I've absolutely had it with AT&T. I'm a mac user and love my iPhone but I find it a damn shame that Apple decided to go with a company that can't even come close to being able to support the iPhone to it's fullest potential.
For the non-iPhone users out there, imagine this... being able to send pictures from your cellular device via MMS or text message. Sound incredible? Well it's not, it's everyday common practice with all wireless providers and devices. The joke of a wireless provider AT&T, was unable to handle the data load with the iPhone and iPhone users couldn't send MMS/text pictures when the phone first came out. Keep in mind that any other phone on the market with any other wireless provider was able to do the same thing for YEARS!
On a regular basis, I receive and make about 5-10 calls a day. Granted there are those days that no one calls me and I don't even look at my phone but on the average, about 5-10 a day. Out of those 5-10 calls a day, roughly 3-7 of them are dropped and cut short due to poor reception. You can imagine how incredibly frustrating this can be.
The worst part about all this is that I pay $166.00 a month (Family plan with 2 separate iPhones) and can't hold a call in my own house without stepping outside to my front yard. I could go on and on about all the crap I've had to go through to make a call or reconnect a call but I'm completely over it. I love my iPhone but my contract with AT&T is over in October and if I don't get a normal English speaking human being on other end of the line when I call AT&T to bitch and complain about how big of balls they suck... I'm going to get a prepaid phone and wait for another carrier to take on the iPhone.
So on that note I would like to leave you with my final words for AT&T Wireless.
Dear AT&T Wireless,
Your service is one of the worst I've ever experienced and I would rather have the body odor that smells like the the inside of an old wooden leg than sign another contract with you.
I have more dropped calls than completed calls which makes me want to head butt your eyes shut.
You claim that you have the largest 3G network. But it seems that along the Interstate 5 corridor that passes through the biggest and most populated city in Oregon (Portland) I still manage to be stuck on your archaic and slow "Edge Network" and proceed to have even more trouble keeping calls connected. And for that, if I ever find out where your headquarters are, I'll be sure to either urinate on your front door or mail you a box of feces.
Thanks for wasting my time, frustrating the hell out me, and over all, providing terrible service.
I wanted to let a few of my boys know that I'm in good hands down here. I have recently found out that the little produce and specialty market less than a block from my front door has a wide range of Guayaki Yerba Mate. Cody and Ian can rest easy now, knowing that I won’t have to rely on them to partake of this delicious beverage.
Saturday was an amazing day. It definitely started off right too. I woke up around 7AM to get ready for a short shift at work and my lovely girlfriend, Kendra made me an outstanding omelete.
After work I hurried home cause Kendra and I wanted enjoy the outstanding weather on our bikes. We ended up riding all the way through the Berkeley campus and realized how much it was not like the University of Oregon. In fact, I’m sure it is double the size of the U of O at the very least. Lot’s of up hill streets on the way to the campus, and I’m not sure I’ve ever heard more whining from one person, but Kendra made it just fine. (insert winky-face icon here)
We weren’t terribly sure what we were going to be doing for our evening but my co-worker, Roger suggested we come to his place and have a few drinks. While at Roger’s apartment, I came to the realization that I am seriously allergic to cats. I’m already not a fan of cats, with the exception of a few select felines, but I seriously had snot running out of my nose constantly and my eyes felt like someone poured jalapeno garlic sauce in them. Honestly, not a pretty sight, but we still had fun. I knew later on we were going to head out somewhere, so I took it easy on the drinking, but that doesn’t mean that I wasn’t entertained. Kendra was definitely the life of our pre-bar party. She kept telling story after story, keeping Roger and I very amused with how animated she was. Amazing what a couple healthy shots of vodka will do to a girl with an empty stomach. (eww, that sounded like the beginning of a date rape story... sorry, but you guys know what I mean.)
Roger suggested we alleviate my waterfall of mucus and head to a bar up the street called The Ivy Room. At the door I had to use my pass port for an ID and proof that I was at least 21 years of age which reminded me of how ticked I was that my drivers license was gone. Anyway, the bar was awesome, big plush leather couches, lots of baroque-esk wall hangings and lighting fixtures. Also, there was a live DJ set up on top of a cool old dresser.
