Mobile Phone Nightmare Continues

So, I have been without a working phone for well over 2 weeks. My old phone went swimming a couple of months ago, I got a new smart phone... and it had trouble booting right out of the box. But after that it worked well for a month (with some small issues) and then started crapping out again and again. Over 2 weeks ago it got stuck in the boot-loop, yelling DROID! every few minutes.

I took it to the Verizon store, where they did a "factory re-boot"... which worked for a day. A little over a week ago I went back and told them the danged phone still didn't work - they tried the factory reboot again and nothing happened... so they ordered me a replacement phone.

I waited for the danged thing to arrive for over a week - and it never did.

I was having dinner with a friend who was telling me about ordering a replacement credit card that never arrived, and when he called the bank they told him it had never actually been ordered. Someone forgot to push the button.

So I went to the Verizon store again yesterday to make sure someone pushed the button... and that's why my phone never arrived. It was never ordered. So we went through the whole things again - they needed to make sure the phone could not be factory rebooted before ordering me a new phone... and *this time* I asked for paperwork on the order. Got it. So I should have a phone again on Thursday. Sorry if I never returned your call...

UPDATE: I know have a working phone.


- Bill
IMPORTANT UPDATE:
TODAY'S SCRIPT TIP: Cool World -
Dinner: Popeye's Chicken.
Pages: A new chapter for a Blue Book expansion.
Bicycle: After a few long rides, some short ones.

Movies: HYSTERIA.

Otherwise known as “That vibrator movie with Maggie Gyllenhaal”.

Amusing little film that seems as if it were made for an American audience by British people... who don’t really understand American audiences. The film is the result of about a dozen European production companies and studios working together, and though it takes place in London was filmed in Luxembourg. Though the love/hate relationship between Gyllenhaal and Hugh Dancy seems perfect for a barrage of clever zingers like the banter from a Howard Hawks movie or a Tracy/Hepburn movie; the writers decided to make it more subdued humor... at times almost a comedy of manners. Though I wouldn’t want to be the development executive giving them a note like “Should be banter instead of soft comedy” - it *does* seem like the male/female relationship and some of the story elements fit that style of comedy better. But what they did, they did well. So it’s a light comedy that seems to be made up of three different stories that somehow all manage to work together pretty well.

One story is about a wealthy doctor’s daughter (Maggie Gyllenhaal) who is so fiercely independent that she turns her back on society and spends her time working with the poor and destitute in a shelter - she has run ins with her father who wants her to get over this silliness and take her place in society.

The second story is about a once idealistic doctor (Hugh Dancy) who sells out and becomes the Victorian England version of a Beverly Hills plastic surgeon, providing manual stimulation to wealthy women with symptoms of frustration and dissatisfaction and sometimes even anger - which is known as the medical condition “Hysteria”. He diddles them, they feel better... they make lots of future appointments. He has kind of a coming of age story when after becoming engaged to his boss’s daughter and seeing a day when he might someday take over the practice and hire other young doctors to manually stimulate wealthy women, finds his idealism again.

The third story is about the accidental invention of the vibrator by a wealthy wacky inventor (an almost unrecognizable Rupert Everett) who was trying to make an electric feather duster to help with house work.

Though there’s a title card that says “based on true events” or some such thing, I believe the third story probably has some truth to it and the other two are pure fiction. Fiction created to take what’s probably a fairly boring story and make it fun. And the writers actually make it work as one story (with some rough edges from time to time). The father of the independent woman is the doctor who owns the diddle practice our once idealistic doctor goes to work for, and the wacky inventor is our idealistic doctor’s college chum and best friend. There are times when the film cuts between the three where it becomes obvious that these are three different stories glues together by that montage. Other scenes that work perfectly in their own story seem to intrude on one of the others - especially a longish courtroom scene. And in order to tie the stories together with a happy ending, some things are resolved waaaaay too easy. But if you are an American who enjoys British films, this will probably be an enjoyable couple of hours in the cinema.

Oh, stay for the credits to see a history of vibrators - photos that run along the side of the credits.

- Bill