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Back in the Spring we decided to upgrade our phones, I chose the Nokia 5300 XpressMusic. I liked the features, the size, the music player, camera, video and slider capabilities.

I knew the iPhone would be out in a few months when I got it, but I didn’t want to shell out that money for an iPhone and I figured once this contract was up the iPhone will be more affordable and there will be more iPhone competitors.

In the end, the phone has been pretty easy to use. I previously used a Nokia 6600 Smartphone. I absolutely love that 6600 and still do, but it is a little oversized and there are limitations on it’s media capabilities that really bug me. However, the one thing built into the 6600 that is not in the 5300 that pisses me off to n extent is email.

The 5300 I got through t-mobile, I didn’t even think to ask. I mean my previous Nokias all had built in email capabilities (able to send and receive email if you have an internet or wap connection). With the 6600 I could take a picture and fire it off in an email right awat to someone. With the 5300 if I take a picture, I have to wait until I get home, connect it to my computer and offload the picture. This is the most ridiculous process in my mind. How could they leave such a simple and widely used feature off of the phone.

Now there is the ability to have email on the phone, but only in the service provider offers a “special” service which is stupid. The more I think about it the more it pisses me off to the point I want to throw this feature packed phone across the room!

Other than the irritating point that there is no email, the features built in are great. It has an awesome speaker so you can play music for everyone. When i do it at work, people are surprised to see it is a phone. The included headphones are required to pick up FM stations, but it’s nice to have radio capabilities built in. The PC software is okay, it takes a little toying with it to get everything working right but the learning curve is small.

I do think the 5300 is a great phone, if you’ve never had a smart phone or anything other than a base free phone this is a great option. Even with the new offerings on the market I think this is a viable option through T-Mobile if they are your carrier. Just know in advance, if you want built in email, keep looking.

Renee has been unhappy with her Motorola RAZR since she got it, my Nokia 6600 is just getting a little old and while I have always loved it, the extremely slow menu has always been my biggest gripe.

Anyway, here are our replacements, I got a black Nokia 5300:

Image from soft32.com

And she got the new Motorola RIZR:

Image from onlinekosten.de

We just did upgrades with T-Mobile and did a contract extension. Both phones are currently exclusive to T-Mobile and are some of the hottest on the market right now as they are both slider phones and feature rich. The 5300 comes with a 1GB sD card which is a HUGE bonus. The RIZR only comes with a 128MB sD. Not that great, but better than nothing. Both phones come with USB cables so you can connect them to your computer for management. I was able to download the PC software for my Nokia and get everything set up without any trouble. Transferring a song from the computer the phone was really simple as well.

Here are the only drawbacks, so T-Mobile uses SIM cards which is great because you can copy your contacts to the card, switch phones and copy and you’re good to go. However, those damn SIM cards can only store one number, so if you had one contact with 4 numbers, there are 4 entries. Along with that, if you had addresses (email or physical) they are gone, they don’t get copied. Then, n my case, booting up the old 6600 I can’t do anything without a SIM in there, so I can;t even bluetooth or IR any images or contact details.

Obviously I could just put Renee’s SIM into my old phone and accomplish this, but it shouldn’t be this complicated.

I’m try to remember to post up again in about a month with an update on the new phones and their cool features and usage.

Three and a half years ago I found myself sitting in a house off the beach in Newport Beach, California. It was the beginning of life changing events for me, and I was fortunate to be spending time with family on vacation. While relaxing in this wonderful home I caught the series premier of a new television show, The O.C.. Of course this was all the buzz and there were numerous premier parties all over Newport and throughout Orange County.

I’m not one to really get into shows, but I actually liked this one for the fist season. I tried to actually watch the season as it unfolded, but with my busy schedule it was hard to do. Still I saw all the episodes from Season one before season two began.

Season two, well, I caught the first episode and that was about it. I missed the whole season. Thanks to NetflixI figured I would make up for it by doing a marathon run through season two at the beginning of season three.

Unfortunately I was not a big fan of how things unfolded in season two, so again, I skipped season three. Other than the season finale it doesn’t seem like I missed anything of quality. Now that leaves us with season four, the final season that ended tonight.

I have not seen one episode this season, but I made an effort to catch the series finale since I did enjoy the first season and all the press leading up to this episode made it appear that this would be a thought out finale and goodbye. Which, as a viewer I do appreciate, it was good that Josh Schwartz had enough foresight to know the show would most likely not be renewed and set up to wrap up lose ends and all that.

Still, this finale was lacking in many ways. Of course they had no choice, but honestly this should have been a two parter. So much happened in 40 minutes that it was almost too much to digest. I will say that the best thing they did was show the future. Often these shows rap up and everyone heads off in different directions and you are left to your imagination to think what would become of that character had the show continued. The O.C. actually did about a fast forward showing the kids mature at college and beyond, the parents raising their new young children and of course shows Ryan come full circle achieving a goal with his architectural talents and then finding his opportunity to help another underprivileged kid just as he was helped.

Now don’t get me wrong, the show is mostly cheese. So take all this with a grain of salt, but it is about entertainment after all. They also did a little flash back segment as Ryan took one last walk through the condemned Cohen household.

Anyway, on a scale of one to ten I give this finale a 6. Way too much packed into the last episode, but some good things, namely the flash forward at the end, to really solidify what became of the characters the faithful followed for four seasons.

I am testing out a new movie rating and review setup for my blog. They will no longer be posted as a post, but are accessible via the Movie Reviews link in the upper right.

Please check it out, it just has my two newest, A Million to Juan and Tootsie. I need to finish writing the reviews for both, I just put them up to test it out.

Wrapping a lot of details into one post, bear with me and try to keep up.

I hate school, I am too old for it. I guess it’s my own fault for being such a slacker. Just need to stay focused on that light down there at the end of the tunnel.

This weekend I finished a project, took an exam, wrote a paper, completed a homework assignment and started anotehr project (that is due tomorrow!).

I am slighly getting my ass kicked by all this work, I forgot how much work it is to go full time not to mention work full time in the process.

I did watch a few movies last week, I watched A Million to Juan (for one fo my classes) and Tootsie. Renee really wanted to see Tootsie so I Netflixed it. I will write up some reviews soon. In fact my paper I wrote this weekend was on A Million to Juan so maybe I will just post that!

I also changed the oil on the BMW, or maybe it would be better to say, I got oil all over the f’n place then refilled the bike. It was not a pretty process for my first attempt on this bike. I did learn a lot though. I should be less messy about it the next time I do it. I still need to change the air filter, but after my oil change fiasco I decided to hold off until next weekend.

After dropping of my project and taking my exam on Saturday I need some time to unwind. Spent some time vegging out in the backyard with the dog and Elvis too! Decided to snap some pics of the furrballs. Here are a few selections. Click on the photos to view the rest of them in their albums.