cygnoir.net

This may only be relevant to Inkbot, but those of you with smaller ears might also be interested.

It is no secret that I absolutely loathe the standard iPod earbuds. Last year I tried the Griffin EarJams, but they just made the unforgiving pieces of plastic larger and unwieldy, so that they were uncomfortable and fell out of my ears constantly. I had some cheapo collapsible Sony headphones for a while, but they died, so I was back to the iPod earbuds and willing to stick it out because I’m really tired of buying substandard crap that doesn’t add value to my life.

Until this morning, when my ears started to bleed.

Thankfully, the eardrums weren’t bleeding, just the skin, but still — if you have never experienced impromptu ear bleeding, consider yourself lucky. It’s creepy and bad and it made up my mind to never use the iPod earbuds again.

But I’ve been sold on the earbud concept, now that I’m over my things-in-ears aversion, because they’re damned convenient. I like being able to shove them into my pocket or purse when I’m not using them. Sound quality isn’t something I worry too much about because my iPod is never on very loud when I’m walking or ferrying anymore; getting hit by a truck made me rethink the whole rockin’ out while commuting concept. Besides, I mostly listen to podcasts and audiobooks, so I just need to hear what people are saying.

I think I’d like to get some nice Etymotic or Shure earbuds someday, when I have an extra hundred or two laying around, but for $10 I picked up a pair of JVC Gumy [sic] Phones and I’m pretty pleased with them. They’re smaller than the iPod earbuds and made out of … something gummy. Silicone? I have no idea. They’re soft plastic, is what I’m saying. At the price point, I’m seriously impressed. They’re pretty comfortable, stay in my ears, and sound much better than the iPod earbuds.

So here is my recommendation for the horribly misspelled yet well-priced JVC Gumy Phones. They come in black, white, pink, green, and blue, although only the earbuds themselves are color; the cords are white. Right now, you can get ‘em for $5.99 on Amazon.

In closing, I’d just like to say how annoyed I am at Apple for coming up with such craptastic earbuds. It’s not like they don’t know how to design gorgeous and functional things. Figure it out already!

I am twitchy, so twitchy my twitches are twitching.

I do not have a boss enough ‘puter to run The Sims 2, so I loaded the original onto my laptop, including all of the expansion packs, and immediately created Sims of two of my peeps, wootam and his buddy j. They are living together in a big fancy house with a pool and a hot tub. As soon as I remember how to get pets, they are getting a lizard for the bathroom. Why? Because I couldn’t find the fish tank, so there is now a gigantic terrarium in the bathroom, and lizards live in those. So.

I also promised them a monkey. Anyone know where I can get a sim-monkey?

Technorati Tags: games, sims

I didn’t think this day would ever come.

Thanks to Mark/Space’s Missing Sync, my T-Mobile Sidekick II now syncs with my PowerBook’s iCal and Address Book.

The timing on this is particularly excellent, as I spent an hour organizing my Hipster PDA last night, complete with index cards, colored labels and a pocket Moleskine memo-pockets holder.

I keep glancing over at my Sidekick, as if, now that it is as functional as it was advertised when I bought it, I expect it to explode.

My Sidekick 2 has had no data service for the past three days, and this just a month after the last big network outage. On top of that, my voicemail indicator — the one that was already flaky — persists despite having no new messages. Before you ask: yes, I’ve done many, many soft resets. Nothing has worked.

I truly regret purchasing this gadget last autumn. It worked well for a few months, but now I’m paying $20 a month to be a beta tester, and I resent that. It would be slightly more tolerable if I hadn’t been told outright by T-Mobile representatives that they were about to release software to sync the SK2 with a Mac. (Despite a mention of it still showing up on their website, it’s vaporware.)

I don’t know whether T-Mobile or Danger dropped the ball with this “degradation in service”, but the bad press has begun, and I’m charging up my old Nokia. The good news is that “there are still some remaining problems on Danger’s end, but that about 90% of customers should have normal service”! The bad news is that I’m in the 10%.

Good night. There will be happier ramblings tomorrow about Saturday’s lovely dinner party with most excellent friends.

(Edited to add: My post to this thread in the hiptop.com forums was deleted mere minutes after I wrote it. In it, I expressed concern that there were no official updates from Danger regarding a 72-hour outage. I also dared to wonder if their silence meant they had no idea what was causing the outage. Why that was so offensive that it needed to be censored, I have no idea. Unless, of course, it’s true.)

I’m seriously considering going back to my Nokia 3595. To borrow a phrase from this thread in the Hiptop.com forums, my Sidekick 2 has been nothing but a “backlit doorstop” since the upgrade over the weekend. It refuses to login to AIM, citing: “Signing On Too Frequently: There is a limit to how many times in a short period you can sign on with the same screen name. You have been signing on too frequently. Please try again later.” Meredith is having the same problem, unfortunately. What an upgrade.

Before the AIM silliness, my Sidekick 2 wouldn’t even ring on at approximately 50% of my calls and half that time wouldn’t even record voicemail, let alone notify me of new voicemail or SMS messages. I know part of this is T-Mobile’s problem, not Danger’s, but I am so frustrated! I rely on my Sidekick 2 as my only phone; I save expenses by not having a home phone at all.

I wish I could turn my Sidekick 2 in for a refund and get a Nokia 7610 like I originally planned.