Officially On Crack

So pretty, so addictive

I finally broke down and joined the leagues of BlackBerry owners yesterday. Despite mocking many people over the past few years for their Crackberry habits, I couldn't resist any longer.

Here's how it went down…

The first thing that led me down the path was that my friend Annette got data on her phone. Annette who was totally out of date on her electronic communications was actually more wired in than I was. It almost killed me. But, I talked myself out of upgrading when I realized I could get Facebook and Twitter updates as text messages on my current phone.

Oh, my text message count last month? About 2,600 including pictures. No, I'm not a teenage girl but I have stayed in a Holiday Inn Express.

The next thing that pushed me was that uploading pictures via picture messages to Facebook stopped working. That was a major bummer because I liked to be able to do updates from my many travels to make people feel like they're right there with me (and maybe to make them a little jealous, too).

I was still resistant but there was a persistent buzzing in the back of my head saying, "Get data on your phone, get data on your phone…" Earlier this week, I almost gave in and asked both The Rocket Scientist and Sugar Daddy to talk me out of it. They did a good job except that Sugar Daddy's argument was that my phone wasn't really good enough for data.

That argument caused my inner social networker come to life when Verizon sent an email ad saying they had Smart Phones on sale. Limited time only! There were no arguments left, just some shopping to be done and I could be connected 24-7 to everything on the web. I could hardly control my giddiness at the mere thought.

Sugar Daddy went with me to the Verizon store and I was pretty specific with the sales guy. I wanted a phone that wasn't much bigger than my current one (because I keep it in my front pocket all the time) and had a usable keyboard. That left out any iPhone like device which eliminated the BlackBerry Storm. I don't like the typing on glass thing at all. It came down to two the Curve and the Tour.

Surprisingly, I chose the least expensive one and got the Curve. In pink, of course. The keyboard just felt better.

The guy hard sold me on a cover for the phone. I was resistant because it adds bulk but he persuaded me that it's good to have some cushioning if you drop your phone and the silicone in the cover prevents it from sliding around on dashboards and the like. He almost didn't sell me one because they only had black out front. Um, cover up pink with black? Nuh uh. Fortunately, for his commission, they had a bright magenta one in stock.
He did show me a Dooney and Bourke cover that was bubble gum pink and had cute little doodads on it. SD said it looked like something a sixth grader would buy. (Un)fortunately, it had their logo on it and it was a bit bulky or my inner sixth grader would have demanded it.

Sales guy set up my Yahoo for me and upsold me on a memory card. SD thought he had one at home but he's going on vacation for two weeks and we both knew I couldn't wait that long to have my pictures loaded on the new phone. So, the dude loaded my pictures and contacts and sent me out into the world with a flyer for BlackBerry classes that they hold on site.

I love being connected! I just wish I knew how to use the thing. It's been slow going on figuring out the features and learning where everything is but I'm sure I'll be up to speed soon considering how much time I'm spending with the device. I might even sleep with it, I like it that much.

George likes it, too. Within one hour of it being in the house, she decided that the case begged to be chewed on. There are teeth marks in the cling wrap cover on the screen but she hasn't been able to gnaw into the case itself.