a new galaxy

I'm trying something new today... I'm blogging from my new smrtphone! The process is slower and more unwieldy than my good old desktop but I think it's about time I tried something from this millenium.

There are issues... nothing makes me realize how much I love traditional keyboards than my amateur smartphone typing "skills." Or the fact that I accidentally deleted the photo I uploaded earlier and I can't find the equivalent of CTRL+Z on this smartphone. Also, I don't know how to copy and paste so I probably won't be linking each post to the blog's facebook page over the phone.

My new Galaxy and my old Chocolate...
re-added via my trusty desktop computer after the above mishap.

Anyways, on to other things. My beloved chocolate phone began to run out of battery power every night, leaving me with one less alarm for the morning. Well, I guess 4 years is a good run for a second generation mobile phone. So yesterday I asked a friend for advice and marched into the Verizon store. This girl was on a mission and nothing was going to stop her!

After many questions and a short tutorial, I left with the Samsung Galaxy S3. I picked the Galaxy for the awesome camera because frankly, if I'm going to spend this much money, I want this device to do double duty. Perhaps even triple duty as a backup computer, but first I'll need some more practice on this tiny keyboard.

By the way, this old camera was purchased in 2005. Replacing a 4-year old phone and a 7-year old camera in one go ain't half bad!

The limited-edition Harajuku Girls camera designed by Gwen Stefani,
when her first solo album made her my idol.
Picture taken by my smartphone!

(And now more text from the comfort of my equally-old PC...)

There's a lot to learn, and a lot of connections I never wanted but I'll need to accept in order to use the smartphone. For one, Verizon/Android/something insisted I sync my gmail account if I want to use blogger on my phone. That sucks because my gmail account is not my principal account and I really use it just to blog. Also, syncing two email accounts with my phone added a lot of unnecessary "contacts," most without phone numbers and therefore something I would not consider a contact. It also brought back citizens of my very old address book, some people with whom I haven't had contact in over ten years and others whom I don't even remember. I guess I was lucky that I only had to delete 200... well, not quite. My phone says I cannot delete "read-only" contacts. Well as my phone, I'll tell you who I want to delete, and you'll like it!

This whole connectivity thing also unevenly dug up photos associated with my two blogs and loaded them into picasa, which I have never used but must be owned by google because why else would they mysteriously appear on my phone? And for some unknown reason, I cannot upload photos I took with my phone to blog posts I made with my phone unless I accept and add google+. Fine, google, collect my information and use it for your evil plans. Just let me hide in a cave when you take over the world.

Last complaint: why does every new phone come with predictive text turned on? And why are they making it more difficult to turn it off by making you weave through a convoluted tribulation of settings? Honestly, who actually needs predictive text? I don't need to accidentally send a message about "sex" when all I wanted to say that "texting is hard" on my new phone!

But really, after just over 24 hours I think I am warming up to the oversized phone. With this I'll be able to snap pictures more easily while I travel and blog (albeit poorly) on the road. I can check my email at any time, though I certainly don't feel the urge to. But the important thing is that the option is there. And, I've waited so long to get a smartphone that Angry Birds is free!