Roomie

So I'm one week into a new experience known as Roommate in the Living Room. That's right, I have a roommate. I also have a one bedroom apartment. But in true New York style, we've managed to cram two people into what's meant to be a pad for one person, perhaps two if they are sleeping together like my neighbors across the hall who are married.

So we sort of used furniture to cordon off a portion of a living room as her "roomlet" as I call it. The other half is more of a traditional living room. See photos below:



We're in the market for a Japanese screen to act as a "door" to the roomlet. The hardest part is trying to find a place for all the stupid crap I've acquired over the years. Why do I have all this stuff? I've done a pretty phenomenal job, but there's still a small pile and I'm just out of space. That's it. I do not live in a TARDIS. I need to learn to throw things away. Rats are embarrassed by me. Seriously.

Mount Guilian (Washington slept here. Of course)

Roland and I walk here quite often. It's a beautiful, wooded area with a nice view of the Hudson River. Today, quite unexpectedly, we saw a doe and her fawn in the woods behind the house. I'd already put the iPhone away at that point and wasn't quick enough on the draw to snap a photo.

It's always weird to walk up on nature like that. I mean, we rounded the corner and there they were and all four of us just froze and stared at each other. I'm not sure who was more surprised the deer or me. Then the deer took off. Roland wanted very much to take off after them. Luckily he was on a leash. I have every confidence that mama deer would have kicked his playful little butt, otherwise.

So back to the house. Mount Guilian was originally built in 1730 by the Verplanck family of New York and was used a summer retreat and plantation. In late 1782 through the summer of 1783, Mount Gulian was the Continental Army headquarters of patriot General Fredrich Von Steuben. The house was expanded in the 1800s, burned down in 1931, then restored in 1976. Now they put on things like children's teas and host period games. Plus I think people rent it out for special occasions.

iFight

iPhone and I had our first fight today.

I use my cell phone as my alarm clock. It's convienent, since I always have it with me, and means I don't have to buy an alarm clock. Normally, I don't really need an alarm clock because I work nights and so I just wake up when I wake up. But this morning I had a dentist appointment and needed to drop my truck off for an oil change first. So I set the alarm on iPhone for the first time. It went off as scheduled. However, it seemed to enjoy alarming too much and wouldn't turn off. In fact it wouldn't do anything except sound the alarm.

For 12 minutes I tried holding down the on/off button, the main menu button, I tried the volume controls. Nothing. Just a black screen and an alarm that wouldn't stop. With my old phone, I would have removed the battery at this point. That solves all problems. But any of you with and iPod or Phone knows that Apple installs the batteries so that they are not removable. And unlike iPod, there is apparently not special sequence of things that will reboot it when it freezes.

So finally, I had to hook it up to my computer and RESTORE THE FACTORY SETTINGS!!! This is extremely annoying and, frankly, quite ridiculous. It's not really something I want to go through every time I need to use the alarm. And though it asks you if you want to back up your settings, etc., before it wipes the phone clean and reloads it, it does not back up the iPod part of the phone, so then you have to reload the music onto the phone. I see a little talk with the Mac Geniuses in my future.

Even more snow

[In this photo we see Roland contemplating the existence of snow: "Snow, why are you so wet, snow? Why do you fall from the sky? Snow, why aren't you here every day of my life. Oh, how I love you, snow!" And he really does love snow, just that much.]

iBucky

As I no longer have a boyfriend — or much human contact of any kind outside of work — my new best friend whom I spend all my time with, is my iPhone [pictured left, in bed]. iPhone (which, per Apple, is used without an article, just as one would use a name - i.e. "There are many new apps for iPhone." or "iPhone and I are going to dinner tonight.") does take some getting used to. Mostly setting it up is complicated when you have to call a number to deactivate your old phone and activate iPhone and you don't have a landline, so you get cut off in the middle of the directions on what to do next. But we got it activated and now I've been happily loading it up with music and amusing free apps that serve no real purpose, like Magic 8 Ball. (As iPhone a questions, shake it, it answers.)

What I haven't done a lot of with iPhone yet, is talk on it. I realize how little I actually talk on the phone any more and I wonder if that's universally true. Do people talk on the phone less than ever before. I mean, at work I still talk on the phone. Talking to people is kind of the point on newspaper journalism. But in my personal life, everything is e-mail and text messages. My boyfriend used to call and we would speak a lot, but he's the only one. I called my brother for no apparent reason, just so I could use the phone. Ironically, the phone part of iPhone was what made me buy it. I'd heard all about the fancy applications and its use as a iPod, etc. But I hadn't heard much about it as a phone until I was watching the demos on the Apple Web site. I'd been secretly coveting iPhone for a while, but until some Christmas cash showed up couldn't really justify the purchase. But then when I saw the visual voicemail, I knew I had to have iPhone right then and there. So I ordered one.

Visual voicemail allows you to look at a list of who's left messages and you can choose which one you want to listen to by tapping it. You can also rewind, fast forward and pause the message.

The best part of the phone part of iPhone, however, is that I can actually get reception in my apartment. My old Samsung (God rest its soul) was very shady in this area and in fact, on the night before iPhone arrived, I had through it on the floor in anger after it dropped an important call and then I couldn't get a signal out. It also, randomly, would decide the SIM card was invalid and I would have to turn the phone off and then back on.

Finally, because all iPod stuff is standard, iPhone fits into all my preexisting iPod accoutrement, like the speakers I have in the living room. You can also hook iPhone up to your TV and play movies off of it. I don't have any movies in digital form, but I still get excited over the idea that I could watch the movies, if I did.

It's sad that this is all I have to get excited over these days, I know.