testing out of what i can is supposed to save me some time and money (a 10 week break between courses! wow!), and make it easier to get my Associates or Bachelors degrees.

^____^