After a while of Kendra spilling almost every drop of her drink and mine and Roger’s sides hurting from laughing so hard, we made the group decision that we needed some Taco Bell. Lucky for us, the nearest Taco Bell was 2 blocks north and apparently able to withstand a missile strike. The drive through was equipped with a one and half inch bomb proof plexi-glass food delivery mechanism pictured here just below. Regardless, our $20 order of delicious mexican cuisine was delivered to us without error. And if you know anything about Taco Bell, you’ll know that $20 worth of Taco Bell is a feast of epic proportions.
Needless to say, we had a glorious night and can’t wait to have friends and family to come visit us so we can share these great bars and restaurants with them.
The last thing I must inform everyone about is another quick story about my wayward identification as mentioned in the previous post. Today we met up with one of Kendra’s college friends, Melissa, who also lives in the bay area. We decided to check out Ici, a local ice cream shop that, from the moment it opens to the moment it closes, always has a line of people out the door no less than 20 deep. After we finally got our delectable frozen dairy products, we started our journey back to our apartment. Just about 30 yards from our front door, I caught something out of the corner of my eye sitting in a little tree on the sidewalk. I instantly snatched it out of the tree, realizing it was my drivers license. So it seems, that there are good people in the world and that somewhere out there is a very unlucky underaged Pete Wentz look alike that won’t ever have my ID.
Hope everyone had an awesome Super Bowl Sunday and enjoyed all the commercials. Sorry for the mindless plug here, but if you are interested in a first generation iPhone, I'm selling one on eBay right now. Click HERE to see the auction.
First and foremost, I hope everyone that considers them self to be an American can truly understand and recognize that today was a historic day. One day after Martin Luther King Jr. Day, Barack Obama, was inaugurated to be the 44th president of the United States of America. Very exciting stuff indeed. I am excited to see what happens in the next few years and I feel blessed to be alive and witness history in the making. If you didn’t get a chance to see the inauguration speech, I found it on YouTube in two parts.
The speech isn’t long and I think that everyone should watch it and hear what our new president has to say.
Part One:
Part Two:
This last weekend was amazing. Like I said in the previous post, we went up north to the Portland area for Kendra’s big sister’s wedding. We had a 9:00AM flight and I figured that with traffic, check in, and the security check, that we should be there kind of early. So we woke up at 4:30AM and finished packing, grabbed some food, and hit the road to Oakland Airport.
Funny thing about traffic here in California at 5:30AM... there is none. So, our trip to the airport was very short. After all the usual preflight crap, we ended up finding out that our flight was delayed for about an hour. With this all taken into consideration, Kendra and I sat at the terminal for almost 3 hours waiting to board our plane. All I have to say is thank God for iPhones. We battled it out on a little puzzle game called Trism for a large portion of our delay.
Right when we got to PDX, we sat at a window that overlooked the Arrival Pick Up area while we waited for Justin and Jenae to pick us up. As you may know, it is strictly prohibited to leave your vehicle unattended at the Pick Up area. I saw this lady park, rush out of her mini-van, dash into the airport, and was hurrying back out to her car in less than a minute. I can only guess she needed to use the restroom. In this very short minute, an airport meter maid made her way to the front of this lady’s mini-van and started writing a ticket. Now keep in mind that I couldn’t actually hear what was being said but the expressions on the mini-van lady’s face were absolutely priceless. I could tell that she was completely dumbfounded that the meter maid caught her in less than a minute and while the meter maid was finishing up writing her ticket, her face went from, “No no no, you don’t need to write me a ticket, I was only using the restroom.” to “Un-F#@&ING-believable. I was only gone for a minute you wretched bitch. I bet you eat your young, huh?”
Honestly I felt bad for the mini-van lady but it goes to show that the airports mean it when they say, “Do Not Leave Vehicles Unattended”.
