Shanghai Yummy

Swiss Highlights

ZRH - A Very Un-Swiss Airport

I hate to start off what I hope will be a series of posts about my generally wonderful two-week trip to Switzerland with a negative tone, but something has to be said about the sad state of affairs that is Zurich Airport.

The airport is clearly a hodgepodge of additions and extensions onto what once must have been an idyllic mid-sized airport serving the "too rich, too quiet" hamlet that was Zurich decades ago. Today, because of this "organic" growth (read: unplanned), the airport is a veritable maze both inside and out.

I consider myself to be a seasoned traveler who usually has no problem finding my way through airports. At well-designed airports, I can get around without even reading the signs because one acquires a "feel" for navigating the typical airport. At the zoo that is ZRH, I found myself unable to leave the airport for a good 10 minutes yesterday, because of the multi-level maze I was trapped in. I swear, if there had been a fire, I probably would have perished in the confusion.

Take, for example, that there are three separate check-in areas which may or may not have anything to do with your eventual concourse. Instead of neatly organized "terminals" that other airports are laid out in, the concept doesn't exist here. You're in a "check-in" area, then you have to find your way through a multi-level maze to find the proper concourse, which may be quite a walk from whatever check-in area you just left. And of course, if you find yourself in the wrong check-in area, or say, have to drop off friends at one but then go to another one, it's a long hike up and down a bunch of levels and just generally very poorly organized.

Oh, and should you somehow find your way outside, the confusion doesn't end there. The roadway appears to have been built in the 1950's for a capacity of say, ten planes a day leaving the airport. Traffic is a total cluster if you happen to need to get to the airport during the morning rush when every US-bound flight departs (and those incoming landings need rides from the airport too, don't forget).

I mean, the signage is terrible too. Like I said, it took me and three friends 10 minutes to find an exit yesterday.

Also, the snob flyer in me finds it appalling that there are no lounges airside for US-bound flights. The only lounge was pre-passport control. Which means you have to leave the lounge a minimum of 1 hour before your flight since there are no priority lines for passport control, and then take a tram to the concourse, and then pass through security (which did have a priority line, fortunately).

But there are a few things that ZRH gets that other airports need to follow: plentiful duty-free (duh, it's Zurich, those rich bankers have to spend their ill-gotten gains somewhere), and very timely baggage delivery. In fact, the baggage carousels have an ETA timer on them - and the Swiss take their timers very seriously.

Now they just need to raze the whole place and start over again, with some organization and more timers in mind...

The New and Very Improved DUB

As far as I'm concerned, the "160-character" experiment is over.  I'm just too much of a blabbermouth to be able to say what I want to say in a tweet, and facebook is just a field full of privacy and ownership landmines.  So it's time to resurrect (again) the venerable ol' blog.  For this iteration, I am going to try to focus on topics related to travel and mountaineering (and hopefully some that combine these two loves of mine).

For my first post back from this two-year hiatus, I would like to expound on the awesomeness that is the new Dublin International Airport.  These days, major international airports have standardized, and most of the amenities are comparable across the board.  There are vast, airy spaces trying to evoke the awe that a bygone era of air travel used to evoke in all passengers.  There are usually long walks through the terminal, and there are usually lounges, shopping, and food to pass the time.  And of course there are the hassles of immigration control, security, and customs.

DUB's brand new Terminal 2 is no different than others in these regards.  What sets this airport apart in my book are two things:  the US "Preclearance" area, and the "Whiskey Collection" duty-free shop... and most importantly, the combination of the two.

For those of you who have traveled back and forth between the US and Canada, the US Preclearance Area is the same thing as you see at Toronto Pearson or Vancouver Airports.  Before boarding your flight, you clear US Customs and Immigration.  This means that upon landing in the US, your plane taxies up to a domestic gate instead of international.  Note that they haven't rolled out Global Entry, so you have to stand in line regardless of your standing in the program.

