Let's try this again with less "rant" and more "to the point."

That biannual time is approaching fast. Awww yeah, my (well my mom's) contract is almost up so it's time for a new phone. If we stick with Verizon we can get our new phones any time we like as we already qualify for the "new in 2" upgrade opportunity. For me, either way I'm breaking off and doing my own thing. It's time I got my own plan and stopped mooching off of my mom and sister's family plan.

I'm left with a tough choice here. As stated in the other post, I really hate Verizon for what they did to me on the RAZR V3c, but there must be a reason why they are still the wireless king. Let's be honest, they truly are the wireless king right now. I'm not sure why though. At the end of the day we've come to a point in wireless where the GSM (AT&T) coverage is as good as the CDMA (Verizon) coverage. All other providers basically use the infrastructure maintained by these two, so you should be pretty good all around, but for whatever reason that may not be the case. I'm digressing again so I'll get back to it.

It's LG Voyager on Verizon versus Apple iPhone on AT&T. To me the battle should come down to the phones because I believe the service will be comparable. Last time I took John's word about a good phone I ended up with the V3c. Sorry to call you out like a dick John, but your kind words of your RAZR (which was also on Verizon so he should have had the same gripes I ended up with), are what sealed the deal for me on the RAZR, and now I have a steamy turd.

I want to believe the iPhone will be different. The Voyager can't win on screen size (2.8" vs. 3.5") or resolution (320x240 vs. 320x480), which for me is a big deal, because I want my new phone to change my life. I want the Internet in my pocket, and I want it to look good, and operate smooth.

I did some research because I don't want to just buy the iPhone because it's got a bunch of hype and looks so sexy. The fact of the matter is CNET gives the edge to the Voyager. There is a catch though. I believe this review was done before the January updates. The January updates were huge. They added the cell triangulation to maps, as well as unlocking it to third party applications if I heard correctly. I think that these updates could change the mind of the reviewers.

One of the features they site is the GPS on the Voyager, but now the iPhone has a comparable feature that will be just as good, and is integrated into Google maps, which is something I might trust more than VZ Navigator anyways.

They also always talk about stereo bluetooth and MMS messaging. Why do I want bluetooth when it comes with a headset that integrates such that I can answer/hang-up calls as well as pause/play/next track my music. I suppose the lack of voice dialing is a minus in the hands free world, but I really don't go hands free that often. I'm not a big texter. I might become more of one now that I'll have a keyboard with either phone. Apparently the Voyager is a better texting keyboard since it's got all the keys right there. No switching to get symbols and numbers. People will always like tactile feedback as well. The touch screen on the Voyager vibrates when you touch to give feedback, which is another cited plus. I don't see myself getting into the MMS thing. Right now my piece of fuck can't even get MMS anyways. They get diverted to this shitty online Verizon account that is clunky and shitty.

I can see myself composing more emails than text messages, and either way I think the iPhone would be an improvement for me on the typing level. The Voyager does email, but does it do Gmail? I don't even know. Here's what I do know. The iPhone just got a major update 6 months after its release. This update righted some wrongs and added some cool new features. Guess when the Voyager will get an update from Verizon. You guessed it! Probably never. Even if it did, you'll have to go to a Verizon store to get it I'd imagine. How do I update an iPhone? Plug it into my computer.

To me, this means that MMS could be in the future possibly. Apple has a way of updating the phone, where Verizon probably wouldn't take advantage of it even if they could. That sort of gives me piece of mind to know that over the next two years I'm not necessarily locked out of the future.

I really wish that some review sites would do a rematch between the Voyager and iPhone now that the updates have come out. If they still like the Voyager better, then maybe it really is the way to go. I will probably ignore it and get an iPhone anyways because I want screen real estate, and I think that will be a deal breaker for me. Right now, I think that will be the most important feature to me. I want to see the web on a decent sized screen. That's why I don't surf on my RAZR. It's capable, but I can't imagine the web on that little screen, which is fine for phone stuff, but insufficient for true media.

P.S. - I know we have an iPhone user and a future iPhone user, but do we know anyone with a Voyager?

Edit: Another big thing the reviews mention is that Edge is not as fast as the 3G network that Verizon uses. This is something I would guess cannot be fixed with an update, and could possibly be a big deal in another year or so as web pages pack more and more content on. Edge must be significantly slower to warrant mention across the board. However, the Voyager does not support Wifi, which the iPhone does. So if I'm watching TV I can do some web browsing on my home Wifi, which will be faster than 3G any day.

That biannual time is approaching fast. Oh yeah, my (well my mom's) contract is almost up so it's time for a new phone. If we stick with Verizon we can get our new phones any time we like as we already qualify for the "new in 2" upgrade opportunity. For me, either way I'm breaking off and doing my own thing. It's time I got my own plan and stopped mooching off of my mom and sister's family plan.