The first day we were in Portland we played it low key and took the time to relax and catch up with Justin and Jenae. They are renting a house from a friend of theirs that is outstanding. So outstanding in fact, that when you use the microwave, instead of it just beeping at you it plays a little tune to let you know that your tasty food is done being cooked.
Then came the wedding the next day. Jenae looked amazing and everything went off without a hitch... well, most everything. A little miscommunication with the DJ but other than that, it was awesome. I feel bad though. Jenae asked me if I could be in charge of the video recording of the wedding and I of course said yes. That morning I was having a hard time waking up so I downed not one, but two RedBulls followed by a cup of coffee. Some of the shots that I thought would be pretty cool came out pretty shaky because I was so cracked out from a caffeine overload. Hope my Final Cut Pro editing skills help me out on that one.
Later that night, after everything was winding down, I had a chance to meet a couple of Kendra’s high school friends. Honestly, I’m not sure a girl could ask for better friends. From what I’ve gathered, these boys haven’t seen her in almost a year or more and it’s like they had been hanging out the whole time. We met Cole, Trevor, Nick, and Mark at one of their friends penthouse condos in the Pearl District. His name was Darren and talk about an amazing place. Straight out of MTV Cribs and he’s a really nice guy to let us in his house and mingle.
After that the party moved right down the street to Aura where, because Darren knows the promoter pretty well, the bouncers let us in for free. The music was loud, the dance floor was packed, and everyone was having fun. Darren is the dude in the front with the green t-shirt on and Kendra and I are in the back. There are tons of pics of this party, and it seemed that Ian was in the background of almost every one of them. I guess he's pretty hard to miss. To make the night even better, my friend Michelle came out and met us. Kendra’s friend Cole worked his magic and got her in for free too. (She's the one being kissed by the blonde)
I loved how one by one, each of Kendra's friends pulled me aside and said in a mildly inebriated manor, "Ya know, Kendra's a good girl. An angel! You're a lucky guy, man. If she approves, I approve." Then proceeded to mention that her ex-boyfriend was a "Douche". Which is even funnier to me cause Kendra told me that they never even met him. My point is, I'm really glad that I finally got to meet these guys and hope to see them again real soon. (By the way, that's a hint to come visit us boys.)
The day after the wedding we hung out and enjoyed another low key day before heading back to the airport. We packed up and said our goodbyes then Ian drove us back to PDX. By the way, huge props to Ian for bringing me 6 bottles of my second favorite beverage in the entire world, Guayaki Organic Yerba Mate. I downed 3 of them while up in Portland and knew I wouldn’t be able to take them on the plane so I put them in the fridge to chill and then forgot all about them before I left. Thanks anyway, Ian.
We where basically already checked in and just had to drop off our only checked bag when we found out that our flight had been canceled. Not to worry but tell me if this makes sense, they rerouted us to Seattle then back down to Oakland. Not a huge deal, just thought it was strange. Either way, when we got to Seattle, they bumped us up to first class for the flight to Oakland. Pretty sweet... minus the old guy that asked us, “Do you feel lavish?” and when I said “No.” his reply was, “Well you should.” Like I was intruding on his magical and sacred first class territory that he actually paid extra for. What a tool.
I have video footage of most of the weekend and I'm sure I'll have something together by the end of the week so keep an eye open for that. Another thing that I thought was pretty cool is that my little brother is creative as all hell and is designing a few t-shirts that should be for sale very soon. Go check them out on his RedBubble page right HERE!
Today Kendra and I are flying out of Oakland to go back up north. Her big sister is getting married. I’m really excited to see the family but it’s going to be weird going from the climate here to back to the frigid temperatures of my northern homeland.
For the past 3 days it’s been in the mid 70’s. I’m not one to really complain about fantastic weather but it’s a little strange to think this is only January. Some of the random people I’ve talked to say that they are afraid of the summer and what it might bring as far as having to "use water rations again". They say that California is still in a drought but I’m not seeing any signs of that. Then again, I wasn’t here during the summer for the last few years.
