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My iPhone was stolen.

Okay, I know. I just heard you gasp and felt the disdain as you painfully exhaled and shook you fist at the sheer injustice. No, really.

It happened about a week ago and at the point in time I realized it was REALLY gone, I actually felt the machine rip the connection out of the back of my skull, flush me down the toilet and I was being woken up aboard the Nebakanezer shaking in the fetal position. It was really horrible. Seriously.

So I’ve lived the last week with no cell phone. I connected the 8525 up to our WiFi and browsing with it was like getting out of a Ferrari and being forced into a Geo Metro. It was slow and clunky and only had one browser available at a time and I had to click 14 different times to get Windows Mobile to check my email and I JUST FELT SO DIRTY.

I decided to not even activate a new SIM card for the 8525. I’d just try to live through the nightmare of being detached from the entire world for as long as it took me to come up with the $399 to replace it. Then I decided to make all the money online because I felt like an asshat because TECHNICALLY, I left the phone on the sink in the bathroom and I realize that it’s completely my fault that it was taken (well, my fault and the theiving bitch face that took it) and I’m not going to dent the bank account because of my dumbassness.

Then my mom INSISTED on buying it for me. Seriously.

Mom: So it never turned up?
Me: Nope, I’m just going to raise the money to replace it.
Mom: Come over, I want to take you to the Palo Alto Apple store and buy you a new one.
Me: Absolutely not! It’s YOUR birthday! I’m not going to let YOU take ME shopping on YOUR birthday!
Mom: I’m 60 years old, but I will STILL BOX YOUR EARS. I want my kids to be happy. That’s what I want for my birthday.

Ooooookay. So we went to Palo Alto and I got my mom some really cute earrings and lunch and… there are no iPhones in stock. ANYWHERE. In the entire Bay Area. At all.

She ended up ordering me one later online but I’m wondering if I should have waited to get one because clearly if they are out of stock at so many places, ESPECIALLY in the stores that surround the Apple complex, then they are obviously about to drop a new phone. I’ve read rumors of 3G and built in GPS but damn… I don’t think I can go a month or two or three till it comes out. I’m dyin’ over here.

Anyway, again, I’m sorry that I’ve been so quiet lately. I’ve been working on other projects and now that they are getting closer to completion I’ll have more time available again to stop neglecting aflux. Ohhhhh, did you see how I dropped the OTHER PROJECT bomb to leave you all guessing at the end of the post? Oh yeah, I did it! Is it killing you yet?

I know that some of you have been twittering for quite some time and some of you have just been recently introduced to the obsession. It doesn’t matter WHEN you started though because the fact is, if you are twittering, you are hooked. You might send a tweet once a day or multiple times an hour, it doesn’t really matter because YOU HAVE BEEN SUCKED IN. MUAHAHAHA. I admit, my obsession has died down some since that first phone bill arrived with all 2,356 text messages listed and Ben was like, “THINK OF THE TREES!”.

I’ve tried to see if I can have just a select few tweets sent to my phone. Like, I don’t need every single one of Scoble’s tweets (even though I secretly wish I could follow him around from one techy junket to the next) but I would like to get Steen’s. And Jenn’s. And Sewwy’s. (PROPER SEO, Julie! Who, by the way, doesn’t Tweet which makes me sad.) So I think I’ll try when I get home to finally get that all lined up and working properly.

Ben has never really gotten into the whole twittering thing. When he’s seen me send a tweet from the phone or I’ve told him that YOU SO NEED TO TWEET he’s given me his standard “I love you dearly you hot ball of sexyness, but hell to the fuck no” look.

So I have to admit I was a little surprised yesterday the other day when he emailed me a link to a setup that sends you a tweet when your house plant needs to be watered. Surprised because maybe he was suddenly interested in twitter?! NO! Surprised because WE DON’T HAVE ANY HOUSE PLANTS! Well, we do have the one bamboo plant but you pretty much can’t kill those. I mean, you have to TRY and fail them. Maybe Ben would be more interested if there was a way to twitter you when your wife is premenstrual! Dude, somebody should get on that. As long as it doesn’t mean sticking electrodes to my ovaries and stuff. Because, no.

Man, I should really stop blogging when hopped up on Flu medicine.

