Sign Me Up

Nothing exciting to report today. Last night Varen worked late *again*. I hung out at home with the boons.

Oh yes, yesterday I "popped in" to our local Vodashop. I've been getting these supremely annoying phone calls from their people (actually I don't even think they are Vodacom people ... they are the people Vodacom outsources to ... might be wrong on this tho) telling me it's time to upgrade my contract. Eurgh. Why? Why? Why? I am clearly not Vodacom's stereotypical customer. I've had the same phone number *for my whole life*. And years ago (okay, like 2 maybe?) after a particularly bad experience with a Sony Ericsson V800 (my first foray away from Nokia), which involved taking the phone to be repaired 3 times only to find out they'd actually taken the phone off the market but kept insisting on replacing or repairing mine (seriously, there are times when replacing a phone with and "equal cost" one would be a much smarter move on everybody's part), I got myself an old cheapy Nokia 2100 and never looked back. Okay, so to anyone remotely techy, this must sound like the most peculiar move for someone in the online industry who blogs and tweets etc. as I do. It truly is a low-tech phone, but that's why I loved it. I barely ever had to charge it, I couldn't constantly be harrassed by emails. I didn't care that it didn't have a camera, I have a perfectly lovely digital camera :) Plus, once my old full-price contract (with the SE V800) was up, I switched to the lowest contract I could get, not surprisingly with the exact same Nokia 2100 I was already using. R29 a month. And I sold the new phone to someone. Score. I was happy, my cellular needs were all perfectly met :)

And then Varen got me the Blackberry Curve 8900 for my birthday this year. Which I absolutely *love*. So when upgrading yesterday, I wasn't interested in what phone I could get - a concept the salesman just couldn't get his head around. I wanted the cheapest contract again ... he didn't even believe me that I had a R29 a month contract. No no, he says, these days you get vouchers and gifts with your contract. I don't want that shit. I want to pay less *every month*. It took me browsing thru my contract options to find a suitable one. It's gone up to R49 a month, but I guess it has been 2 years, and I got a lowly Nokia 5000 (anybody wanna buy it off me, it's still it the box? I'll consider all offers).

I don't see why they couldn't just let me keep my old contract on a month-to-month basis. Why all the fuss over a new two-year contract? Anyway, the experience was also hampered by the fact that my sales-guy was handling another customer at the same time ... makes for a truly tedious experience. I also had a look at Blackberry skins ... but they don't have any for the 8900 yet :( Oh well, I probably don't need one anyway :)