As for the Whiskey Collection duty-free store, I was initially skeptical.  I'd read about it in the hype surrounding the opening of the new terminal, but frankly, I was doubtful that any real finds could be had there.  I was going to be content with just picking up a bottle of Midleton Very Rare or perhaps a Jameson 18 at the duty-free price.  So I was rather pleasantly surprised to find not only those two bottles (which I would consider the absolute minimum bar to be taken remotely seriously), but I found some extremely limited, single cask, numbered bottles on display.  I was in a major hurry (unnecessarily, as it turned out, more on this later) so I didn't have much time to take notes or pictures of these rare (and expensive, or at least out of my price range) bottles, unfortunately.  Next time.

What I walked away from the store with was a bottle of Connemara Turf Mór, which can be found elsewhere but not in Washington, and a bottle of Greenore 19 Year Old single cask, a special bottling of 300 units just for this store.  Wow, now I was impressed.  And only €160 sans duty!  The store has only been operating since the terminal opened in November, so they are certainly still feeling out their clientele and market.  I'm hopeful that word spreads among passengers that good stuff can be found there, enabling the store to continue stocking the rare items instead of reverting to the standard, bland duty-free selections you find at most other airports.  Finally, they seem to have staffed up with salespeople who are knowledgeable about their product.  The friendly saleslady who helped me had all the basic facts about the Irish distillers at hand (I know, there aren't that many so it's not that hard to know this info, but this is an airport duty-free - most employees of these around the world couldn't tell the difference between a whiskey and rum!) and went so far as to rattle off the peatiness in PPM of the Turf Mór when I exclaimed how smokey it was upon sampling it.

So far, some of you may be unimpressed.  The coup d'état here lies in the combination of the whiskey store and the customs pre-clearance.  Normally, if you have a connection after landing in the US, you must pass through security at the US airport after having cleared customs.  In this case, flying back through Newark, I would have had to clear customs in Newark, then go through security there again to get into the domestic terminal.  At which point, my whiskey would have been confiscated if I hadn't rejiggered my luggage to check the booze.  On this flight, though, since we came directly into the domestic terminal, I didn't have to pass through security again.

This means I can carry-on the 2+ liters of liquids in the form of the nectar of the gods without further hassle*!

It's sad that this is something I have to rave about, given that ten years ago anybody could have brought any number of bottles of whiskey in their carry-on, but alas.  This is the Brave New World, and I have to take my victories in small doses.

 

* In the interest of full disclosure, I will detail the process at DUB.  You can decide if it's a hassle or not.