So um, BLOG GIRLS! Are any of you thinking of attending BlogHer this year in San Francisco? Because it’s SO CLOSE to me. It’s like, right there *points North* and I promised myself last year that I’d attend this year and not be sorry I missed out on all the fun. But the thing is, I’d like to KNOW somebody going. I mean I know OF plenty of people going but I can’t exactly walk up to Heather Amrstong and be all, “HI! I totally stalk, I MEAN READ, your blog and think you are just the bee’s knees and can I sit next to you at the Cool Kid’s table?! Because that would be swell! And you said once that your shampoo smells really good can I just smell your head?! Wait! Where are you going? WHY ARE YOU SPRAYING ME WITH PEPPER SPRAY?!”

Or something.

And all of you who read my blog already know in advance that I’m crazy so it wouldn’t be QUITE as shocking to you. And I’ll probably go regardless but it would be nice to have somebody to hold my hair back after the cocktail parties.

Honestly? This is why I love this man so much. When I’m PMSing and I come across this thing that I think is SO GODDAMN AWESOME but will probably end up with me being shot at by a disgruntled asswad driver, he’s there to talk me down off that cliff.

Benjamin: http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8e9a/
http://www.thinkgeek.com/gadgets/electronic/8e9a/images/2422/
me: OMG!!! I WANT! I WANT!
me: I seriously want that.
Benjamin: Although its a funny idea, I still think that it might be a bad idea for you me: there are no cuss words!
And I bet my ’smile’ to ‘idiot’ would be better than you think.
*ratio
Like 3:1 at least.
And since I could actually SHOW the person what I’m thinking it would mean I’d be less likely to yell it at them when only you can Cassidy can hear it… because they’d KNOW. And that would be the ultimate satisfaction. No yelling necessary!
Are you serious though? I can’t have it?
Benjamin: I’m writing an email right now work related, I’m not even sure if its legal in CA
me: What if I promise not to use it while I’m PMSing?
Benjamin: is it legal in CA?
me: If it’s legal in CA can I get it?
Benjamin: its around the price point that you don’t need to ask, so I don’t know why you’re asking me
me: Because generally, with things like this, you are a better judge of good idea/bad idea.
Benjamin: bad idea
me: heheheheh
(k)
I love you. Even when you are trying to save me from myself.

A few minutes later:

me: hahaa I asked Claudia about it. I usually drive to lunch. Her answer: “As long as you never use it when I’m in the car with you!”

It’s on it’s way. And it’s PINK! Flamingo pink actually. Shut up.

I hit refresh on the refurbished Dell website about 562,226,529,526 times today and there was ONE laptop that met all the requirements. As soon as it popped up I called Ben and tried to act like my brain was not in the process of exploding RIGHT THEN AND THERE because OH MY GOD I WANT THIS LAPTOP and he ordered it for me right away. *swoon*

Inspiron 1520 Notebook: Intel Core 2 Duo T7300 (2.0GHz/800Mhz FSB/4MB cache)
160 GB SATA Hard Drive (5400RPM)
15.4 inch WSXGA+ Notebook Screen with TrueLife (1680 x 1050)
8X DVD +/- RW w/dbl layer write capability
9 Cell Primary Battery
Genuine Windows Vista Home Premium
256MB NVIDIA GeForce 8600M GT
2 GB DDR2 SDRAM 677MHz (2 DIMMs)
Intel 4965 802.11a/g/n Dual-Band Mini Card

I do have to say though, what was with all the pink laptops that had still had stock integrated graphics but upgrades for integrated webcams?! Girls, seriously. What the hell is up with that? I’m kind of ashamed.

P.S. - This is an official reminder to myself to post something soon about Ben’s War of the Ants. It’s getting pretty out of hand. He passed the Raid hurdle and I think I saw him searching google for Do it Yourself Napalm earlier. It’s about to get serious up in here.

Last Friday in a moment of complete madness and click happiness I okay’d an upgrade on the iPhone from firmware 1.0.2. to 1.1.1 and within 30 minutes wanted to throw myself from the Golden Gate to end it all. Ozzy and Sharon said this week that they made a pact that if either of them ever have an illness that effects their brain, they’d assist the other in not prolonging life any more. I thought that was kind of funny coming from a guy that bites off the heads of live bats and a woman that throws pot roasts over her fence at the neighbors… But I think Ben and I need to come up with something similar. If we’re ever forced into using a stupidly inferior firmware on our current obsession the other will find a way to quickly and quietly stop the other’s suffering at whatever cost.

