Christine

I <3 ya. Ain't nobody readin this blog but you yanno :)

Adding ringtones to a VX9100 (lg enV2)

Verizon, true to its style of nickel and diming its customers for everything, doesn't allow you to set music you transfer to your phone as a ringtone. So you have two choices - 1) buy songs from verizon's music store 2) get a third party to convert the clip into a (very) low quality, proprietary QCP file, for which priviledge you pay a couple of bucks per ringtone.

I opted for the latter option, but found the quality of the QCP file to be horrible. After a little haggling with the tech support folks at this third party, however, they told me the big secret: Just send an email to your-number@vzwpix.com - what's in the text doesn't much matter, just attach an audio file your phone can play (mp3 or wav works fine on the VX9100) and send it. Include a leading 1 and the area code in your phone number, or else the email will bounce. I'm guessing this works with a bunch of other verizon phones - just beware you'll have to pay for data (hey, that gives me a great idea for a distributed denial of cash attack...)

I had actually tried this, but I sent my message to vtext.com instead, which didn't work - d'oh, that could've saved me a few bucks. It strikes me that, given this one bit of information from this company, I could go into business competing with them - all I lack is a program that can generate QCP files (for other phones) and a few other esoteric formats.

Here are the details for the curious (steps 1 and 2 are just how I clip an audio file and save it as a mp3 - you can use whatever other software you like):
1 - use audacity or the like to trim the file, export as wav
2 - lame foo.wav -h -V 0 ringtone.mp3
3 - send an email to your-number@vzwpix.com, attach ringtone.mp3
4 - on receipt of message, click options -> save as ringtone

Die, old phone, die!

The contract finally expired on my motorola v32x. When I was in the store selecting a replacement, I asked them if they could recycle my old phone. They said yes. I asked them if they could recycle it if it wasn't all in one piece. Again, yes. I asked them if I could smash it in the store. They said no. Ah well... I was able, however, to rip the flimsy piece of shite in half before giving it back.

Stop it, stop it, stop it.

Just because two or more bad things happened at once does not mean it was a perfect storm. Stop saying it. That goes for all of you.

all i have today is a link...

U.S. gas: So cheap it hurts Western Europe pays about twice what USians pay ... still think that gas tax holiday is a good idea?

Dear boys, don't let Billy near the goldfish bowl.

(Read in the accent of a Russian emigrant to Britain)

I wasn't always mad, you know. Actually I was driven mad by the indifference of architects and council planners. You see, I live in a tower block and the terrible thing about those is there's absolutely no noise insulation at all, you know, and eight floors below you there's always some bastard who's got a yamaha home organ. You're just about to go to bed when you hear this "Doop doop chick chick doop doop chick chick... Bow, bow... da badabow!"

And like, the people who live upstairs from me, right, I can't understand what they're doing, you know - I'll listen, and all I can hear is this weird noise that goes "Voom Voom, Fwep, Fwep, Voom Voom, Fwep, Fwep". It sounds, right, it sounds, like two elephants riding on a motorbike while a seal bangs his flipper on the table! I went upstairs to complain, and the door was answered by an elephant in a crash helmet! Standing behind him is this seal going "What is it now, Ralph?"

And I don't know, after that I started getting very depressed, and I started to think I was a piece of sponge, you know?

That's not a city... THIS is a city!

I've lived in metro DC the past 4 years, within the city limits the past 3. I hadn't been to Manhattan in about 5 years, until today. All illusions of being a hip urban dweller have been thrown out the window upon seeing this place again.

comparator	DC	NYC
height	no buildings taller than the Capitol, at 12 stories	The Empire State building has 102 floors.
advertising	no billboards except for the occasional billboard truck	Times Square.
downtown	"downtown" is approximately 10 by 10 city blocks	almost everywhere in manhattan is downtown - the only places there aren't skyscrapers in manhattan is where the ground can't support them
subways	clean, sparse	ubiquitous, filthy
people	mostly assholes	mostly rude assholes
time	downtown and most everything else closes around 6 or 7 when the commuters head back to the 'burbs, except for a few club districts	the city that never sleeps, at least it would seem judging by the horns and sirens as I try to fall asleep
raison d'être	home of modern imperialism	home of modern capitalism

So all told, I'm still mostly glad I live in DC and not NYC, but I suddenly feel a lot less cool about it.