1. Arrive at Terminal 2 by land, check-in as usual, and proceed up to the secure area.
2. Clear Irish security.  There is no separate passport control for outbound passengers.  Irish security did not ask me or anybody around me to remove their shoes, but did ask for laptops and liquids out of the bags.  So you wouldn't have been able to bring a bottle of whiskey that you'd purchased at, say, Celtic Whiskey Shop (a fine establishment, by the way, I only hope that the airport store doesn't hurt their business) in your carry-on.
3. Enter "The Loop" shopping area.  The Whiskey Collection is towards the far left side as you enter from security.  Take care of your shopping.  Keep in mind that you carry your purchase with you; it is not delivered plane-side as some operations do.
4. Clear US Immigration and Customs.  The airline and various authorities will tell you to get here between 1.25 and 1.5 hours before your flight OR ELSE!!!!!!!!  Here is what I'll say about that:  the lines can be very long.  I arrived in line 1 hour and 10 minutes before departure time.  I stood in line for 30 minutes and was processed in well under 5 minutes.  The entire time I stood in line, the video screen showed my flight as "Final Call" so I was alarmed.
5. After you are interviewed by the CBP officer, you proceed to another security checkpoint.  My heart fell as I approached this, thinking "crap! they are going to confiscate my whiskey and it's probably too late to check a bag!"  I put my whiskey on the x-ray machine, in the umtampered duty-free sealed bags.  I am pretty sure this is key - do not open the bags and repack until you have landed in the US and entered the domestic terminal.  Nobody batted an eyelash at my booze.  They did make me take off my shoes here, and of course the laptop and small liquids in a quart ziploc rule applied to non-sealed liquids.  There were no magnetometers, and certainly no "advanced screening" machines here.  I am not sure if this checkpoint was more for CBP to find contraband or for TSA to "secure" the plane.  In any case, it seemed an asinine hassle since we'd just cleared Irish security only moments before, but you didn't hear me complaining because I had to catch my "Last Call" flight!
6. I arrived at the gate with about 40 minutes to go before departure time - the screens still flashing "Last Call" in desperation.  I'd say about 80% of the passengers had already boarded.  However, I certainly wasn't even close to being the last.  We actually departed a few minutes late, so I ended up sitting on the plane for nearly an hour before we moved an inch.  This was probably my biggest beef with this whole process - to me, "Last Call" means the plane is imminently leaving.  Say, within 10 minutes, and they are waiting on only one or two passengers.  In this case, I know that they used the Last Call thing to get everyone to go through the CBP process as early as possible and that's fine since it's a process that most people aren't familiar with.  But next time, I'll know not to even think about panicking at those words, at least in this airport.
7. So there you have it.  We were airborne shortly thereafter, and, as advertised, we pulled up to the domestic terminal in Newark and proceeded straight on without further security screening.  I was able to carry my 2 liters of booze right on to my connection and all the way home.

Five Kilos of Coke

I recently transported five kilos of Coke across international boundaries.

I was forced into this trade by the Coca-Cola company, who, in the mid-80's, pulled a fast one on the American consumer - or, more accurately, a slow one.  They introduced a horrendously bad product called "New Coke" which, now with the benefit of hindsight, was purposely bad, so that they could then switch "back" to "Coke Classic" a few months later.  Only thing is, "back" is not entirely accurate, because what they switched to wasn't the same thing as what they had been producing before.

They had substituted high fructose corn syrup for cane sugar.  This change went largely unnoticed by the American consumer, because they were just glad to be rid of New Coke.  The company claims even today that most people can't tell the difference.  This says something about either the company (they are complete liars) or the American consumer (they can't tell piss from 1961 Chateau Latour).

I drink more Coke in the couple of weeks that I am outside of the United States than I do during the rest of the year in the country.  There's a reason for this, and the reason is quite simple:  taste.  I suppose I should be thankful that Coke tastes so bad in the States, because I'd be a fat lazy slob if I drank as much Coke in country as I do out of the country.

My understanding is that the only country in the world where Coke is produced with HFCS is the United States.  But I'm not completely sure of that and there doesn't seem to be a good Internet resource on this, so I've decided to start a little journal here.  Below I have begun a list of locales where I have been able to find sugar cane Coke, and when I verified this fact.  My goal is to grow the list as my travels allow.  Feel free to add your experience to the comments.

The format is as follows:
Country of Bottler - Date Last Verified - Location of Last Sighting

Japan - 30 Nov 2008 - Narita Airport convenience store
Mexico - Oct 2008 - 99 Ranch Market, Lynnwood, WA, USA
Singapore - 30 Nov 2008 - United Airlines flight from TPE to NRT
Taiwan - Nov 2008 - various 7 Eleven stores in Taipei, Taichung, and Tainan

The Palin Office Conundrum

I have a problem with all this making fun of Sarah Palin.

It's not that it's undeserved.  It's not even that her "positions" are defensible.

It's that it makes me extremely uncomfortable to watch her.  It is the same problem that I have with watching the TV show "The Office."  While I find the humor in the show quite hilarious and I spend most of the show laughing like the writers intended, I also spend most of the show cringing.