Just to the east of our apartment is Grizzly Peak Boulevard which is up on a huge hill.... well, huge for around here. I drove up there by myself to kill some time and couldn't believe the view. (above picture. Left: Thug Passion, Right: Jesse Tobler) I would have posted a pic but it was too late in the day and my sweet iPhone camera, or any camera for that matter, was unabl to take a pic with how bright the sun was.
This is were I introduce the second installment of what I like to call, Logically Sound. Now I’m not going to promise you that this will be coming out with every blog. Although, with the amount of people that California has crammed into such a small place, such as San Francisco, there really shouldn’t be a shortage of top notch citizens for me to capture for your viewing pleasure.
I had a particularly hard time deciphering and translating what this gentleman was trying to say. Especially right around the 1:22 mark of the video. He mentioned something about a “peh-die-nikul” and both, Google and Wikipedia were unable to give me a definition.
We finally are unpacked.... mostly. Still have a few boxes of random crap that we need to sort through but I had a chance to do a little decorating in the bedroom. The tree thing above the bed is actually a set of wall stickers from IKEA. They show it as kind or a sprawling design but I felt like posting them up in the design of a tree. More pictures will be up as soon as we find something to sit on. As of this very moment I am sitting on a Sterilite 3 drawer unit and Kendra is playing Tetris on her lovely iPhone sitting in a folding camping chair.
Some of you might recall that in the recent past, Kendra and I had been denied to live in a couple of different apartments for various reasons. Nothing bad, but denied none the less. Well the last of them was by a guy named Jon Favors. He is the owner of a musty, useless, probably a cover up to a weird underground child pornography ring, shop named, The Good, The Bad, The Ugly. In fact, it’s located on the very street that we live on about 7 or 8 blocks south of us. This guy is a cheap, dirty, trashy, good for nothing asshole.
You might ask yourself, “Whoa Jesse, what’s with the harsh and slanderous names you’re calling this man?”
Well reader, first of all, thanks for asking. Secondly, this man Jon Favors denied us a chance to live in his little over priced crack in the wall studio because he didn’t feel comfortable letting a “couple” live there. Reason being, he only wanted to have a single person live there. Which is weird considering that he was going on and on about how the previous COUPLE lived there for a number of years. Here’s the kicker. When Kendra and I decided that his reason was kind of lame and I had a few questions for him about it, I thought I should call him and ask him if I could have a refund on our $40.00 check that we wrote him for a processing fee for our application. He told me that he actually had never cashed it and said that “Ya know what, I’ll just rip it up for you.”
Me, looking for any kind of cooperation from this burnt out old hippie, was surprised that he was willing to do that and actually even suggested it. So I took the bait and ran with it. I told Kendra the good news and we thought we had this wrinkly old ball sack out of our lives for good.
Fast forward to Friday, January 2nd, 2009. Kendra text messaged me after consulting her online banking, and told me that our good buddy Jon Favors decided to go ahead and cash our $40.00 check. We both understand that we willingly gave him a check for the said amount but last I heard, if you tell someone that you are going to do something (ie: rip up our check) and then you A) don’t do it and B) still go ahead and cash it anyway... that there is something shady about you.
So now that we are pretty much settled in our new place and loving it I am going to make my way down to the local underground child pornography ring (aka: The Good, The Bad, The Ugly) and talk to Jonny Boy. Wish me luck.
Oh, and P.S. :
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I can’t begin to tell you how annoying it is to not have reliable internet connection. Hence, not being able to keep this blog updated as much as I would like. Even more annoying is how dependent on a connection to the world wide web we are. Although, I find it slightly humorous when I’m sitting in a cafe getting things done on the internet and the connection craps out, stay calm and you can just sit back and watch the parade of the panicked. Slowly but surely, each person comes to the realization that the computer they are hypnotized by doesn’t have the ability to bring them the information that they need.
Yesterday we had a ton of fun. We decided to drive across both of the bridges (Bay Bridge and Golden Gate) and head over to Muir Woods area just past Sausalito, which is a “National Recreation Area”. Unfortunately we drove to the entrance of the Muir Woods and they wanted roughly $80.00 per person... well more like $5.00 per adult but we were just stubborn. We think we shouldn’t have to pay a fee to look at some trees, but that's neither here nor there.
