Two annoying technology moments yesterday:
1) Kate and I got cell phones when we bought this house, and have been overpaying for them for quite some time. We rarely use them (partly because we get no signal inside the house), and have never come close to using our monthly allocation of minutes.
Verizon now offers pre-paid plans, which would save us a good deal of money that could then be spent on baby toys, so we went to the local Verizon store to switch over. And immediately got told that they couldn’t guarantee that we could keep the same numbers. And then that it would take an hour or so to do the switch. Then that they needed my driver’s license. Then that they needed to split the phone into two separate accounts, complicating the billing.
Of course, if we wanted to go with a more expensive plan, they could do everything immediately, with no hassle…
2) Our printer has been warning that the black cartridge was low for some time now, even though there has been no detectable decrease in print quality. Yesterday, when I tried to print something so I could review it for work, it decided that the black cartridge was done, and now refuses to print anything. I spent ten minutes trying to find a way to make it keep printing, with no luck, and along the way had to fend off about fifty dialogue boxes trying to get me to buy toner online.
Laser printers have gotten to be too goddamn smart. There’s toner still in that cartridge, but since that’s where they make their money these days, the printer is determined not to let me use it.
Verizon and Hewlett Packard: You’re on notice.