Goodbye, old friend.

You know how it goes...

You go out on a Friday or Saturday night and you're having a great time even though you had to wait in line for 20 minutes to get into the bar despite the fact that it was only 6:30 when you got there and once inside, the bartenders were so overwhelmed that it takes another 20 minutes (or the assistance of a really cute lady... thanks, whoever you are) to get a drink.

In fact, you're having such a great time that you get out your cell phone and start texting all of your friends who aren't already at the same bar to try to convince them to come out... that's when bad things happen. At least one of the following three things is bound to transpire once that phone comes out of your pocket:

1) You drop your phone.
2) You misplace your phone.
3) The texts turn in to something you feel guilty about the next day because you start texting girls you used to (or want to) date even though you know (at least you know when not 3 gin and club sodas deep) pestering them to come meet you at a bar is one of the least cool things you could do.

It's a good thing that #1 happened to me on Friday night because you never know when #3 might rear it's ugly head.

I dropped my phone. Now, I've dropped that phone countless times before, but this time was different. Picture, if you will, a rather heavy blackberry doing a triple gainer on its way to a face-first collision with a concrete floor. The LCD side of my phone landed flush with said floor and it sounded like an open handed slap. When I picked it up it was obviously broken because the only thing I could make out was the date and time across the top. The bottom 3/4 of the screen was completely blank and no amount of turning it off and removing the battery would bring it back. Here's what it looks like now:

I was pissed at myself for being clumsy, the condensation on the outside of my drink glass for making my hands slippery, and at concrete for not being more forgiving.


There is a silver lining though, it forced me to finally get a new phone. I got a new blackberry and switched from Nextel to Sprint (i know, i know... they're the same company... but they still function on different networks). With my new phone I can finally take pictures, record video, and even watch TV!!! It does everything I can ever imagine wanting out of a phone. I remember when Tivo was still a very new product, my roommate in Chicago had it and he used to joke that Tivo was like another roommate and that he fully expected to come home from work some day and see it doing the dishes. I think I'll teach this new technology to cook for me too.