So we had this great idea to drive even further up the road, which by the way was quite possibly the windiest road I have even ventured up. When we got to the top we ended up stopping off at this overlook which was absolutely beautiful. Steep rock faces right into the ocean and you could see the city to our left and there were patches of dark and ominous clouds out above the ocean that made for some cool pics.
After we got tired of getting blown around we decided to DRIVE some more. So off we went, up a road that was even windier than the previous. I soon came to realize that we were now traveling on Highway 1. Here’s where it gets really fun. If you know anything about Kendra’s past, you would know that she used to get pretty car sick if given the right conditions. You know the situation. We’ve all been there at one time or another, reading a book while in the back seat of the family van. Which is a big YUCK for just about anyone I believe. Well, this road was so bumpy and windy that her skin had turned to a ghoulish green and she was fighting back the urge to jettison her breakfast.
The best... slash... funniest... slash... actually worst part of the whole situation is that we failed to use or fancy iPhones to see where the hell good old Highway 1 led to. We just assumed that it would eventually lead to a real highway. Who would have guessed it actually goes for another 56 miles north until a tiny podunk town named Olema. At about the point when Kendra felt the need to clear out the Safeway plastic grocery bag of our road munchies for a barf bag I figured that it might be a good time to just turn around and carefully make our way back to civilization.
Luckily for Thug Passion, Kendra never lost her guts and we stopped at a way random 7-11 and scooped up a bottle of Sprite to calm her stomach.
After all that, we figured it would be a good idea to just chill at home and watch a movie, but we didn’t have one that sounded that good so we went and picked up a great movie I would recommend to anyone that doesn’t mind a tiny bit of violence. Green Street Hooligans. One of my favorites and I am surprised I hadn’t picked it up earlier. It stars Elijah Woods and is the second movie he did after the last of the epic trilogy Lord of the Rings. The first movie he did after LOTR, was another of my all time favorites, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind. I feel like I’m trying to sell these movies but today is the first day that it has rained since I’ve been here and it kinda feels like a good time to grab a movie and chill at home. That and word on the street, or the weather application on my iPhone, says that it’s snowing back home and I am pretty jealous.
On that note, I would really like it if anyone from home could save some snow for me and maybe just mail it to me. Any inquiries for an address may be directed and answered in the comments section of this blog. Please and thank you.
Yesterday I mentioned that Kendra and I have been cooking at home, but last night it was brought to a whole new level. Not necessarily a higher level of complexity but more of a higher level of, “Oh my god this tastes like little drops of heaven sprinkled with unicorns and fairy dust”. A couple of nights ago Kendra had this craving for some mac and cheese and if you grew up like I did, the first thing that would have popped into your head would have been the crap that tastes like the cardboard box it comes in. You know the one, blue box, gold lettering... damn it I used to love that garbage.
Well apparently her mom makes this amazing homemade mac and cheese so she got the recipe and let me just tell you, ho-ly-crap. Needless to say I was saddened that my bowl was empty but that just meant that breakfast and lunch was going to be filled with warm, cheesy, gooey goodness.
Earlier today I was seriously contemplating on walking across the street and applying at Burger King but Ian randomly called me and cheered me up a little bit with some encouraging words. With spirits knocked up a few notches I made my way out to a few places that I had applied and made it known that I am freaking awesome and they should seriously consider hiring me. Which actually helped calm my nerves because I was honestly teetering on a razors edge of pulling my hair out from being so stressed.
Also, I contacted the head of the financial aid department of my hopeful school (SFSDF) and set up another meeting to figure out how to get my hands on $30,000. By the way, I’m still taking suggestions, other than exchanging sexual favors for money. However I am thankful for that suggestion Ian.
One more thing, I got bored late last night and started making new iPhone/iPod Touch wall papers on Photoshop. What do you think? Slightly conceded? Let’s just say that if I were to rule China, this would probably be the replacement of their silly and boring flag.
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