Watching Sarah Palin speak is like watching the most hilarious thing you've ever seen while undergoing dental surgery before the advent of anesthetics.  Frankly, it is not something that I look forward to.  So I'm going to try to avoid all this Palin-bashing, if only to spare myself the spine shivering (rip-roarin') spectacle.

Besides, it's not like I needed any further convincing.

The Dominos Fall

Okay.  So it's 6 PM on Saturday.  I'm watching College Football like every patriotic American with my family and a buddy.  We're hungry.  So we decide upon that most mainstream, American, and patriotic of meals:  we order pizza for delivery to our lazy fat patriotic asses.

Or, at least we try.

This is the story of my attempt to order pizza from Dominos this evening.

This being 2008 and years into the Internet era, I first went to dominos.com to place the order online.  This affront to patriotism tells me that my local store is "temporarily" not accepting Internet orders.  Annoyed, I resigned myself to having to actually interact with a human being, albeit on the phone.  In preparation for this very important phone call (what could be more important than acquiring sustenance?) I went back to the website in order to determine what we were going to order and how much it would cost.  You know, to make sure we had sufficient funds to cover the expenditure.  I know this is possibly quite un-American, given that the greatest American financial institutions do not follow this measure of responsbility, but that is a topic for another article.  To my frustration, the website insisted that I register in order to obtain this information.

So i went ahead and registered, despite now being thoroughly annoyed at the inconsiderate means with which Dominos would surely violate my privacy with the information that I had to give them.  After several minutes, we came to the conclusion of what to order and how much it would cost us (sort of, since we had to lie about which store we were "ordering" from since our pathetic local store was "temporarily" not accepting Internet orders (or any orders, as we would soon discover, at least from us)).

Armed with this information, I made the call to what appeared to be a local phone number.  Not only that, but a number which appeared to be unique to our store.  The recorded message that greeted me informed me that I could now place this order online!  Please go to dominos.com to do that!  Yes!  Please!  You complete imbiciles.  An automated system then asked me for my name and phone number, before passing me along to a "real" "human" "being."

My call was finally answered by somebody working in a call center.  The first question he asked me?  My phone number.  These people clearly value efficiency and have the utmost consideration for their customers' time.  After providing my number again, along with my address and, oh, what the hell, my name again...  why not? I was at last able to place my order.

At this point, thinking I had at last endured the last of the Dominos Trials for this evening, I prepared to have my order read back to me and to receive my total and estimated delivery time, along with perhaps a "thank you" or other meaningless pleasantry.

But that would have been waaaaaaay too easy and hardly worthy of a blog entry.

Instead, this fine call centerman informed me that he was having trouble obtaining my total.  And that he would transfer me over to the actual local store in order to complete my order.  You know, because having me just talk to someone in the store in the first place would have been un-American and inefficient.  I was placed on hold for a moment while this happened.

When a girl who must have failed kindergarten answered the phone, she had no idea why I was there.  Frustrated that Mr. Callcenterman had neglected to spare me this indignation, I had to spend several minutes just explaining what had happened.  I guess I could have just jumped right into placing my order, but I didn't want to have two orders or be charged twice or some other screw up.  And considering Callcenterman seemed as competent as my Sprint "customer" "service" "agents" I could assume nothing.

I was finally able to place my order with Failed Kindergarten Girl, who asked me for my phone number and address.  Again.  And...

Again.

and...

Again.

Yes, this individual asked me for this information three times.  Before I even placed my order.

While placing my order, she asked me to confirm that I wanted Buffalo Shit Kickers three, three, three times.

And then, while preparing to summarize my order, she repeated my phone number.  Incorrectly.

And then, she asked me for my address.  Again.

I declined to provide it.

Instead, I will never, ever, order from Dominos Pizza again.  An institution which has such poor judgment and incompetent personnel working for them should not be permitted to supply food to me, or anybody.  I'm having Pizza Hut delivered instead, for almost twice the price.  But in terms of value, it is a much better deal.

