Detroit at 52 mph

I finally got a new phone.

The ear speaker (as opposed to the speakerphone) had broken on my dear old Sidekick II a while ago (like, months), and I never seemed to know where my earpiece was, so I stopped using it as a phone. Then the email server stopped cooperating with Hotmail. Then I was sporadically not getting text messages.

I continued to stubbornly hold off replacing the handset until T-Mobile released the new Sidekick LX, which was slated for the end of October. That would answer all my problems! Right? Well. The day the hardware was released, I called T-Mobile -- with whom I had been out of contract for something like two years -- and told them I'd been waiting for three months to get this new phone, remaining loyal to T-Mo the whole time, no matter what everyone said about them and their smelly service.

"I have a corporate discount. I'm willing to sign a 2 year contract. I've been a customer of yours for three years. What's the best price you can give me on the new Sidekick?"

"$299.99."

"That's insane. I can actually get an iPhone for $300.* And ATT's service plan costs about the same as yours." (*I have a friend.)

"Well, I can understand why you'd want to get an iPhone then."

So not only did I finally get a new phone, I got a Jesusphone. I resisted. I really did. It's all T-Mobile's fault.

It takes pretty good pictures, though.