Disclaimer: T-Mobile is a Brands2Life client. Microsoft isn’t, I just seem to really like a lot of its tech.

This, I promise, will be the last tech post for a little while, and I’ll think of some non-techie things to write about.

So, I left Orange a few days ago, after using it as my mobile provider for 8 years. Why?

(1) I really have had enough of its marketing. It’s too weird. I like the “Orange Wednesday” guys, but honestly, that’s the only decent thing Orange has done in years.
(2) It doesn’t do an unlimited data tariff. Why not?
(3) Orange have stupid and patronising names for its voice/text tariffs, that bear no relation to what the tariffs offer.

On the flip side, I love the Orange Wednesday promotion and have always had good customer service experiences, so it was a non-trivial decision. But I rang up the disconnection people to present my case and see if they would make me an offer to stay with them… the conversation went a little something like this.

“So, I’m thinking of leaving Orange,” say I, to the customer retention helpline.
“Ok, sir. Can I ask why you’re thinking of leaving?”
“Sure – you guys don’t, as far as I know, have an unlimited data tariff, or HSDPA. Is that something you can do, or will be thinking of doing?”
“No, sir. We’ll get a PAC code out to you in 48 hours.”

And that was it. None of the polished negotiating I’d come to expect of the retention team (who hasn’t called to try to blag a better upgrade or a deal on their tariff?), and they seemed happy to let me go. So I left.

Choosing the new network wasn’t hard. The benefit of working in an office with a bunch of people who promote T-Mobile meant I had a wealth of information literally across the desk from me. There are two unlimited data tariffs out there, and there are WAY too many horror stories around the 3 network for me to head there just yet, so… A few conversations later, and I headed down to the T-Mobile Retail store in Victoria where I had a pretty good retail experience (after an online store requested 17 forms of ID to sell me a contract), and walked away with my new MDA Vario 2 on Web n’ Walk, T-Mo’s unlimited data package, and Flext – an affordable, flexible mobile tariff. The Vario 2 is an HTC device, my fifth – after the Orange SPV100, E200, C500 and C600 — it is, I have to say, a thing of awesome beauty and power. I have Google Maps and Windows Live Search installed and it works fast. I mean, HSDPA is really, really fast, and everything else just works seamlessly.

Of course, days after I bought the damn thing Microsoft announced Windows Mobile 6 and HTC (and others) announced a spate of new devices using the technology at 3GSM, and Orange announced HSDPA (still no unlimited data), but ah well… you can’t have everything!

Interestingly, I’m paying T-Mo more than I paid Orange monthly, but I’m ok with that. It’s all about delivering a certain level of service – and in a world where all the operators are wondering how to get their users to spend more time accessing data services, I’m fairly amazed that there are only two unlimited data packages out there. Good for T-Mo, though, and good for me!

Oh – and for anyone who thinks I should be waiting for the iPhone? (1) have you met me? (2) you’re wrong and (3) here’s why.

I’ve had a busy weekend. Indie, chilling, birthday dinner, movie (Dreamgirls, bad), walk (Hampstead Heath, good), hot choc, supper, online shopping (damnit), and, erm, now to bed. But first, via Ze, I bring you ‘G’.

Share and enjoy. (Erm, you draw a stick figure, name it and it dances. That’s mine.)

Apologies to all the people who read this blog and find it overwhelmingly full of tech/geek posts at the moment. I will write more eclectically (and regularly) in the coming months. Has been a ludicrous January, but now that I am back up to being broadbanded up at home and have a clearer picture of what’s coming up things should be more predictable.

The internet situation being what it has been (I’ve now been ‘escalated’ to a supervisor 9 times, spoken to 6 engineers and had the problem reported as ‘resolved’ twice — needless to say, it has not been resolved), I apologise for ongoing light blog presence.

I also just checked my comment spam for the first time in a week or so – 350 offers of various drugs and university qualifications and a few people who ‘like my site’ and link back to Google (why???). I wish I’d scored them like Michael Pollitt, who knows he’s crossed the 50,000 spam mark…

Happy new year all! Had a fantastic New Year in Edinburgh despite the cancellation of official festivities. We had a great few days in a fantastic house, making silly jokes, drinking and partying, playing spontaneous games, walking between pubs and threading the needle and stripping the willow in the streets.

