Get a load of that raccoon hat! So fetching! Sai and I met up with Natalia this evening to prep for tomorrow’s filming of a winter concert at a primary school. More than 100 little kids belting out holiday tunes… I’m sure this would find some readers beating a hasty retreat or putting fingers in their collective ears, but personally I think it will be really, really cute. Bring on the cute, I say!
In totally different news, now that I’m using Photobooth, I thought I should relegate the craptastic cameraphone pictures to a different space and not let the non-DSLR photos take over this website. Step in Twitpic, which is a picture feature for Twitter from the mobile phone (or smartphone, i.e. Blackberry, iPhone, what-have-you). I’ll be sending the silly stuff from the cameraphone directly to Twitpic and they’ll end up in Twitter, out of the way unless clicked on. You’ll see my Twitter feed on the sidebar — that’s where I’ll be posting most of my goofy mobile phone shots.
The Telus retention people have been on my case for months, sending me direct mail pieces and calling me because my 2-year contract is up very soon. This is the best time to renegotiate the existing contract terms, but I’m still sitting on the telecom fence. A smartphone is very tempting — the iPhone and Blackberry the most obvious choices for my level of use — but frankly I’m quite resistant to using any smartphones although the GPS and data would be helpful from time to time. When I see people with such devices I think it’s often such a waste of features because they only use a fraction of what smartphones can do and I have to ask myself: are these really necessary? Do I really need a smartphone? So far I’ve been able to answer no to that question — I can read my email, browse most of the web pages I need, and read news headlines on Twitter on my tiny, low-profile Samsung U510. When I have a wi-fi signal I switch to my 2+ year old iPod Touch which still works just fine. Answering “no” to whether I need a gadget is a very non-geeky response from a geeky person — I mean, geeky people are very much gadget collectors, but my budget is strictly for tools of my trade. There is also an added monthly charge to the wireless bill for the data and right now I have unlimited data for a very small fee. Maybe if I get the phone for free and there’s no increase for the additional data… especially U.S.-carrier data, which easily doubles my bill with a single roadtrip. U.S. (voice) roaming is cheap, but data is not!
Probably by next year I’ll be ready for a smartphone upgrade without feeling like a poser, but for now unless a telecom company hands one over for free or my current not-quite-as-smart phone breaks, the Telus retention people will have to keep sweetening the deal.
Music for today: Elvis Presley’s “Wooden Heart” — an oldie but a goodie, unless you dislike Elvis…