(Read on for my long overdue rant about Verizon, but the post got derailed enough that I'm going to finish the real post in a second post)

Over the past 4 years we've been with Verizon I've grown to hate them. Actually, let me correct that. The first two years were great, but these past two have left me very bitter. The first phone I had was an LG VX6000. This was a great phone at the time. It probably looks familiar because they sold a mega-fuck-ton of them. The outer display was still a relatively new idea at that time if I recall correctly, or maybe just the idea of it being bright was. The phone was responsive, took pictures, and let me set those pictures as a welcome, home, and goodbye screen. As a side note I felt pretty sweet about using a picture of the front of my car when it was turning on, the side of the car as a home screen wallpaper, and the rear of the car as the shutting down picture. It was slim and the holster I had worked great, as did the wired headset.

Flash forward two years from then, and two years ago from now, and it was new phone time. The RAZR is the hottest thing out and Verizon had fairly recently gotten their hands on a model. I was shocked at the store to find out that my sister and I could both get new RAZRs for essentially free since, it was buy 1 get one free that day/week/whatever, and the first one only cost $50 or $100 that we could get a mail-in rebate to compensate us for. So I think it cost us the tax on $50 or $100. I was excited to have a cool, slim phone that had become so trendy.

My excitement didn't last long, and now I wish I hadn't had such RAZR envy. This phone is a piece of shit. Let me be more specific, because that blanket statement is a little unfair to Motorola. The Verizon V3c RAZR is a steaming pile of horse fuck. Verizon, in its infinite wisdom, has decided that the best way to do business is to lock you in with a 2 year contract (like every other blood-sucking cell service provider) and then pull an AOL and try to enclose you in their little world.

I would say the AOL problem was that AOL had a bunch of proprietary bullshit that got in the way. Verizon has the same problem. I appreciate what they are trying to do, but they are failing. In order for them to offer crap like VCast, and other crap, they load their own OS onto the phone instead of the one originally intended by the manufacturer. This was a serious fucking problem for the V3c. It might have been that the Verizon OS was demanding and that the RAZR was probably a little underpowered since it was so slim at the time of creation (which was at least a year or more before Verizon got their hands on it).

All I know is that Terry Schiavo was more responsive than this phone. I hit my contacts soft key, and wait a full one Mississippi, two Mississippi, before my contacts are displayed. Open your phone up right now and see how long it takes you. Is it instant or near instant? I thought so. That's how software on an embedded device is supposed to run. So basically I can think way faster than my phone can respond. For the most part I can just keep hitting inputs and it will catch up and do what I wanted (like if I want to call back the person I was just talking to I just hit send twice, and wait for it to work it out).

They locked out using Motorola Mobile Phone Tools, so you have to hack the thing to do basic stuff like backing up your contacts or putting your own self made ring tones on. Not to mention the fucking low battery indicator can eat my asshole. That fucking piece of shit will make an audible sound regardless of the ring mode you are in. If the phone is on, it will make an audible beep every 5 minutes or something. Fuck the Verizon RAZR, and fuck Verizon for not fixing it.

So BDR has had an identity crisis recently.

Some jerk who calls himself mcollins08 on Digg friended me recently on said website. Because of similarities I assumed a friend of the BDR crew had created himself a new user account on Digg.

Jesus fuck was I wrong!

Little did I know, I was about to enter a world of e-confusion. Recently I had a Digg story shouted to me by my new friend mcollins08, who I assumed was my friend in real life. I looked at the story, which pointed to a recently started blog I had never heard of that was criticizing Google for adding Google Adsense advertisements to YouTube pages.

As you know, I disagreed with the disappointed sentiment of the article. To make a longer story shorter, I also called the author an asshole in more words.

Upon closer examination of the Digg story, it suddenly appeared as though my friend had been the one to submit the story. The description and a comment left on the story by him seemed atypical of him, so then I began to wonder if this wasn't my friend, but actually a friend of a friend.

At one point I threw around the notion that it was my friend's younger brother, which I'm glad it turns out it wasn't. I would have felt bad about what I said about mcollins08 if it was indeed the little bother.

So basically I wanted to throw out for BDR that we got to the bottom of this mcollins08 horse shit, and that it really is some douche who we can feel no guilt about bashing.

I'm really pretty pissed that this guy friended me in the first place. I don't know if it's coincidence or not that he friended me. My personal belief is that he did a search for people with similar names, came across my friend, and then friended all of his friends.

Guess what dickhole? We aren't friends in any sense of the word. When will people stop obsessing with friend counts, and just use a social network to keep in touch with friends they do have or contact people they truly want to get to know?

Side note: DC101 (a DC Rock station) has been playing a commercial for the Poison Control hotline where they use a jingle to help you remember the number. Does this tactic ring a bell for fans of "The IT Crowd"? I'm trying to get a hold of the audio. At some point I'll be recording the live stream to my computer and just wait for the commercial to come on.

Mike brought a Digg story to my attention (not on the front page yet, and probably won't make it either) that points to the following blog post.

YouTube shows ADS!

