Monday, March 05, 2007
MY NEW PHONE
...has been delayed. I received it today, from an Ebay auction, to find it had an unclear ESN. I was told this doesn't necessarily mean it was stolen, but it does make it unusable.
Luckily, the people I bought it from are wholesalers, and they have plenty more. They have already shipped out a new one, and I should get it Wednesday. (Which, around here, means Thursday).
And from what I can tell, the phone is very nice. The screen is huge and bright, and the programs I loaded while waiting for it to charge all ran fast and smooth. I am looking forward to actually having one of these phones.
But here's the rest of the story:
I called the Sprint people to activate the phone, and was passed around to different techies, all of whom could not tell me why my phone would not work. They got it to accept my number, and they got it to show up on the system, but I could not send or receive calls.
Finally, they put me on with the super duper top of the line, last stop for things that are broken tech, Gary.
Gary had me download an updated driver, and we thought it was going to work. I could clear the ESN and put my number in, but I still could not receive or send calls. CLOSE! But the drivers and updates took about 20 minutes to load. That meant I was on the phone, with a techie, for 20 minutes without anything to talk about.
Turns out Gary went to the boyscout camp where my In-Laws live. Small world. I said so, and he agreed. And he has actually been to Bemidji. Wow.
That conversation took about two minutes, which means we had more time to kill. I excused myself to go use the bathroom, two more minutes gone. Then there was some dead air. Then some more. And Finally Gary asked me this:
"What do you call someone who is half Pakistani, half Minnesotan"..."Yassir Youbetcha"
I know. I know. And he was here all week, folks. But he had another one.
"What is the difference between the French Flag and the French War Flag?"
"The French War Flag does not have red or blue." ZING.
He had a lot of them. But at least it passed the time. I guess.
I think when the new phone arrives, I am going to ask for Gary again.
