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Boys Just Want to Have Phone

I'm in the market for a phone. My contract ran out a few days ago, and my current device -- once the very pinnacle of modern technology, two short years ago -- now seems like a lag-plagued Playskool steam-powered dinosaur.

For a tech guy, that won't do. I can wear clothes that were last in style during the Carter administration -- but a last-gen phone? Tres ick.

Of course, the real issue here is not that I'm in the market for a phone. There are plenty of amazing shiny bits of kits that will wow today -- and feel like an Elizabethan doorstop tomorrow, next to the next generation of telephonic goodness.

"I can wear clothes that were last in style during the Carter administration -- but a last-gen phone?"

But that's tomorrow. Right now, I need a phone -- and that means I need a carrier. And that, friends, is the real issue. Because while I love fiddling with a new phone, futzing with a carrier, old or new, is a pain. And all the major carriers have their problems:

Sprint: I've had Sprint before, and they were... enh. You just always have the feeling Sprint is the little telecom brother nipping at everyone else's heels: "Hey, man, I got phones! Lookit here, I got phones too! Hey, guys!"

It's not that I dislike Sprint, exactly. They're just the Discover Card of phone carriers. It's kind of embarrassing.

T-Mobile: My current carrier, because they debuted Android phones a few years ago. Which was great -- even if they probably are the telecom little brother, revenuarilly-speaking.

Also, their coverage isn't great. And they try to rhyme 'five, six' with 'West Phoenix' in their commercial, which frankly offends me as a wordsmith. Color me lukewarm on big magenta.

Verizon: No. They screwed me over, but hard, when I was first getting DSL a few years ago. I decided to be all grudgy. I'll be the bigger man when they line their phalanx of cable installers up and kiss my phalanx.

Or something. And yes, I know any of these companies will screw me over, given half a chance. But these guys are the ones who did. So, no. Just no.

AT&T: Maybe the most solid of the bunch, signalwise. But I hear they're expensive as hell, and the first-tier customer service is composed mainly of undertrained domestic chickens that they've trained to peck the 'Speaker' button when the phone rings. You're less likely to get a technical solution than a 'BU-KAWK!' and maybe an egg laid on the receiver.

There are no perfect choices. So I'll end up talking to all of them -- except Verizon, ptui! -- and then I'll be able to focus on a phone. Or taking a "Beginner Poultry" class from Rosetta. Or buying my carrier a fricking rhyming dictionary.

Damn. I remember when buying a new phone used to be simple.