From the monthly archives:

November 2007

Rough Times for 49ers Fans

Wednesday, November 21, 2007

A man walks into a bar with a cat in his arms and asks the bartender if the cat can stay. Grudgingly, the bartender agrees to let the cat sit on a bar stool, and he then turns on the 49ers game.

When the 49ers kick a field goal, the cat just goes wild, jumping up and own on the stool, then going the length of the bar and high-fiving customers.

The bartender is amazed. “If he does that for a field goal, how does he act when the Niners score a touchdown?”

“I don’t know,” said his owner. “I’ve only had him three years.”

{ 1 comment }

Christmas in November

Tuesday, November 13, 2007

On November 4th I entered my local Starbucks and laughed when I saw the entire store was decorated for Christmas. There happened to be a manager and a “barista” working the counter, so I mentioned that it was a bit early for Christmas decorations.

The manager replied, as if I was daft, “No it’s not. Thanksgiving is next week!”

I told him that Thanksgiving wasn’t for three more weeks and he seemed surprised. He said, “Really? I don’t know why I thought it was next week …”

MAYBE BECAUSE OF ALL THE CHRISTMAS DECORATIONS?!?!?

{ 1 comment }

Blackberry Pearl Keyboard Lock

Thursday, November 8, 2007

Blackberry PearlI’ve had a Blackberry Pearl for a few months now and, in general, I love it. It’s a great phone. I love that I can check scores on ESPN and use Google maps and — as a surprise bonus — I can send and receive phone calls and text messages. Here’s what bugs me: The keyboard lock feature is not smart. Like most “candybar” type phones with an exposed keyboard, there is a way to “lock” the keys so you don’t accidentally dial numbers when it’s in your pocket. If you hold down the pound key (#) for a couple of seconds, the keyboard locks. Issues:

  1. To unlock the keyboard, you push the pound key and the call key. But if you hit the scroll ball, you get a screen with options “Unlock”, “Emergency Call”, and “Cancel”. If you choose “Unlock”, instead of unlocking — which is what you’d expect — it tells you to push the pound key and the call key to unlock it. Okay, yes, I know that. Why is one of the options “Unlock” if it doesn’t actually unlock the phone? Not smart.
  2. When someone calls, if the keyboard is unlocked it automatically unlocks so you can answer the call. But when you finish the call it doesn’t return to locked state; you have to hold the pound key to lock it again. Not smart.

Those aren’t major bugs, but I wish there was a way to correct them. I found some software to let me change the color of the LED behind the scroll ball, but the only hack I found to change the way the keyboard lock feature functions doesn’t seem to work.

{ 6 comments }