On the phone with my sister and my phone keeps cutting out on me.  All of a sudden it shorts big time and my call drops.  I try to call back but none of the damn keys on the stupid thing work above the row of 4.  Well I have just absolutely had it with Motorola and Verizon.  This is the 3rd Razr V3C I have had as a replacement.

Man back in the day when the first iteration was released on October 2005, this phone was the shiznit.  It put Motorola on the map.  Freaking PC World listed this damn phone #12 in “The 50 Greatest Gadgets of the Past 50 Years.”  Can you believe that?  There was nothing out there like it.  This damn thing sold for $600 dollars with a contract and $800 without.  So yeah, when you guys complain about the new iPhone wah wah it costs so much, wah!  This was only 3-4 years ago man how quickly you guys forget.  Just think about this P.O.S and its initial cost!  This was THE fashion cell phone to have.  You can read all about the nifty background story and the thousand variants and colors here at Wikipedia.

They made so many variants of this thing with only tiny adjustments like colors, screen sizes, and media features just to reclaim that initial innovative.  All they really was just milk the crap outta that cash cow, slaughter it, and feed it to the golden goose who was later eaten by the dead beaten horse.  It didn’t matter though, no matter the tweaking, they will not come back to that original blockbuster public acclaimed release.  That hasn’t stopped them from blaming everyone but the idiots in charge at that company.  Laying off their design team, read here, and cutting their R&D team, read here.  What could you expect them to come up with when those in charge of making new products were put out on the street.

At any rate, enough with the history lesson.  The thing that pissed me off was that this was the third damn phone I have gone through.  I said enough of this crap and took it apart to see what the HELL was going on here.

Well to my surprise I find a fully exposed coper connection almost the full length of the flex cable as well as a connector pad which has tiny contact points for which to communicate.  This was done on purpose, I mean it had to be because this is a pressed/printed.  However, having the copper exposed like that?  Here is the relacement part.  Here is what happens when you leave copper exposed with no oxidation protection:

I am not an engineer okay, but I can see no other reason to do this than to design this product to fail.

Now let me be clear, I don’t recommend nor condone taking apart your cellphone and take no responsibility in your own actions.  So don’t be a dumb ass, be smart and just ask for the phone to be replaced or fixed under warranty.

In the interest in Science and cause I am a tech head, I wanted to see if I could fix it myself.  Now, I am prally sure there is a fancy dancy cleaner for oxidation on copper, but having done this before, I made a solution using equal parts white vinegar, distilled water, and salt.  I am not really sure this is recommended but this is what they use to clean copper pans and appliances.  This stuff instantly took off the oxidation with no residual damage.  Oh and here is a tangent, I found this cool video of cleaning your computer with vinegar:

I am sure it will make it smell like crap and I am not sold on using it on my screen.  Anyway, so after cleaning off the oxidation, I put the cell phone back together and ….  BOOM TADA!  It works like a champ and shows none of the problems I was having before.

Freaking P.O.S phone, thats just bad design, I mean really WTF people.  I don’t wanna hear “oh you dropped it in water” or “it got wet”, I tell you what, this thing has been taken care of like a queen okay.  Humans sweat, and even just a little is just enough to get this to start oxidation over the course of a year.  Just enough time to be out of warranty and for you to need to buy a new one.

As if it wasn’t the only thing to hate on this phone!  The fact that Verizon locked all the cool stuff this phone is capable of like blue tooth file transfer, making an overlay menu which makes this phone crazy slow to navigate, etc.  I am sure they did this so you have to pay Verizon for a MMS message to get your photos off this thing.  If you don’t have a plan with MMS included, its like 3 bucks per MMS!!!  Oh and even when it was brand new, talk time of only 3 hours!  More like 1.5 hours in my real experience, and now about 5 minutes on this year old battery.

I HATE this phone!  I cant wait till this weekend when I replace it with a iPhone 3G.  I am off this ride you hear that Motorola and Verizon!  Enough with the nickel and diming!  Enough of your crap phones which prove you have no sense of the market, don’t listen or care about your clients, and which show your lack of innovation by your constant recycling of old boring crap to the public!

