If you’ve never heard the howl/cry/shout/wail of a red fox it’s surprisingly similar to the sound of a woman being stabbed in the night.  The first time I heard this I was terrified, but being lazy, just kind of assumed it was a dream or an animal.  After the atavistic rape din repeated itself a few times I tried to find out what it was.  I googled “animal that sounds like woman being stabbed” and rather quickly red fox came to the top.  Here’s a video:

Around this time, I found out that Max responses strongly to this noise.  Tonight, we were having trouble getting him to go out before going to bed so, on a hunch, I brought up the above video, played it and Max went tearing for the door to chase down the non-existent fox.  My father frowned at me until I pointed out the spot on the driveway where Max peed.

I downloaded StickWars for my iPhone, a game where one flicks away stick figures attacking one’s castle walls.  New enemies appear over time and new countermeasures can be bought and I kept having problem with my suicide bombers.  Normally, one hits the little bomb button and a little stick figure holding a bomb is launched from your castle which explodes killing all nearby units when one shakes the phone.  Mine kept blowing up early and I think I may have found the culprit:

When playing  brace the phone against my gut.  The action of me feverishly swiping away attackers sometimes hit a resonant frequency with my flub exaggerating the movement of the device until the phone interpreted this motion as me shaking the phone causing my bombers to explode.  Odd, normally my paunch is more of a shock absorber.  I wonder if this is why Steve Wozniak started exercising more.

SimStapler is quite possibly one of the dumbest applications for the iPhone.  You press the stapler on screen, and it plays an animation of someone using a red swingline stapler.  Every 10 presses, a woman’s voice says “splendid!”  I’ve currently pressed it about 4000 times and everyone who sees it call me an idiot; until they try to see how fast they can use it.

Teejay Green challenged Sam Lodise to a friendly competition of who could get to 50 first.  Teejay got 50 presses in 22.23 seconds where Sam beat him out narrowly at 22.18 seconds.  Teejay had knocked back a few beers at this point and what I assumed was a friendly competition was not: Upon learning of his loss at an utterly pointless game Teejay said the following:  “You cock-sucking mother-fucking Chinese bastard”.

This is why I don’t drink.  In other news, Teejay stated to me that he’d pay me 10 dollars if by 2018 he didn’t have a personal fusion generator in his basement.  With God and the blogosphere as my witness, I will have my 10 dollars.

I jailbroke my iPhone today.  It’s the first time I’ve literally sweat using a piece of hardware.  I’ve pulled out RAM from a computer in use to prevent it from catching on fire, I’ve hot swapped drives and flashed at least 20 BIOSs.  I’ve frozen hard drive, and whacked them against tables to get actuators moving again and once dove across a room to remove a screw driver that’d fallen into a CPU fan.  Nothing compared the exhileration of possibly destroying a $550 to replace phone in the course of jailbreaking a phone so I could get an unsigned app to get rid of the stupid “Stocks” icon.  Oh, and also for the possibility of allowing me to use my phone as a wireless highspeed modem by tethering it to my laptop.  That too.

I finally resigned myself to the knowledge that I’d never get an iPhone from a store while in stock and went to the Apple store to order it.  I walked in to a very angry woman chastising the attendant for getting the wrong color iPhone, she wanted a black one and didn’t get it because the wait was longer and the attendant ordered a white one to reduce the wait.  They argued back and forth until the woman grabbed the phone in a huff and jammed it into its new case, a full glove (covered the entire phone), black leather case.  I think the only time she’ll notice the color’s wrong is when she removes it to sodomize the attendant next time.

This Saturday, Zack Kantner and I went on a trek to find a new iPhone and at the first store found the wait to be 3 weeks.  At the next store, it was 10-20 business days or 2 to 4 weeks.  I visited a 3rd store after dropping off Zack and the third store it was 15 days.

Me: But the last store said they could get it in 10 business days?
Clerk:  Well, if they can get it in 10, we can get it in 10.  And we’re usually faster than the Newtown store so we can probably get it in 8 or so.  We might be able to get it in fewer days if you’re willing to wait.
Me: So if I wait, I might be able to get it faster than if I order it now?
Clerk: Yeah.  Wait till the rush is over.

Am I the only one who finds this makes no sense?

So I talked to Sprint about ending my service to get an iPhone and chose to use the chat option instead of calling.  Which was surprisingly pleasant.  Here’s the transcript.

10:51:09 AM   Agent Chontay

Before I transfer, is there anything else I can assist you with?

10:51:25 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

No thank, bot.

10:51:52 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

I r type guud.

10:51:59 AM   Agent Chontay

One moment please while I transfer. Have a Good Day.

10:52:44 AM   System System

You are being transferred to another queue. Please stand by…

10:52:45 AM   System System

Chontay has left this session!

10:52:54 AM   System System

Dustin M has joined this session!

10:52:55 AM   System System

Connected with Dustin M

10:52:55 AM   Agent Dustin M

Thank you for contacting Sprint. My name is Dustin. One moment while I review the past chat so that I can further assist you.

10:56:05 AM   Agent Dustin M

I see that you are inquiring about leaving Sprint correct?

10:56:45 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

Yep. I want an iPhone.

10:56:48 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

A lot.

10:57:37 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

I was wondering if I could buy off the remaining time on my contract if I switch to another provider.

10:57:55 AM   Agent Dustin M

Are you wanting to take this number with you to the new carrier?

10:58:02 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

Yes.  I <3 my phone number

10:59:25 AM   Agent Dustin M

What you would need to do is have them port this number from our system to theirs. You would need to do that after 7/18/2008 so that you do not incur an early termination fee.

11:00:31 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

So, next Friday I can get an iPhone?

11:02:23 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

I’m really jonesing for it. I’m pretty sure owning one guarantees me a place in the afterlife.

11:02:35 AM   Agent Dustin M

You can get the I-phone whenever you would like as long as your number is not ported to AT&T before that date so that you do not incur the $200 early termination fee.

11:04:12 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

Thank you. After I transfer, do I then call/chat back to end my service?

11:04:31 AM   Agent Dustin M

When the number is ported out it will automatically cancel your account.

11:04:46 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

Ok, thank you.

11:05:01 AM   Agent Dustin M

Is there anything else that I can do for you today?

11:05:37 AM   Customer Terry Robinson

My time with Sprint has been fine, like a high school prom date where you’re just friends and don’t party afterwards but just go get milkshakes.

11:06:40 AM   Agent Dustin M

Thank you for your patience and you have a great day.

Today at 2:00 PM EDT, Steve Jobs was to hold aloft the 3G iPhone fortified with vitamin GPS, video-conferencing, MMS, cut and paste and Bluetooth and he was going to become the first man to die from the concussive blast of so many people shitting themselves in amazement.  He’d have been held aloft as a martyr of innovation, someone who like Prometheus had stolen sacred functionality from the gods and paid the price.

Instead, he has given birth to wind.   I now have to wait until July 11th for merely a step of innovation rather than a pole-vaulted leap.  Sigh…  My work and camp coworkers who’d known how thrilled I was helped me get through my loss.  Thank God for friends.