Despite the BBC (and other news outlets) apparently pre-prepared coverage of the cancellation (it was broadly anticipated), it really wasn’t that windy. It was, however, bitingly cold and (you’d never believe this) there are a LOT of hills in Scotland. As a consequence, I am both happy and tired today, and extremely glad to have booked the day off to recover (especially as jetlag seems to have resurged and I’ve been up since 4am).

I’ve made a set of resolutions (I’m going to find somewhere memorable to put them) — alongside achievable daily goals for each one as suggested by Alexander’s blog, via Lifehacker.

They are:

Sort out my shinsplints once and for all
Lose weight, get fit
Write novel
Blog regularly
Eat healthy
Write an album
Save to buy a flat in the next 1-2 years

Not many of these will be unique to me (‘lose weight’ is the most popular NYR on Joe’s Goals, a cute goal tracking website I am trying out), and we’ll see how well I maintain them, but it’s good to set a bar.

And Hannukah, Saturnalia, and any other winter festivals you’re celebrating. I’ve had a fairly awesome couple of days with family, singing (despite a cough) and bantering with my many cousins, lots of whom are no longer little. Which is something of a surprise.

Photos and some video will follow. Hope everyone is having a marvellous time with respective families.

I have a lot of respect for ScaryDuck; both for his humorous turn of phrase and for the surreal and exciting nature of his existence, as narrated on his blog (my status message on Google Talk was ‘woomph’ for three days after reading about the lighter fluid incident on Mr Duck’s blog).

Whilst a few, reasonably dramatic things happen to me, the vast majority of my friends and family don’t have an online existence and are made slightly uncomfortable about the level of shameless exhibitionism that a blog sometimes entails, and reactions vary from “cool, I got a mention on your blog,” to “I’m not talking to you, you might write it up on your blog and shame me for all the interweb to see.” As such, I’m (believe it or not) reticent about my interactions with others on this site.

That said, I do have a very vivid dream-landscape. For some reason, particularly when I go on holiday, I end up having especially, erm, powerful dreams – for lack of a better word. So, dreams of mirth and woe, episodes 1 and 2, for your delectation.

DoMaW Episode 1: my first night back in KL for the Christmas holiday, I manage to get to sleep and am suddenly aware of an appalling lack of symmetry. The numbers 17 and 34 come to pre-eminence, the wisecracking part of me says “that’s numberwang” and the rest of me begins to feel very uneasy. This is all whilst asleep, of course. Shortly thereafter, I wake, convinced that this symmetry of 17/34 will result in the end of existence as we know it. And its ALL MY FAULT. So an hour of telling myself that this really can’t matter later, I manage to calm down and regain perspective, but those ‘Catholic Guilt’ dreams are really unsettling. Audience participation moment: What’s your most unsettling dream? Tell us in the comments.

DoMaW Episode 2: Tonight’s dream. It’s 2.45 Malaysian time and my jetlag has kicked me squarely in the groin and is running to score a try, but I’m hoping this blog post will knacker me back into my evidently screwy unconscious state. So, in tonight’s dream I’m at some kind of networking event related to my industry (tech PR). I don’t recognise anyone I’m talking to but am getting repeatedly sidelined and ignored by two toffs in the corner, in a circle of people I was part of. Eventually, I lose my temper and pick one of them up by the collar and slam him into the ground in a move of smoothness and power that would raise an eyebrow on The Rock. This is massively out of character for me; I resort to sarcasm far more easily than violence. But there was something about this guy that was reminiscent of some of the less desirable characters from my school (most of the ones with trust funds), so apparently my subconscious mind just cut loose. As I was standing there, apologising for having lost my temper and patting down his ruffled blazer whilst he adjusted his cravate and called curses out against my name, I became aware of the corner clearing, and eventually I was just there, alone. It reminded me distinctly of meals at school, where (as a socially inept youth) I’d occasionally be left to share my breakfast with the ketchup and brown sauce bottles, with only the student on defaulter (kitchen duty punishment) for conversation. One of the directors from my company then came over and asked me what happened, and, bluff and bravado that I somehow maintained throughout this humiliating fictional experience, I made a joke of it and left the room. Fortunately, this was not one of those dreams where you wake up thinking it was real and so calm immediately resumed.

Tune in for more dreams of mirth and woe. Me, I’m hoping for nothing more than a calm night’s sleep after those two! I should have posted the Christmas speech I was planning in a state of near sleep but being awake has made me a little self-conscious about that one. If I make it, I may write it.