When I get that iPhone, I swear … I SWEAR!  I am going to crush this RAZR with a sledge hammer!

So for the last couple of weeks, I have been wresting with these unwelcome guests.  I have no idea why the hell they are so interested in my apartment, but I have been having a full out invasion by pill bugs, millipedes, and wolf spiders.  Maybe it has something to do with it being so much cooler, temperature wise but Kewl nonetheless, in my apartment than the 100 some degrees outside.

My first thought was, like everyone else in the world had recommend, is laying down insecticide like Ortho Home Defense.  Welp, 2 different kinds I tried, and yes I did my research and got the best ones, this still didn’t work.  My napalm of destruction only served to kill them immediately after entering my apartment.  So now the front door area looks like the landing of Normandy on D-day!  As an aside, I actually do recommend “Ortho Home Defense”, cause it does kill insects fast and lasts 12 months.

Well it only took 6 attempts by maintenance to fix this door right.  I have had other issues with it, like every time it rains hard, water runs under the door into the apartment.  Their last attempt was the last straw, they put some self adhesive 1 foot strip of weather stripping on the upper right of the door which was not going to do SHIT.

I was finally fed up and took these pictures and made sure I was there when maintenance came.  I was sure they didn’t realize the urgency and utter frustration I was having with this situation cause they never saw the affects.  It was likely due to the fact that I am a neat freak and would vacuum every hour or every time I came downstairs to find this mess.  BTW I love you Dyson!  So this time, I waited 4 hours all the while my nerves all a tingle driving me nuts having to hold back my temptation to clean.

When they came they were shocked and felt really stupid.  They replaced the bottom door skirt, FINALLY!  But this was STILL not enough to keep them out.  At my wits end, I said screw it, I am getting a storm door.  A grand total of 315 bucks.  I know, I know, WTF am I doing buying a storm door for an apartment.  Welp other than this inconvenience and annoyance, I freaking love this apartment so much.

New door in place, they STOPPED WOOHOO!!!!  Okay so I lied a little, as at least only 1 or two make it in when I open the door if not careful.  It has frustrated the bugs enough that now they are finding someone else to bother, an easier target than me.  My suspicion is that its the neighbor and their 20 cats, leaving food all over the place attracting these insects.

This leads me to my fantastical stories of war. Along with these insects, I have been battling Wolf Spiders!

(photo from Wikipedia:  GFDL)

The above is a picture of what one looks like if you have never had the fortune of meeting one.

My first run in was walking on the sidewalk to my apartment, a big freaking wolf spider was chilling in plain view.  My first instinct was to step on her.  Well that was a stupid idea, cause little did I know these things carry an egg sac on their back.  So as soon as I did, thousands and thousands of little baby spiders came running out.  So many in fact it looked like tiny hair follicles flowing in the wind!  Doing my dance of holy mother, my best impersonation of the Lord of the Dance stomp, and freaking the hell out I managed to escape as they tried to crawl up my legs.

This is me stomping my heart out and screaming:

The next night, I am watching TV upstairs and see this hary thing run across the carpet the size of my hand.  HOLY SHIT I thought as lukily my feet were up on the couch.  I better get this thing before it kills me in the night!  I jump up and step on her, and I kid you not she pushed back!  I put all my weight into it and she let out this weird scream!  Never been so freaked out in my life!

A few nights later, I find myself getting to bed really late like 3 AM, yeah cause I am an idiot, but anyway, so right before plopping onto the bed, I brush my teeth.  All of a sudden this big mother f’ing wolf spider runs over my foot and up the sink to the mirror.  I see her sitting there face to freaking face with this expression:

(photo from Wikipedia Commons)

Hello John SUP! Yeah I am a Wolf Spider, I am here to kill you!

ZOMFG!  I panic for an instant, but by now, I am a freaking expert at killing these f’ckers.  I am like the crocodile hunter of spiders.  So I pull out a clothes hanger from behind me and twack it to the floor!  This only stuns it, and for you to realize how big this mother was, it was enough to have a solid THUD as it hit the floor.  She is dazed and a few baby spiders fall off her back.  OH NOOOooo!  I thought, its another one of those with babies!

