Over the past few weeks my wife’s cell phone has been acting funky. It’s rebooted, not received calls/voice mails until days later, made calls randomly while being in her purse or at home (and its a flip phone so there’s no chance the buttons were pressed accidentally). Long story short, she needed a new phone and was long past her contract renew date – so she could get anything for a pretty reasonable price.

I tried to convert her to the land of the blackberry but she was having none of the Pearl; even though the Alltel salesman claimed it was the “best phone ever made” which I chuckled heartily at.

She ended up going with an LG Banter – which is basically a reincarnation of the LG rumor sideslider with a full keyboard. The phone is actually very nice and I’m a real fan of the full qwerty keyboard and slider action. But most of all I found myself really digging all the pre-loaded factory ringtones.

I started to try and get these ringtones over to my own Blackberry via MMS message, but was greeted with a “Not supported” when I tried to attach the files.

I paid 1.99 for a 1 day internet pass on her phone, pointed the “browser” to my gmail and tried to send myself an email. No ability to attach a file with that hacked down browser.

I connected the phone via bluetooth to my laptop and tried to use audacity to record the audio as I played the different ringers. It wouldn’t work no matter what.

At this point I was completely PO’d and was doing anything and everything I could think of. I put my SD card into her phone but there’s no option/function built in to copy existing files to the card… I could only save new ones.

I finally took an old headset, cut the wire, and spliced that into a normal headphone jack to plug into the line-in port of my computer. This time instead of audacity I tried Windows XP’s sound recorder. It actually worked somewhat by recording the keypress sounds; but the ringtones wouldnt record.

I just couldn’t believe it. I can’t believe that a company would go to such great lengths to prevent somebody from copying the stock pre-loaded ringtones. Even now it totally makes me want to throw the phone out the front door and drop kick it across the street.

So, I resorted to scouring the internet and looking for any normal type of ringtone. I hate song based ringtones – I am in search of plain, clean sounding, simple ringtones. But it’s pretty dang hard to find those types of ringtones. If anyone has any ideas please let me know.

As of now I copied the Skype default ringtone to my phone and am using that even though I’m not a huge fan of it… blargh.

Clearly JJAFuller’s WoW post states that I am definitely back into Warcraft neck deep.  I’ve played this game for probably 20 hours over the last 3-4 days and really I can’t believe I ever stopped playing it.  I encourage everyone to sign up again and transfer to Earthen Ring where we can battle eternal.

Chouse if you’re reading this, please review JJAFuller’s most recent WoW posting on his site and accompanying comments.  🙂   I would love for jja to get back into the game.

This is a screenshot of “Vanhawk” my character.  He is currently a level 38 Human Mage

This song is actually called “Death or Glory” but way back in the early college years Vanlandw changed the id3 tags on the mp3.

It’s arguably the first “metal” song I ever heard.  And I do actually like it.
And, now Last.fm thinks it is named after my brother.  Check out the pic below and notice the “now listening”.  GG.

http://www.last.fm/music/Six+Feet+Under/_/Death+Or+Vanbergs

In the last 4 days, I have shoveled my driveway 7 times.

There are piles of snow in my back yard that are literally taller than I am.  My back is utterly destroyed.   My arms and legs are tightened and sore.  My car has gotten stuck 3 separate times.  The wind blew the cover off my grill and it is currently covered in feet of snow.

I realize this is ‘mother nature’ and there’s nothing anyone can do but deal with it as best they can.   But I am incredibly angry about how much snow we have.  I have lived in Michigan for my entire life and I cannot recall having to deal with this much snow.

Tonight I resisted the urge to slam my shovel into the driveway with all my human might and destroy it with unbridled malice; because after I finally finished shoveling my seemingly never ending driveway, the end I had started on already had over an inch of new snow.

Ef you, whoever makes snow…  I will find you sooner or later and we will have a very confrontational discussion.

• 30 Rock.
• Snow sucks.
• DeAnelo Williams doesn’t.
• I need new tires.
• Super Mario world. One sitting.
• Keystone is alright.
• Snow sucks.
• Mario 64.
• Bourne Identity.
• Lions suck.
• Snow sucks.
• Baby penguin = brb.
• Bourne Supremacy.
• Fantasy Football sucks.
• Snow is awful.
• Michigan is ruined.