Wednesday, January 04, 2006

egg nogs and ringtones

They made me an offer I couldn't refuse. We went to the cell phone store to get a replacement phone for my daughter and somehow ended up getting a new one for me too. They had a buy one get one free deal with rebates that made both phones virtually free (except for the sales tax).

When I took a job in Knoxville, the radio station provided cell phones for me and several other staff members. After the station went belly-up in 2003, I no longer had a phone and have gotten along fine without one since. Before leaving Burbank, I had given my old phone to my wife and my wife gave her old phone to our daughter. A new phone for me would cost only another $10 a month on our family share plan.

I feebly tried to resist the sales pitch but they waived the activation fee since it was the last day of the year and they wanted to meet some sales goal. Then they said would take 50% off whatever accessories I needed. What really closed the deal though was the phone itself. It's got a 1.3 megapixel camera and an mp3 player built in. I caved.

The camera will prove useful for my blog. The first thing I photographed was a sign I saw posted on the door at Weigel's on January 1st.
It's a good thing that I already have some egg nog in the freezer.



As nice as the camera is, I was probably more excited about the mp3 player. I am almost positive the guy at the Verizon store said I could take mp3s from my computer and use them as ringtones. I excitedly took the little mini SD memory card out of the phone, connected it to my laptop and transferred some mp3s that I thought would sound good. I used "Hail to the Redskins," "Ma 'Tit Fille" by Buckwheat Zydeco, the "think music" from "Match Game" 70-something and a few others. I had no trouble listening to my mp3s on the phone but I couldn't figure out how to set them as ringtones. Well, it turns out that it can't be done. I took my son to browse at Best Buy today and noticed that they sold the same model of phone. I asked a salesman about the mp3s and he confirmed that they can't be set as ringtones. How lame! He did say that there was some third party software I could buy for $80 that could convert mp3s to ringtones. I'll pass.

As I type this, I realize I'm getting worked up over ringtones for nothing because:
a) I don't really want anyone to call me and use up my minutes;
b) I plan to leave the phone turned off when I'm at home and
c) I think I'll leave the phone on vibrate when I'm out in public.
Besides, how would I explain why the "Main Street Electrical Parade" theme is blasting from my belt clip?

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2 Comments:

Anonymous Jere said...

"Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls..."

I can still see Frankie twirling around like the turtle in the MSEP.

"Good Times"

1/05/2006  
Anonymous Anonymous said...

who needs fancy ringtones? my phone sounds awful, cheap stupid ringtones; i leave it on vibrate just for the fun... oh, and parenthetically, my punitiveness schema is working against me as i rejoice over the Trickle's demise... they treated our Murphy like crap: they deserved to peter out. well, back to work; lemme silence my cell...

1/05/2006  

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