Having remembered being malled by the last spider family mob a couple days ago, I had a moment of inspiration.  THE DUST-BUSTER!  I pull it out and suck up the straggling babies, and work my way to the mom.  It sucks her up, I breath a sigh of relief.  Oh but this isn’t the end, the dust-buster is not enough for this spider.  She pulls herself out of the intake, dust-buster still on mind you,  which had sucked her up!!

AAARRGGHH HOLY CRAP!!

The suction, is not enough for this fighter, she slowly pulls herself out.  Now mind you this isn’t some wimpy regular dust-buster, this thing is an 18 volt cordless mini hand held shop vac that I have picked up bolts with.

She is almost out of the intake and fighting furiously against the suction.  I look around furious like WTF am I going to do, its going to rip my face off!  My next inspiration comes to me, the TOILET!  YES!  So I take the end of the dust buster over the toilet, and shut it off.  She falls out and into the water where I proceed to flush 10 times ensuring no force in hell will let this lady out again.

Freaked out, sweating, and sore from yelling, I collect my thoughts.  All the while scratching furiously on myself because every tingle sensation I felt on my body, I was afraid, might be a baby spider out for revenge.  It took another couple of hours to calm down from this battle and manage to get to sleep.  Sleep, that is, with my fingers in my ears.

Why you might ask?  Well I am not afraid of these big spiders now, but its the babies that freak me the hell out.  They are an unstoppable force of pure numbers.  I blame this realized fear ever since when my cousin was little and a cockroach went into his ear while he was sleeping.  I have been utterlly freaked out by that event.  They had to take him to the hospital because the couldn’t get it out of his ear.  The doctors had to extract it out with forceps.  All the while, making sounds in his head.  The poor guy, it really messed him up.  So this is why that night I sleep with my fingers in my ears.  Damn you SPIDERS!  Damn you to HELL!

I have had Sirius Satellite Radio for almost 2 years, and have honestly only been using it in my apartment. I love it though and listen to it every day in my place. Oddly enough, I get great reception inside my apartment. The last car I had, the RX-8 woulda been a serious pain to put in, so now that I had the truck, I thought it was about time to start using it on the road.

The only thing I had to really do to install this was to put an FM modulator between my factory radio and the FM antennae. This way, while using the FM modulator, I wouldn’t have any interference and the sound would be clear. No big deal, this is a MAYBE a 30 minute job. Well you know shit like this would never go easy for me right.

I opened the truck and removed the top panel on the dash. Then removed the front dash panel easily with my new multi-trim pry tool set which made the whole thing really simple. It also kept me from making any scratches. No problem, I thought now that I see the radio exposed, its a matter of unscrewing 4 bolts and putting the FM modulator. Welp, I bust out my cordless drill to remove those bolts, and get the first one out then …

CLUNK CLINK CLINK CLINK CLUNK TINK TINK

WTF I thought, I looked and the bit at the end of the drill fell off along with the screw into the air conditioning. SON OF A BITCH!

Well its about 8:30, and its getting dark now, all I got is this tiny little flash light to see with:

Of course, before I had started this whole affair, I had unplugged the battery in the truck to not set off the airbags etc so this is the only source of light I have in the dark parking lot. I proceed for the next 3.5 hours to take the whole MOTHER F’ing dash apart in the dark. Managed by luck to get the phillips bit and screw out of the AC and then finish the modulator install. Got it all done at about 11:30 at night in the parking lot. What a freaking pain in the ass, 4 total hours in the dark for a stupid simple install.

Good news is, it worked, and holy crap if it didn’t, I woulda been pissed. The FM modulator works awesome! Now I can finally listen to this thing in the truck. Yeah I know, look at the above, the wires are still laying out, its because I am still deciding where to place the satellite antennae permanently. I am running an experiment for a few weeks to see if the dash will give any big issues. I don’t want to put it on the roof because it will ruin the paint, and I think it looks seriously shitty to have this rat tail running on the body of your vehicle. I wish they would sell the shark fin type that the OEM installs have and BMW uses, but oh well for now, on the dash hopefully it will look okay when I clean it up. I was actually happily surprised too that the suction cup mount proved useful and actually fits inside this slot on the truck’s dash:

KICK ASS!

