5 posts tagged “at&t”

Just over a week since we waited in line to order them, Jess and I finally got our iPhone 3Gs. Or rather, I went and got them while she got her hair cut as I was so impatient.

Within the space of half an hour, the sales assistant at the AT&T store had set up our account, transfered our numbers from T-Mobile and activated the phones, then I was out the door and shuffling home as fast as I could to play with mine.

I think I was playing for like five hours, before taking a nap.

For all the hype, for all the waiting, I am actually impressed. It effectively renders FOUR of my existing devices obsolete. It plays music every bit as well as my iPod (being, essentially, the latest generation). It can make calls, send text messages, take photos and do almost everything a phone can (MMS remains oddly absent). I can play games that look better than anything on my Nintendo DS, albeit with more limited control options. And, oddly, I feel it's going to reduce my time on my laptop, too - between the built-in apps and those you can already download from the new app store, I can surf, email, blog, manage photos, watch YouTube videos and generally piddle away time.

And in case you want to know, the applications downloaded so far...

- AIM
- Aqua Forest
- De Blob
- Facebook
- Last.fm
- MySpace Mobile
- NetNewsWire
- Remote
- Super Monkey Ball

Are you going to be amongst the first people to buy the iPhone 3G? If so, when do you plan on picking yours up and which one will you be purchasing?

I am ashamed to say, I was one of "those" people. You know, those people you see standing in lines that stretch around corners waiting for some hot new technology item to go on sale. Those people about whom you think: "Doesn't that loser have a job?" Yes, that was me, today.

I turned up at my local AT&T store at 7am. I thought, given last night's thunderstorms, the line would be short. It was about 50-60 people deep... and grew much larger after I got there. Jess showed up shortly after me, and kept ducking out of the line to get coffee or pee, but I held strong.

Some time around 9.50am, we got to the corner of the alley and the street the store was on and found out all three versions of the phone had sold out, but that we could still go in and order the phones to be delivered at some time in the near future. So we did that. I ordered a black 16GB, Jess a white 16GB. So this year's bonus bought us both iPhones.

Sure, it's just a phone, not some life-saving, life-affirming big deal. It probably didn't warrant standing in line for three hours when I could have stayed in bed a little longer and gotten to work on time. Still, I worked hard for that bonus, I want something nice from it.

It's crazy times right now. Lots happening. After the surprise birthday party last week, we were somehow more manic this week.

On Thursday, Jess and I got out of work early, went to see WALL-E and had dinner together. Afterwards, we met co-workers at a bar as it was the day of Laura's birthday. They had been there since they got out of work, so we were by far the most sober people there. Until Lindsay's Doug showed up. Poor guy. We ducked out of there early.

I... can't actually remember what we did during the day on Friday. I do know we got lunch and did a bunch of shopping at Target, but other than that, I think we bummed around. At 7pm, we met up with Laura with a mini-picnic then went to the harbour. Lindsay and Doug met us there and we all sat on the waterfront to have our picnic. Eric and Mitchell showed up shortly after, just in time to watch all the fireworks going off along the lake.

We dumped shit off at home, then went to a nearby bar for a couple of drinks.

On Saturday, we had a ton of errands to run. We paid our economic stimulus cheque into our bank account, went through the pre-approval process at AT&T (ahead of the iPhone 3G release on Friday!), then Jess went to the dentist while I took a faulty item back to Target. We were going to go to a barbeque, but after having a long nap, we just went to our favourite Mexican place and chilled out.

Today, we went for lunch and did more shopping. We needed more sporty clothing as we've been asked to fill in on my office softball team. Yes, me, playing sport. I know, right? Anyway, we got all of that stuff, got it home then got ready for our first softball practice. There were only a handful of people there, but we got a good go of it. Neither of us was as bad as we expected - I connected with the ball a lot, and wasn't a total washout at catching. Bowling (sorry, pitching), however, was another matter.