The Modern Siege

When we think of the word siege in military terms, images of fortified walled cities in antiquity surrounded by huge armies for months come to mind.  The reasons for besieging a city are many and varied in the annals of human history.  Most of the time, the reason was obvious:  neither the attackers nor defenders could gain the upper hand, and a months or years long siege would result from the stalemate.  In antiquity, it was far too easy for the besiegers to become besieged themselves; sometimes from a relieving army allied with the defenders, sometimes from disease, and all too often, from the onset of winter.  So it was not often that an attacking army would choose to besiege a city when they could gain the upper hand in combat easily.

From the attackers' perspective, the purpose of a siege was simple:  surround the city, thereby cutting off the lines of communication, supply, and reinforcement from the outside, and eventually, the defenders would capitulate or starve in defiance.

With the evolution of warfare into the modern era, the concept of a walled city became obsolete and sieges have become a thing of the past.  (The German siege of Stalingrad in World War II being the last siege in the traditional sense of the word that I can recall.)  That being said, however, I realized the other day that, in fact, the idea of the siege is actually very much alive and well in the strategic planning of wars today.  The difference now, however, is that the siege is no longer merely applied to one city, but rather an entire enemy state at once.

I speak, of course, of the deceptively benevolent sounding "economic sanctions" deployed by today's major powers against their enemies.  If the purpose of a siege was to cut off the lifeblood of a city, then the purpose of economic sanctions is, of course, to cut off the lifeblood of an entire nation.  Economic sanctions are the modern equivalent of the siege.

When economic sanctions are levied against an enemy, the United Nations is very careful to direct them against the government, since it is not politically correct to say "we are going to starve these people out."  But that is, in fact, exactly what is going on.  While economic sanctions are usually levied to achieve some political outcome, a reasonable person cannot help but conclude that the only people who are actually hurt by economic sanctions are regular citizens.  It's simple:  if you are the despotic leader of some small aggressor country, and the world body has decided to cut you off, are you going to let yourself and your friends starve or are you going to keep on eating while some poor people at the bottom of your society starve instead?

So what is the point of the modern siege?  Is it to soften up the defenders while the attackers muster the strength to overcome their defenses and invade?  Sort of.

Since we all know that militarily, the major world powers need absolutely no softening of their enemies to make short work of them, the real purpose of economic sanctions, then, must be to provide political gain.  And in fact, this is exactly what economic sanctions are for:  it is unpopular in the modern world for powers to run roughshod over enemies, regardless of who they are or how deserving they are.  So it is necessary to put on the farce for a while, giving the despot a "chance" to change their evil ways, before the major powers go in and run roughshod over the pathetic defenders.

The problem with this modern siege is the same problem the ancients had:  besieged people are not happy people.  How can it be a surprise, then, that after a decade long siege of Iraq, the people haven't rushed out and embraced their conquerors?  Indeed, the program of economic sanctions, this modern-day equivalent of the siege, has created a whole generation of fighters who will fight the only way they have any chance of not being slaughtered en masse:  through terrorism.

Dragontail Peak

Dragontail

On Saturday, I summited Dragontail Peak (8840'+).  Obviously, it's been an incredibly slow year in terms of mountaineering, but I finally have something to write about other than rants against the telcos.  After being an instructor for a basic climbing class in the Spring, I took some time off for family, barely staying in shape to attempt Mt. Rainier via the Emmons route last month.  Unfortunately, I tweaked my knee a couple of weeks before I was to make that attempt, on (of all hikes) Mt. Si.  The injury wasn't particularly obvious at the time, but the pain got worse as time went on, and it was one of those things where it wasn't caused by one big event.  It was probably caused by descending too fast having not been out on the trails for a good couple of months.

In any case, I made the hike up to Bandera Mountain last week with a couple of friends from out of town, and although the knee was painful, I decided it was good enough to make the attempt on Dragontail as long as I took it easy.

