i-Phone schmy-Phone

i-candy I don't want

The unveiling of product lines (new revenue streams) like the new generation of i-phone bores me. Until the PRICE really comes down I'll keep all my separate gadgets. I don't even like my LG phone with Verizon. Crappy service, outrageous rates and lame features are all designed to separate me and my money.

Can someone explain to me why texting is so darn expensive? I guess because it's popular and the demand is driving corporate greed? I'd rather embrace the gadgets, gizmos and online services I use and enjoy. My TiVo (mine dates back to the Series 2), my Flip Video cam, my portable hard drive, g-mail, Hulu, Amazon Unbox, Pandora, my cable modem and cable telephone, Flickr, Blogger, etc.

My daughter wants a Wii so bad she's started saving up for one herself. I don't see the big deal. It looks like a video game without the wires. Remember, I was one of those in the original Pac-Man generation who jumped on every innovation that came along with rolls of quarters-- I just can see dumping money into a new generation of the same, lame and money draining product lines. Perhaps because I'm no longer the target demo I've become jaded. Perhaps I'm just developing savvyness to the ways of consumerism and electronics. Or perhaps I only embrace the things I find useful and beneficial or moderately entertaining in my life. While I listened XM Radio when I had the free subscription in the mini-van, I could never see any value in paying for it.

Even the big screen TVs haven't impressed me yet. How can I justify that huge cost of the cable package upgrade to receive those HD channels? It makes the cost of the HD screen insignificant. Add on to that the HD channels require a cable box or receiver and you lose me. I don't need another device wired up and collecting dust around the television set. Merge the PC and HDTV into one device with my TiVo service (I'm bored with DVD's as they just take up space). Give me data files I can easily store -- or better yet let me stream it. Like Pandora with music. I'm tired of collecting audio files for songs and keeping them stored and managed on my device. Let someone else pay for the music, store it and manage so I can listen when ever the mood strikes. Give me more services like movie from Amazon Unbox (but I need a much better selection). Let me access it, watch it and move on to the next one when I want it. If I care to see the same movie again, I'm sure it will show up somewhere on cable or there's Hulu. Right?

For the love of salsa, what the frak gives with the all the negative vibes?
Sorry to be so sour about the i-phone update. I guess the price of gasoline, the loser economy, a choppy Indiana Jones sequel that failed to be greater than the sum of its parts, more lame reality television, potentially deadly tomatoes (from the same government that brought us "Death by Peanut Butter" and "Lead Toyland") and the lack of any genuine leadership in our country in both the public and private sectors has me a bit grumpy today.