First of all, I must have AdBlockPlus blocking it all because I don't see dick at YouTube. Second, even if I did, who the fuck is surprised. It's called synergy, why wouldn't they put the ads there?

This asshole is just some conspiracy douche who is hoping to generate blog traffic via a worthless story on Digg. The ads as shown in his screen shot aren't even that obtrusive. I think they should have gone with 2 instead of 4, but it's not a big deal.

So basically, this isn't a problem and I can't believe it has taken this long to start. If you don't like it, get an ad blocker dickbag.

Yesterday was a Google hate day, and today I have love.

We need to make quorums out of stuff like this, like they do on the Freakonmics blog. That's why I blogged it instead of emailing Mike directly. Speaking of Freakonmics, I need to complain about something. Why in fuck's name is their daily link post called "The FREAKest Links" instead of "The FREAKiest Links"? The links are supposed to be "freaky" not "freak".

God I miss ranting! This might become more frequent, but we all know from past experience it won't.

Edit:
I swear the submitter just changed names, because it wasn't Mike 2 minutes ago.

I'm now guessing that I just called one of his friends an asshole.

I still think the accusation feels like a conspiracy theory, and I'm surprised to see that Mike and I might be on different sides of the line on this one.

I just decided to take the time to read the official Google response to the possibility of Microsoft buying Yahoo!, and for fucks sake it was embarrassing.

It was so whinny. Come the fuck on. You are Google, and you own like half of the Internet. While you have been nothing but benevolent, don't act like you're a fucking midget company about to get stomped by a Shaq-sized merger.

Sure Microsoft is trying to take over the world, that's what they do. What else is new? Let's be honest, Yahoo! is nearly always 2 steps behind Google, and Microsoft is still riding the fact that it got such massive market share 10+ years back that it will be around for a long time because people just aren't that quick to abandon them.

Google basically got all passive aggressive. "Well Microsoft has been known to do illegal stuff and be a monopoly, and they will certainly use this as a way to take the Internet hostage, but if that's what you guys want it's cool, we're just sayin'."

That attitude caused me to lose some respect for Google. I really thought they were above crap like that.

At the end of the day I still love Google and despite whatever happens with Yahoo! and Microsoft, Google is going to be strong for a long time to come. I'm just really shocked at how much of a threat they feel this poses to them.

Maybe Mike would like to post a response entry (not a comment, a real post) detailing some real possibilities if this were to happen. I don't call out Mike because he has a vested interest in this, but simply because he has the closest ties to the Internet industry as I'm going to call it. As someone who breathes Internet on a daily basis he may have some interesting perspectives.

I received a wonderful package in the mail last night. Any guesses based on the post title?

My degrees. Yes plural, because they send me one for the BS, and one for the MS. Breaking down the meaning of the degree makes me chuckle every time. I interpret it as saying I'm a Master of the Science of Computer Engineering. A Master!

It blows my mind. I guess it shouldn't, I spent a lot of time and effort on this. Now it's manifested itself in a physical form...a piece of paper calling me a certified Master. When I look at it I think back to all of the classes, labs, and papers (well mostly lab write-ups really). I'm reminded of all of the problems I solved and interesting things I learned, as well as the not so interesting things.

This thought quickly passes as I move on to remember the more important part... the people. Consider this my thank you for an incredible journey. The people I met and good times we had have molded me into the person I am today and in the words of Less Than Jake; "I wouldn't have it any other way." I'm tempted to give shout-outs and mention specific memories, but that will only end in perceived exclusion by anyone I forget, and this is meant to generate love for the people that mean so much to me.

I miss you all, and I know I'll see most of you again because I can't stand the thought of not doing so. Do me a favor. Watch this YouTube of the music video for "Gainesville Rock City" by Less Than Jake. The song has a lot of meaning for me and encompasses the spirit of this post.

Less Than Jake - Gainesville Rock City

So there I was yesterday around 11am, rolling into GameStop. Why was I there? You damn sure should know, but I'm now getting the feeling you don't.

It was Guitar Hero III day. I'm thinking I was some lazy fuck for not dragging my ass out in the cold for the midnight launch, but when I get home and fire it up, who's playing?

Not a single person. I may only have three XBox live friends at the moment (Bean, John, and Scott), but the most recent any of them had been on was like 2 days ago.

I renewed my Live subscription and I'm ready to do battle. I'm on the last set of songs right now. I'd be done if the 7th set hadn't been such a bitch on hard. Fuck Slipknot, Queens of the Stone Age, and Muse for having pain in the dick songs that weren't even very fun to play.

And for John, "My Name Is Jonas" was fun.

The wireless guitar kicks ass. I've done that throw the guitar around your back and have it loop back in front of you move like 20 times. Some of which resulted in a minor blow to the head, but it was worth it. Do it with caution.

Paul, did you ever get a 360? Email me your gamer tag if you did. Mine's "Vati Man" because I refused to have numbers in my gamer tag.

Mike, in a dream last night, I was talking to Steve from Punchline, and he gave me his gamer tag so we could play Rock Band when it came out.