We got to the trailhead at about 10:00 on Friday and proceeded to set up tents for the "nap" until 4:15.  By just after 5, we were on the trail.  The first part of this climb is along the same trail that one takes to Colchuck Peak.  Just about 8, we met up with the other half of our team, which had spent the night at Colchuck Lake thanks to their backcountry camping permit.

Being my first "real" climb of the year, I was really apprehensive in some ways.  I kept thinking that I'd forgotten some vital piece of gear or that I wouldn't be prepared.  And of course, in the back of my mind was the constant thought that my knee problems only really seemed to kick in on descent.  So what if I made it up to 8840' and couldn't come down?

Morning Azure

On the other hand, it felt great to be climbing with these guys again, especially once we slogged our way up the loose scree and rocks of Asgaard Pass.  Once at the top of the pass, we hit a snowy bowl and gaitered up, switching the poles for ice axes.  We also filtered some water.  As it turns out, my paranoia about supplies was a good thing, because I even packed the water filter.  Considering the heat, there was no way we could have had enough water without it.  I polished off about 7 liters during the day.

Surprisingly, I didn't really feel tired at any time during the climb.  The snow was welcome relief for feet, and the climbing continued steadily.  The nice thing about this route was that we were able to climb in shade all the way up Asgaard Pass, taking the heat only after we got into the snow bowl.  We made the col and then scrambled up a few more rocks to the summit after taking a quick break.  We made the summit at about 12:30.  It was a clear, beautiful day, and aside from a little smog or smoke from fires, we were able to take in a gorgeous panorama that included Mts. Rainier, Adams, Baker, Stuart, and Glacier Peak as well.

Those of us who had overnight permits then continued on to climb Witches Tower, and one of them soloed Little Annapurna as well.  I was a bit jealous, but soon put that aside as I concentrated on the descent.

Up to the Col

Now the descent...  and the big question of the knee.  As it turned out, I was able to descend with just a constant pain throughout the afternoon.  It never really got terrible, but neither did it totally go away.  I took it very easy, and I have to admit that it was due to this slow pace that our descent took just as long as the ascent, which, I'm sure, was frustrating to the others.

Sadly, I even got to practice my ice axe arrest as I slipped while plunge stepping down the bowl, and then later, again, when I let a glissade get just a bit out of control.

Strangely enough, the knee actually seemed to do better on rocky steps than descending along the trail.  I made some adjustments to how I used the poles and that also seemed to help.  Coming down Asgaard, the main challenges were the loose rock and the overbearing sun.  The temps got up over 90 F in Leavenworth, and while it probably wasn't that bad up in the mountains, it sure felt that bad...

The only other challenge along the way was the bugs.  The mosquitos were out in force, and no amount of bug juice solved the problem entirely.  We all ended up with our share of bites.

We made the car at just after 8 PM, which seemed like forever, but at the same time, I kind of had a feeling it was take that long given my knee.  It was about the same as we'd taken on Colchuck last year, though that involved some crampons and hard snow up the very steep Colchuck Glacier.

All in all a great climb.  At this point I only have one other climb planned for the rest of the season, but maybe that will change.  Who knows...

iPhone or pPhone? (perfect Phone)

Years and years ago, I implored the browser development community to come up with a web browser that gave me, the user, control over cookies, pop-ups, and other hijackings like window resizing or movement.  Mozilla was the first browser that answered not one, but all of my requests, and I'm happy to say that to this day, I still use the descendant of Mozilla, Firefox.

Now I realize that hardware manufacturers are not remotely as innovative or responsive as the open-source community that gave us Mozilla and Firefox, but I am going to try the same thing for a mobile phone.  I'm tired of being negative towards my mobile phone and the industry without so much as providing them a blueprint for what I want.  So I present my wish list:  the perfect phone.

