Where was I?

As I noted in two exceedingly brief posts a number of days ago, there has been for me a bit of duress tied to my phone's effective demise (in that failure of the tracking ball rendered the phone mostly non-functional). For several days, my ability to communicate was badly hampered as I valiantly fought to save the trusty device which had served me so well since the days of my residency in Highland Park. Why did I do this? Not sentimentality, though the way I've spoken about it might lead you to think that.

The main reason is of convenience, or perhaps it might be called expedience. As long as the phone functioned at a tolerably high level of effectiveness, the prospect of going to the store to get the new phone I was due seemed quite unattractive. I go further for much less reason on a daily basis, but can't offer any reasonable explanation therefore. It's just things like this, haircuts and new clothes that are some kind of issue.

The venture began fairly well. I was able to do some studying on the best phones available and their relative merits. After some consideration of such factors as cost, features and coolness, I opted for a new make and model (as the parlance goes for cars). Whereas I had previously carried a Samsung A900 and most recently a Blackberry Pearl, I am now an Android man (as an old-timey men's razor ad might put it). To be both more specific and accurate, it's the HTC Hero based on the Android framework. Chief among the things that swayed me were two things. One was the added and improved functionality of the touch screen (and its ability to provide a full keyboard). The other big one was that it seemed likely to end my woes regarding the syncing of contacts and calendar data. The realization of such improvements is incomplete pending my ability to use the phone. For that reason, I'm not endorsing the phone in any manner of speaking. At the moment, it's just the one I decided on.

I got to musing about such business enterprises as the ones I patronized during this matter. Many of mankind's endeavor's are too much for all but a select few to shoulder, but there seems to be just one of which the mastery remains out of reach for all. That would be customer service in a retail setting. Now, it takes two to tango, as they say. I can't confirm that, but it makes sense to this inept dancer. In all my modest life experience, neither clerk nor customer has really held up their end of the paradigm.

The presumably franchised place of business I went to was notably able to supply me with the phone I wanted and then charge me for it. I give them full credit for that, as I do whenever a retailer comes exceptionally close to succeeding at their mission. I do the same when SETI releases tantalizing but incomplete evidence that we are not alone. I blame myself for pushing my luck. Dirty Harry once said that a man's got to know his limitations. It likewise pays, in my opinion, to be cognizant of the limits with which others contend.

A similar incident of dissatisfaction occurred the following day at an electronics store when I sought to find the accessories I remained without following the previous incident. Their stores are comparable in size to gas station minimarts, believe that attempting to grant themselves a nickname will catapult them back to the success they enjoyed when radios were something you worked on at home if you weren't into cars, and are today best known for radio-controlled cars which have passed out of fashion. Who's really at fault when one is victimized by their methods?

Presently, I am a victim only of my slowness in learning the ways of the new phone.