This week is going to continue the activity. We're taking tomorrow off as we have a lot of chores to do. We have Wolf Parade on... Tuesday? I can't remember. I need to listen to their new CD more. Hopefully this means we get to see The Josie after what seems like forever. Thursday is the Big Kahuna - my green card interview. After aeons, it's finally a reality. Jess is currently wading through a file of paperwork the size of Alaska so we're ready. Then Friday is possibly iPhone day, if they have enough in stock.

Busy busy busy.

On an unrelated note, one of my favourite albums of last year - Heresy & The Hotel Choir by Maritime - came with a bonus 7" featuring two songs. One of those songs was called 'Boy From School', and was pretty awesome...

It turns out, it was a cover of a Hot Chip song...

Which was also covered by Portastatic...

After saying goodbye to my parents and having a two-day work week, I didn't expect to have the energy to do much this weekend. Somehow, though, we did a fair amount.

I had to get up really early on Saturday morning as I had a biometrics appointment with US Immigration. Unlike the last time, where they fingerprinted every single digit and took multiple photos, I was in and out. One fingerprint, a signature and a photo. Done and done. Exactly two years before, I had proposed to Jess in Paris, so it was pretty surreal to be living in the same country.

During the day, we got lunch, did some shopping, talked to AT&T about our pending migration from T-Mobile, then Jess had a nap. She then made a very healthy dinner before we went out drinking with co-workers. Mike, the guy who started the exact same day as me, was turning the exact same age as me - 28 - so we were going to surprise him. We left at midnight, everyone else kept drinking. It was a fun night.

Our plan for Sunday was simple:

- Do laundry
- Get brunch
- Head to Best Buy when it opened to get Wii Fit and/or Guitar Hero On Tour for DS
- Go home and bum around

Best Buy hadn't received any copies of Wii Fit (meaning, basically, the game Nintendo have spent fucktons marketing hasn't been available for purchase since its release date). I'm pretty much resigned to the fact we're not getting it. Instead, we both picked up a copy of Guitar Hero On Tour with the free stickers, and then noticed that they had the standalone Rock Band drum kits.

I've been hemming and hawing about the game for a while. We have Guitar Hero II and III and thus two compatible guitars, and neither of us would want to sing. That ruled out the big bundle. Then there's the pending release of Guitar Hero IV with its own snazzier drum kit. I decided to go for it, though, as the drums looked very appealing to play. So we went home with the disc-only Rock Band game, the drum kit and two copies of GHOT.

We spent a lot of time playing Rock Band, in which time I realised how much fun drumming is. After that, Jess tried the drums while I opened my copy of Guitar Hero. Due to the high potential for hand cramping, the shitty list of songs, and the fact we would likely never play the multiplayer modes, we decided to take the second copy straight back for a refund. It's fun, but not twice the price fun.

And that was our little indulgence.

We have an interesting few weeks coming up.

- We're about to receive our economic stimulus cheque from the government. We're splitting it between four charities - one of which is our savings account, the other three are actual good causes.
- I supposedly get a bonus I've been promised for a few months next week, so that has been earmarked for a new iPhone each (hence the aforementioned AT&T migration) and more savings.
- There's some little thing called the fourth of July.
- We're seeing the excellent Wolf Parade at House Of Blues (having seen the also brilliant Dethklok there last week).
- I have my interview for my green card application.

It's all go, go, go.

As we walked to the bus stop this morning, Jess and I saw a small group of people huddled outside of the Cingular/AT&T store. On the news last night, it showed people queueing outside the Apple Store on Michigan Avenue. These scenes are happening all over the country.

I don't need to tell you which electronic device they are queueing for.

I find it all very weird. The same as I find it weird that people queue outside of stores for games consoles, albums, books and any other releases. How they queue at cinemas dressed as the characters from the film they are trying to get a ticket for.

People are so weird!

I've pre-ordered things, and I've sat on the phone trying to get tickets for Glastonbury once or twice, but I don't think I've ever been so obsessed with anything that I've braved the elements to queue somewhere - dressed in a stupid costume or not - to obtain something.