Man it is so great to have Sirius in the truck. No commercials, no interruptions, and good clean great sounding music. If you have ever been to San Antonio, you will know that this place only has 3 freaking English speaking radio stations! The rest are a hodge podge of Mexican salsa, Mexican organ music, Mexican rap, and mariachi music. Of the 3 English ones, there is only the college radio station and the rock station that is actually semi passable. The problem with the rock station though is that they play the SAME FREAKING 4 songs every day. Literally, I will go to work hearing one song, and go home that day hearing the SAME FREAKING SONG!!! OMG you have no idea how crappy that is and stuck in traffic will want to make you tear your face off. Not to mention sitting through lame advertisements every other song! Satellite radio is a MUST and worth it!

If you have been following my pictures, you probably know how an apartment complex gate closed on my truck.

If you have been following my pictures and articles, you probably know how an apartment complex gate closed on my truck.

http://www.johnstrunk.com/blogger/2008/02/24/gawdamn-gate/

Well my insurance just called me to tell me I am liable now for the gate and the damage to the truck because I went through the “Exit” gate even if it was open and that there is a sign that displays “Not Liable For Injuries or Damage”. There also, supposedly, is a sign on the other entrance (down the hill to the right) that states “Entrance Only”.

Now look at this photo above of the gate, locked open I might add, and tell me how you are supposed to know this is an “Exit” gate. Again do note, I did NOT follow anyone into the complex, it was locked open like it is now and it closed on me as I entered. I also see no non-liability sign. Insurance will pay but I am beyond mad right now. (please note I did erase the street number off this picture)

So Saturday, me and my friend are starving to death so we decide to go to get a pizza. I go to pick him up at his apartment complex. I stop at the culdesac and see that the gate is open. Sweet me thinks, so I drive on in from park. I get in and all of a sudden the whole truck stops. i look in the mirror and see the gate open again. FU&K! )$&^)

It appears the gate closed on me, for what reason I have no idea. The gate has this long bolt used to adjust the tension of the chain which actuates it. In the larger picture you can see the threads from this bolt which projects out from the gate. It managed to just clip the wheel well and pulled it out when it retracted. I am not sure at all how that happend. I can only assume it was stuck open and that me driving over the rail shook the gate to have it start closing. The retractor seems delayed, it like opens, then notices a block then stops for a big then retracts. But that bolt extends at least 5-6 inches out from the gate so its going to hit you before the bumper on the gate does. As well I was going in to the complex, and the sensors are on the other side.

I didn’t notice the damage cause it was really dark at the gate. After about an hour and a half I call the complex to see what to do. The complex is closed but the answering service picks up. The maintenance had already locked the gate in the open position at this time and I didn’t want to leave and have them say I screwed up their gate and call the cops. I tell them the story and they are like well they will call you back on Monday. I ask if I am supposed to call the cops or what I am supposed to do cause I dont want to just leave. They tell me they will send a patrol car, to sit tight, and they will call me back.

2 hours later, its midnight and I am really freaking pissed by this point. I call the complex again, again the answering service picks up. I tell them WTF is going on I been waiting for 2 hours waiting for this cop. They tell me

Oh, we got a call back from the complex, they said if you want to do anything about it, you gotta call SAPD and have them sort it out.

I tell the lady they were supposed to call me back and that they were sending a patrol car. She says no I gotta do it. SON OF A B$7@*

So I go look up the non-emergency number, call up SAPD, tell them the story, they send a patrol car. When I told the cop the story he was like “THEY TOLD YOU WHAT!?” He was pretty pissed off for me. So he takes the report so if I have to I can get insurance to fix it. After he leaves, its 1:30 and this happend at 8:30.

I am not looking forward to Monday to see how much this is going to cost me.

This makes me a very sad panda

I have had a hell of a time since the moment I got to San Antonio. With my RX being backed into, having a water leak, getting rear ended by a truck, and now this.  I have just bought this truck about 5-6 months ago and was waiting for a time to have it professionaly cleaned so I could take pictures of it an post them.  But no, my first posted pics of my new truck is of this.  WTF dude…

Again, me = very sad panda