My Ericsson LX588 cellphone passed away suddenly a few days ago, and I'm not going to replace it. I'd gotten caught in heavy rain, with laptop, the new digital camera, and cellphone all in a fairly watertight leather shoulder bag. I ran a hair-dryer over all three electronic devices when I got home, just in case there was any condensation. Laptop and digcam are perfectly fine, but the cellphone refused to work when I plugged the battery back in. The AT&T wireless phone warranty people flipped out when they heard that the phone might've been exposed to moisture — both the rep and her supervisor swore up and down that they couldn't possibly allow me to send the phone back to them, now that they have a suspicion that it might've been exposed to moisture. I decided it wasn't worth my time to force them to accept the phone back, so I'm just going to cancel my cellphone service. I don't think the Ericsson phone should've died like it did, and this particular phone has several obvious engineering flaws I'd noticed before, so if I get a free hour, I'm going to send the phone corpse and a letter to Ericsson HQ. Oh, one thing I did learn from the AT&T rep's script: when you say that the phone might've been exposed to water, the rep has you look at and describe the battery recharging terminals. I assume they're looking for oxidation or leakage of some kind, though conspiracy theorists might wonder if the phone is designed to have a telltale moisture exposure indicator.
My home ADSL link has been down since Friday 8:05pm EDT, and I'm not receiving email til it's back, so hopefully Speakeasy (who I'm normally pleased with) can diagnose the problem quickly. Though you probably won't see this weblog entry before the DSL is back up.
I took advantage of a slow, rainy, connectivityless Saturday morning to write up a page I've been meaning to for awhile: Coping With Vegetarians.
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