The Siren Call

My cell phone is a piece of crap. For those with extra-good memories, this is not the phone I smashed against a table a while back; this is what I later got to replace that phone. And it's crap. Places where I used to get a good signal on the earlier phone now can be spotty on this thing (even though I'm with the same carrier). And even though it has neither bells nor whistles, and I'm not using it for anything other than making phone calls -- which doesn't even happen every day -- I often can't get to the end of a regular day without it squawking to have the battery charged.

I'm still about 10 months away from being able to do the "full upgrade" thing. But on February 1st, I'm eligible for a lesser upgrade that will get me some savings on a new phone. And I am counting down the days.

So, I've been thinking about moving into "smart phone" land. All the cool kids I know seem to have one. And while at times it seems extraneous and unnecessary, there are other times when it just seems like a handy and practical thing to have.

The piece-of-crap phone has kind of helped paved the way in this regard, too. I've never actually paid for a cell phone before, in the sense that I've always just signed a subscriber agreement and then taken a phone with a purchase price completely covered by signing that contract. This time, my upgrade is only going to be partial anyway -- I'll be paying something for a new phone, regardless of what I get. So why not pay a little extra to get something flashy and cool and handy and not garbage like my current phone?

With this in mind, I've been doing a little research and window shopping lately, trying to zero in on what it is I probably want to get, so that come February 1st, I can just walk straight into the store and say "give me that." The list quickly narrowed down to two or three contenders, but the one that eventually rose to the top of that short list was the HTC Hero.

Having already almost decided on that, a couple days later, I was thumbing through my newest Entertainment Weekly magazine. I'm flipping past an ad, but then stop as I happen to notice it's for the new season of 24 that at the time was just about to begin. Except then I actually look, and realize it's really an ad for a cell phone -- the HTC Hero.

Basically, what this ad is saying is: this is Jack Bauer's cell phone.

Well, dammit (ha!), I have to get one now, don't I?

The clock is ticking. And you all know what it sounds like.