Interests and Annoyances

There are recurring interests in my life that are annoyances of sorts. For instances, I'm basically annoyed by the fact that I'm interested in videogames. I wish I wasn't. But I am, and after deciding recently that all I really wanted to play was badass FPSes such as Rage (which is awesome, if very derivative -- so maybe not awesome, maybe just very fun with excellent, if overrated, graphics), I've now been convinced by the numerous critics singing its praises that I must play Persona 4.

Here's the rub: I've got a PS2 that came to me free of charge from someone who'd acquired a PS3.  Awesome! But it's in the basement attached to a 19" CRT TV. Not so aweome.  Plus, the newest version of Persona 4 is for the little handheld PlayStation Vita and it's supposed to be even better than the super awesome meg-fantastic PS2 version.

So I guess I gotta buy a Vita.

Now for most people making the adequate amount of bread that I make, dropping $260.00 to get this thing I really want would be no big deal. For me, it's akin to climbing Everest: months of planning, weeks of prep, and a short but exhausting period of execution. So here's the plan: eBay the DS, with its accessories and all games for $100. Sell my old phone (the not so lovable Droid X) with its charging station, et al. for $50.  Buy the Vita and P4G (as it's referred to) for $110 out of pocket.  Play the game over the next year or two (it's a long game -- 90-100 hours), then sell the Vita for at least $80.  Net cost to me (not counting the costs of the DS and the X): $30.

Okay, so that covers Annoying Interest #1.  Annoying Interest #2: guns.

I consider my family (the one where I was an electron, not the one where I am a proton or perhaps a neutron) to be a gun family.  I got a 20 gauge shotgun for Christmas when I was, like, 13. I got a concealed carry permit when I was 18.  We shot guns at camps and, on rare occasions, inside our house in the city of Syracuse.

Earlier this year I bought a shotgun. Now I'm thinking pistol.

The problem with it all is that the thing I need that is most like my need for a hole in my skull is another hobby. I don't have time for another hobby. Currently, I can't regularly saddle up the bike and ride off for a few hours on a Saturday. I can plop down in front of my bitchin' 22" TV and play Rage for a few hours. I can barely maintain my bike, car, and real estate. So taking up a time- and money-intensive hobby like pistol shooting seems foolish.

On the other hand, it's something I want to do and I'm 42 and not, as it turns out, getting any younger.

My reason seems to be tussling with my lust for life. We'll see who comes out on top.

Upgrade Time!

I've now had a cell phone for 20 months, and am eligible for an upgrade through Verizon. It's tempting, because the Motorola Droid X (which was not my first choice, but was what I got after being sick of the unavailability of the Droid Incredible and the HTC Evo) is slow and getting slower. There are probably fixes to this, including rooting (which I've never attempted, although that was one of the things that attracted me to Android in the first place). The slowness would almost be worth demonstrating on video, but instead I'll use words. Touch the Wi-Fi toggle widget, as a for instance, and it will take five, ten seconds -- or longer! -- to even register the touch. Then the little impeller icon spins and spins for... thirty seconds? Longer? Before turning off the damned wi-fi. Touch a contact icon to make a phone call, and you get a similar wait. When I need to make a phone call quickly, this becomes maddening.

So be it. It's a damned space age minicomputer. But it's human nature to want something to work the way it's supposed to. A hammer with a wobbly head is also annoying. The worst thing about the Droid X, though, is that the headphone jack is so sensitive that it renders the FM radio (an app I use five days a week during my commute to and from work) nearly useless. If you so much as breathe on the jack when the FM radio is playing, the phone starts the music player. It happens over and over.

As of March 15 I'm eligible for an upgrade. The Galaxy Nexus is appealing, but I have the sneaking suspicion it's not really a Nexus. And it's got a mediocre camera. I don't want another Motorola. The HTC One series looks pretty sweet, but they're not out yet and no word on whether they're coming to Verizon.

Thankfully, the Android community came to my rescue in the form of Headset Blocker. This free app solves the most frustrating problem of my phone: the sensitive headphone jack. Turns out that the phone senses a disturbance to the jack as a signal from an in-line pause/play button (that some headphones, but not mine, have). This is a hardware issue, but the app fixes it by telling the phone to ignore any "signals" from the headphone line. Bammo! The phone is still annoyingly slow, but at least I no longer want to throw it into traffic three times a day.

So I will wait another six months or so and see what comes along. I want my next phone -- if I even renew the data contract and keep owning a smartphone -- to be a quantum leap forward in functionality.

We'll see.