The Perfect Phone

• No larger than 3" x 1" x 0.4" (if shaped cylindrically, a maximum diameter of 0.5") closed.
  
• Flip or slide mechanism - key guard is stupid, just give me the flip.  The flip is the ideal form factor for a phone.  It serves the functions of key guard and screen protector while keeping the form factor reasonable.  The challenge with the flip is that it has to be well-designed and well-constructed to endure the mechanism strain over the phone's lifetime.  This is easily addressed with good materials, engineering, and production.
• If shaped cylindrically, it should look like a short pen when closed.  Instead of a flip, I "click" the phone like a click pen and voila, it extends by a couple of inches so that you can see a small screen (say from 3" to 5").
  
• World compatible (ie. I can turn it on and use it on any digital mobile network - whether that means Quad band or tri-mode or whatever, I don't care.  Stop muddling the issue with jargon and just give me what I want.)
• 5 hours of talk time, 100 hours of standby time minimum
• 8 kB of memory, maximum - why maximum?  So the only thing I can put in there is names and phone numbers.  If I wanted any more features, I'd get a smartphone.
• 1-bit color display capable of displaying a 20 letter name and 20 digit phone number simultaneously.  I don't care if this is implemented with a series of 7-segment LEDs or if it's implemented with a 320x72 LCD.  Again, stop muddling the issue with jargon and "features" and just give me what I want.  The display must be readable in direct sunlight and the brightness must either automatically adjust or be easily adjustable so as to not blind me while I am drunk dialing in the middle of the cold dark night.
  
• The speaker driver must be made of high quality materials, such as molybdenum.  Really what I'm looking for here is high fidelity sound.  The mobile network is bad enough sound-quality-wise, the last thing I need is to have my phone contributing even more degredation to the signal before it reaches my ear.  Again, the phone must be built solidly enough that even if I turn it up a LOT the phone won't start to rattle like those cheap car stereo installs where every time the bass comes in their whole deck vibrates audibly to everyone in a two block radius.
• Speakerphone would be nice, but really I could give less a shit if the regular phone was high quality and fidelity.
  
• No camera, no internet, no Bluetooth, nothing.  Really, I don't even care to see a mic/headset hands-free port.  When you're in the car, drive.  Talk when you're sitting on the shitter.
• In fact, no ports at all.  Not even power.  Yes, you heard me.  I want this phone to operate on either 1 AA or 2 AAA batteries.  I am tired of having ten million different batteries.  We have a standard for batteries, and they're even rechargeable now.  At every opportunity, I've chosen the appliance that uses standard batteries over proprietary batteries.  This makes me a more efficient user of resources and energy, to say nothing of the impact if society as a whole would wake up to this stupidity.
  
• Since it has no ports, the phone should be waterproof to a depth of 50'.  This is optional, but it would be nice.
  
• Keys must be labeled for number and letter dialing.  I can't believe I have to fucking ask for this "feature" which has been standard on every phone I have ever seen in my entire life except for those costing more than $200.
• Clock, which is set from the mobile network's signal but can maintain the time without a signal.  One alarm.
• Classy, high-quality materials.  Why does every "simple" phone that American telcos offer look like it was designed for sale at Wal/K-Mart?  I want a simple phone that is encased in brushed aluminum or magnesium and/or carbon fibre.  The keys should be aluminum, with laser etched backlit numbers and letters.  I'm tired of cheap plastic shit that wears off within a few months of use.
• Lifetime warranty, including the flip mechanism of course.
  
• I will pay $1000 for this phone, but I refuse to be locked into any contract or network.
  

Motorola Q: Equine Excrement

A little over a year ago, I underwent an utterly hellish process to stay loyal to Sprint and get a Motorola Q.  One day, I may document this on the blog, but not today.  I have all the e-mails saved, and the memory of the multitudes of phone calls with incompetent, undertrained, ineffective "customer" "service" "agents" will be forever seared into my memory...  I imagine that if I ever get Alzheimer's and forget my own name I will still remember the pain that this process caused.

