OMG I have a cellphone now, Part 1

So I finally broke down and bought a cellphone this weekend. For me, this is a radical step, as I hate talking on the phone. But I spent a lot of time during the holidays trying to find pay phones - which are getting harder to find because more people have cellphones. It's a perfect example of destructive circular logic. I figured it was time for me to step, tentatively, into the 21st century. Besides, it's probably a good idea to be able to contact somebody right away in case of emergency.

I decided to go with Telus as my service provider for two reasons. One was that some of my friends were already with them. The other was that I'm already using Rogers for my cable service and my high-speed Internet, and I didn't want to be too dependent on one provider: Rogers once mistakenly disconnected my service for a day when someone else in my apartment building defaulted on their cable bill. They restored it as soon as was practically possible, but this sort of thing could happen again. (This is also why I keep my credit card at one bank and my RRSP and savings account at another - if something goes wrong with my credit card bill by mistake, the credit card bank can't just take money from one of my accounts to cover the card balance.)

So I went to Telus's site, and was quickly overwhelmed by the number of phones and service options available. They offer 22 different phones for sale with their PCS mobile service, all of which boast approximately six zillion features each. How on earth was I going to be able to choose between them? Then, I noticed that if you sign a contract, they offer a discount on their phones. If I was willing to spring for a three-year contract - and hey, go big or go home, I say - then I could get a fairly snazzy phone for quite a low price. So I narrowed my options down to the phones that were just a little more expensive than free if you sign their three-year deal.

I eventually went with the Nokia 6265i, because it had lots of gadgets - like all geeks, I love gadgets - and because the online reviews for this phone were generally very good. Okay, that's one problem down and one to go: next, I had to decide what plan I wanted.

Once again, there was a bewildering array of options. I could choose Talk 20, 25, 50, 75, 100, or 150. Or Super Talk 20, 25, 30, or 40. Or Talk To Me 25, 30, or 45. Or Talk Canada 30, 50, 100, 150 or 250. Eek. After a brief whimper and a bit of time lying down (and reading A.N. Wilson's The Victorians), I settled on Super Talk 20. It was the same price as Talk 20, and offered more evening and weekend minutes, which is when I'm going to use the phone if I ever use it at all.

Okay, that was settled. I marched into the local wireless store on the Danforth, and told them exactly what phone and service I wanted. They gave me a long contract to read and sign, and then gave me a choice as to what phone number I wanted. Whee! I've never gotten to pick a phone number before! Logically, I picked the one that was easiest to remember. (Side note: the program that they use to display available phone numbers had an "Asian friendly" option. As I recall, the number 4 is bad luck in China. A friend of mine lives in a condo that is geared to the Asian-Canadian market: there is no 4th or 14th floor, and no fours on any of the suite numbers. This means that the next floor after the 12th is the 15th, as we Caucasians think that 13 is bad luck.)

When I got home, I took out my new phone and realized something: I had used a cell phone so infrequently that I wasn't even sure how you're supposed to use it. No, seriously. This entry is getting long, so tomorrow I'll get to how I figured that out, along with a detailed description of the default ringtones available and why I can't stand any of them.


One quick music note: am I the only one who can't tell Radiohead and Muse apart? Their lead singers sound almost identical. As a general rule, Muse is a bit more intense than Radiohead, so I see it like this: if Thom Yorke of Radiohead had just gotten dumped or was suffering an existential crisis, he'd be Matthew Bellamy of Muse. (By the way: according to the All Music Guide, Muse used to call themselves Gothic Plague, Fixed Penalty, and Rocket Baby Dolls. Cool.)