Some Necessary Detours From The Odyssey

Detour #1

I accidentally got some moisture inside my BlackBerry. OK, you caught me; I spilled beer in my BlackBerry. But, that’s not necessarily the problem. The issue is, in order for me to remove the back plate so I can get to the inside of the keyboard to scrap the expected corrosion off the keys; I need this little tiny torx head screwdriver. It’s not bad enough that torx head screws and the drivers used to assemble them are relatively uncommon, but one this size is especially rare. Moreover, I can’t even do a hillbilly stunt like using another tool that’s close enough to the shape of the torx head socket because torx head screws are used in situations where a lot of torque is needed, and therefore trying to unscrew them without having the screwdriver head seated against all sides of the socket will result in stripping it out.

So I get the bright idea to go to a wireless store to see if they got one of these screwdrivers I can buy. Makes sense right? They sell phones, so they should have stuff to fix them. Nope, the salesman tells me that you’re not supposed to fix your cell phone if something happens to it; you’re supposed to buy a new one. So I think, OK I understand where he’s coming from. He wants the commission from selling me a new phone. So I go to Target to see if maybe they have random junk related to cell phones, and again I’m told that you don’t fix cell phones, you replace them.

Now this concept mildly blows my mind because these BlackBerrys can be really expensive, and from what I read, they also need regular maintenance in the form of cleaning behind the keys. You gotta admit this is totally stupid because it’s the equivalent of buying a car, and then 3 months later taking it to the dealer for an oil change only to have the dealer tell you that you can’t maintain the car, you have to buy a new one. Seriously, that's just crazy.


Detour #2 – Bush has 100 days left in office on 10/11/08

I am really dismayed at this fact. It really seems like there should be a lot less days.