You would think that enduring that kind of pain would net something worthy of the process.  Unfortunately, after a long year of continued frustration and just astonished, flabbergasted bewilderment, I now find it necessary to document all the ills of this phone.  I don't know if these problems are Motorola's fault, Sprint's fault, or Microsoft's fault, but frankly, I don't give a damn.  The phone is the technological equivalent of equine excrement, and every day it surprises me in some new way.  90% of the stress in my day comes from traffic, but the remaining 10% comes from my having to use the Motorola Q.

• First off, the hardware...  about the only good thing I can say about this phone is that it is built fairly solidly.  I've dropped it a couple of times and it's held up well.  Plus, the sexy black rubberized-for-your-pleasure finish is not only aesthetically pleasing but also functions to assist in grip.
• There is a set of maladies which I would like to characterize as "poor battery life," but that doesn't even begin to tell the story.  In fact, it's kind of misleading, because on a brand new battery, it was acceptable.  That is to say, on a full charge when the battery and phone were brand new, I could go an entire day with a little surfing, a little talking on the phone, and some SMS messages without having to worry too much.  Unfortunately, within 6 months, the battery life began to drop noticeably.  I am a fucking battery hound, period.  I am so anal about my batteries that I have a spreadsheet to track the charge that goes into each and every NiMH battery that I own (I have a special charger that lets me cycle each battery fully on every charge and track the energy put into every individual cell).  So don't tell me about how to properly take care of batteries.  My last phone, a Samsung Palm device, was still holding charge on its battery at a level indistinguishable from brand new 3 years later.  On the Q now, if I make it through a whole day without getting a low battery warning, I go and buy a lottery ticket because it's my fucking lucky day.
• What's even more frustrating is that the phone will literally turn itself off as if the battery died for no reason whatsoever, randomly.  I can be sitting there with 3 bars (out of 4) on the batt indicator, and five minutes later, I look at my phone, and it's fucking taking a personal day.  When I power it back on, it comes up with a random number of bars.  Sometimes, it's 3 like before it turned itself off, sometimes it gives me a low battery warning with 0 bars.  What a piece of junk.  I'd pick up a spare battery, but I refuse to give Motorola more money for a defective product.
• The "flash" on the camera must be short for "flashlight" because it is not a "flash" in the photographic sense of the word.
  
• Software-wise, it's just unbelievably buggy.  They couldn't even get something as fundamental as dialing right.  When you're on the "home" screen and press a number, it is supposed to put you into dialing mode.  The numbers you press show up at the top, and simultaneously, it brings up possible matches for the letters underneath out of your address book.  This is pretty standard for any mobile phone since, oh, I dunno...  1990?  But no, not on the Q.  Right now, as I type this rant, if I hit any number or letter from the "home" screen, what do I get?  My fucking calendar.
• Also, there is an entire friggin' qwerty keyboard on this phone.  You'd think you'd be able to dial 1-800-MOTO-SUX but no.  You have to translate the letters yourself and then dial the numbers.  How hard would it have been to include some "letter dialing" mode?  I mean, I don't even need it to be automatic.  I'd be fine with having to press alt- or shift- or whatever.  But no.  Nothing.
• Don't even get me started on IE.
• ActiveSync is neither active nor does it sync.  It is a royal pain in the ass to use, and frankly I doubt that 99% of people who don't have professional IT support have ever sync'd their Q's to their Windows machine.  And if you want to sync over Bluetooth, you might as well hit any number or letter on your Q to bring up your calendar so you can cancel your appointments for the next three days because that's how long it'll take you to figure that shit out.

I'll continue to post the misadventures I have with this phone, which I am convinced must be standard issue in Purgatory.  After all, I am locked into this contractually for another year thanks to the orifices which are the telcos.  But as long as I have to put up with this crap I might as well get my word in edgewise on it.