The good news is that the directions offered up on hackin0sh to downgrade actually work. Although, it was much easier then they let on if you had never attempted to unlock your phone. After the restore and two runthroughs of the AppTapp.exe, I just let the phone “restore” via iTunes and BAM! Everything was back. MobileChat, Springboard and all the pretty themes, Customize, the NES emulator, iFlickr, all of my goodness was there.

If you have the phone, and you haven’t upgraded yet and you really depend on any of the awesome applications AppTapp provides, NO NOT UPGRADE. Not only did I lose all those apps, but my battery life was cut by about 25%. I’m not completely certain that was caused by 1.1.1 but today was the first day that I ran out of battery at work after 6 hours of video playback. Prior to this, I was easily making it the full 8 hours of video playback with battery life to spare.

I’m pretty dissappointed with how strict Apple is regarding 3rd party apps. They need to realize how upset people are. People were returning phones in the hopes of getting one that hadn’t been upgraded yet. It’s okay, Apple. We LOVE our iPhones. We’d DIE for our iPhones. We also love the ability to add pink icons to the desktop and to play Super Mario World on them. These apps are making an already awesome piece of equipment even better.

So here’s my suggestion to Apple: Buy AppTapp, open the source, allow geeks to make your product even more valuable to the end user, sell more phones, watch profit grow.

Oh yeah, if I suddenly disappear off the face of the earth one day, it COULD be because I didn’t read the little box that popped up and Ben’s kept up his end of the pact.

For awhile I was really debating what to do come July 20th. I mean, it’s the last book. This is the last time that Cassidy will have the chance to wow her grandkids someday with, “I waited all night in line for that book.” So in the end, I’ve decided that doing it for her alone is worth it.

But I swear to God, if somebody decides to drive through the crowd yelling out who is killed, it will become that time where, “Your great-grandma finally crossed the line to Crazyville and killed somebody over that book. True story. She grabbed him by the neck and actually shoved his own head into his own asshole. Up until then it was just a figure of speech that nobody ever really thought was possible. Not your great-grandma though… she proved them all wrong.”

Plus, I totally bet Ben $10 that I’d make it to midnight.

It’s been far too long since I’ve done a meme. I never do the actual Friday Five on the week it comes out it seems, I look through them and pick one that I feel like answering.

In this one, I firmly secure my geek title. You know, in case you all forgot.

1. What is your favorite board game?
For a big group (SEE: drunk people) I like Taboo. It can be really funny what people will blurt out while drunk. TeeHee My family used to play this game a lot (only, not drunk) and we used to laugh so hard I’d be sore the next day.

For the three of us, Monopoly. Although, Cassidy pretty much kicks my ass at every board game we play (excpet Operation :D) so I stopped playing games with her after she completely ANNIALATED me at the Game of Life. Three times.

I’m a sore loser. Especially when it’s to a (then) 7 year old.

2. What is your favorite card game?
Uno. HA! I’m so lame. After that Jin then Poker.

3. Do you like to play games on the computer or on a gaming system?
PC > Console

*ducks*

4. If so, what is your favorite game to play?
I supposed I should say World of Warcraft since I’ve been pretty much filling every second of free time with it for the last two weeks (Cassidy has been out of town, I’m bored!)… BUT! I’m a big Old School FPS geek. I love me some UnrealTouornament, Quake, Splinter Cell, Tribes, etc.

5. Do you like to play games with people or to play them alone?
I like both but I hate having to depend on random people to play. That’s a big problem when trying to play something like Tribes where you HAVE to team up. I don’t so much mind in Counter Strike becuase you usually LAN or end up teaming up with people you know which isn’t so bad. We used to LAN Counter Strike in the same house but teams would be in seperate rooms so you couldn’t hear stratagy talk. God, I was a geek.

In games like WOW, I just wait for Ben to outlevel me by enough that if I need help, he can come in and wipe out all the baddies while I run around and collect money and loot. It MAY seem like I’m using him but this is a guy I used to follow around in City of Heroes JUST to heal. Not many people have their own personal healer. So I think it balances out somehow.

After I got the site back from being hacked, I decided to do a complete overhaul. Like, everything has been touched. I’ve updated Wordpress and every single Wordpress plugin. I probably dumped 100 datebase tables that hadn’t been used in AGES. Gallery, forum, guestbook, tables created from plugins that I haven’t used in over a year, it was a mess. A MESS! I’d been telling myself that I was going to do that for months and months and had I actually DONE it, the lame ass hacker wouldn’t have had a way in.

SO! The new theme I’m using is Redoable. I really, really, really tried to come up with something on my own and I’d get 75% of the way through a Photoshop mockup, then coding, then tweaking CSS and suddenly I’d hate it and delete the whole thing. Like 5 times. With 5 different themes.

I’d been watching Dean develop and update this theme for quite some time and I liked it from the very beginning. After he developed the twitter plugin I was pretty much sold but gave ONE MORE theme a try and still just wan’t feelin’ it. So I went ahead and started to manipulate Redoable to mold it to my liking. There are still some things I want to work on. I’m going to add back the recent comment plugin but I’m going to tweak the CSS first. I’m also thingking about doing some CSS work to the blogroll… just small stuff here and there.

Overall impressions of the stock theme though are that it’s fantastic. The admin interface makes customization so simple that even if you don’t know much about HTML, PHP or CSS, you can very easily add widgets, change color scheme’s, menu placement, and more.

So there ya go! I wanted to make sure to give the theme a proper plug.

My first photo hit Explore today on flickr. The highest it got was #371 #299 #210(!!). I’m excited because I’ve secretly wished to have something Explore but at the same time I’m perplexed that it’s a picture of my FEET! Not flowers, or a cute kid, or a car. My feet! (Although they are my feet in some of my very hot shoes. ;)) It’s kind of silent vindication for all of those who have called me vain or narcissistic (my dad used that one and I thanked him for finding a much longer, more sophisticated word to make fun ot me ;)) because it was just a road to better photography people! That’s all! Okay, so it was totally me being vain…

So, original plans were to do that Half Dome hike this weekend. A part of me is kinda sad we don’t get to do it because I’m sure I’d end up with some amazing shots with the XTi. A bigger part of me is happy that I won’t be left on the side of a mountain with an ice ax in my head.

The reason we can’t go is because Ben has some stuff that HAS to be done to the track car this weekend or he won’t make it to next Friday’s track day. So since I already had approved PTO for Friday and Monday off, I’ve decided to take it anyway. A four day weekend sounds FABULOUS, yes? I got up and took Cassidy to breakfast before school today. Took a long hot shower with nobody knocking on the door to ask a question, or worried that I was going to use all the hot water, and I SO DID! Then I met Ben for a nice long lunch. Picked Cassidy up from school and now I’m blogging before I lay down and take a nice long nap! She’s off to the park with the neighborhood posse and a few parents to play some baseball.

I had originally planned to do a power cleaning on the house today but, WHY?! I’m on vacation! That’s my montra for the next three days. ‘Why? I’m on vacation?’ I wonder how many times I can use it till Ben snaps?

And! Because I’ve had nothing better to write about lately, another conversation!

This one happened when I got home and Ben had left the cell phone bill on my chair. The same day that my site got hacked and I still had a sense of humor! Previously he said that if we were billed extra for all the Twitters being sent to my phone via SMS he’d not be happy. We weren’t being charged. But GOOD LORD, did you know that Cingular sends you a log of all the text’s? ON PAPER. All 2,356 of them I got last month.

Antigone078: SEE?! I TOLD you the texting wasn’t extra…
Ben: can you call the parents of the tree you killed and give them the bad news?
Antigone078: BWAHAHAH! When I get my blog back: TOTALLY GETTING POSTED!
Ben:

Last week I bought a Canon 100mm f/2.8 USM Macro lens for the XTi. It’s. Amazing. Simply amazing. I’ve only just begun to explore around and play with it and so far it’s just blown me away. I should have gotten this MONTHS ago but I guess now was a perfect time because the weather is clearing up and I’ve realized natural sun light + this lens = MAGIC!!

Here are a few of my favorites so far but there will be many, many, many more to come. Oh, and I started 365 again and I promise not to be a complete failure this time. *grin*