WWTBAM Bored

Very very sad.


I just paid a mammoth bill for car repair; I thought I would get my usual "its nothing", which I tend to get even when it turns out to be brake rotors, it seems. Instead I got "you need a new tie rod & ball joint on one side". This is very expensive. I also needed a new tire, as a tire not many years old was apparently cracked. It was the one I'd had a flat filled in this winter, that seemed to be going mysteriously flat again. I also had it suggested to me that if I wanted to pass inspection, due in August, I ought to get my cloudy headlamps cleaned. That alone turns out to be miraculous & comparatively cheap ($89.00). You could probably do it yourself if in your car the battery isn't in the way of getting at one of the headlamps. Or if you're comfortable with battery removal & replacement. I turn out to be chicken about that in my old age.


So after a 400 mile round trip with no problems, I get a horrendous noise from the car. It sounds like something large is stuck to a tire, but I can't find anything, large or otherwise. Convinced my new tie rod is falling off, or worse, I beg another check & am waiting for the bad news when my phone goes out on me. This phone turning itself off when it feels like it, usually when I'm getting an incoming call, is no news. So I turn it on but it doesn't go on. But I'm getting an incoming call, I can hear it! But they can't hear me. I later find I have power to the phone itself, can make calls out, but can't get calls in. And have no screen.


I contact car place on a landline & find out that the new problem is something called a backing plate. Which is bent (& which is no big deal). And which is indeed hitting a tire, hence that noise like what you get when as a child you taped cardboard to your bike spokes, if you did that, that is. Shop claims "I must have hit something", which I did not. Or "I could have hit a pothole"; we have several of those. After last winter, the streets of the Boston area are something like riding off-road, even though most of us don't have off-road vehicles.


I personally think that this backing plate, which when I look it up is something you have to take off to get at the tie rod, was just not put back on securely. Whatever. They didn't charge me.


Phone problem is not such an easy fix. Phone lights up, but no screen. I've tried all those remedies for phones dropped in water, which mine was not; rice overnight, putting it in the sun (kind of afraid of oven). No luck.


T-Mobile isn't selling my phone any more. I bought the far inferior sub they are now selling, because for reasons I won't go into I can't be without a cell phone these days. But I've broken down & ordered a used replacement for the real thing (Samsung SGH T259 flip phone), because that's the only kind you can get nowadays, & am waiting for it to arrive.


When it does I sure hope I can get T-Mobile, who were very patient about setting up the crap replacement they sold me for too much money, to set up the new new replacement. They couldn't get anything off the old phone. They did try. Without a screen, apparently forget it. And my now-dead phone wasn't saving anything to the sim card. Or memory card on which I'd saved most of my photos, which I was able to put in new phone. Photos don't look so good in new phone, & it take awful photos.


If I knew I was going to be so dissatisfied with the crap replacement I'd have tried to go for a cheaper crap replacement that Walmart may sell that would work with T-Mobile. Or not. Too late now.


Moral of the story is make sure everything backs up to the sim card if you can get it to, or the memory card if you can get it to. I don't recall seeing any prompts in my old phone for backing up to either, except for photos onto the memory card.


Heck, if you have a computer, back everything up to a flash drive via it. Or print the phone #s out, the old-fashioned way. I knew I should have done that. But hadn't done that.

New used phone works. If I were to return my new new crap phone, I'd only get $10.00 back, due to their restocking charge. So I keep it as a tiny brick that can only make emergency calls. Or until the new used phone, whose history I do not know, fails. It was owned by very religious Christian person, whose Jesus front photo & religious message, along with their texts & any photos from the real world we did a factory reset-remove on. Took about 20 minutes. I trust Jesus will take this in stride. And with forgiveness, if I do need any.


When I have the courage to try for it, I will check & see if my previous cat picture & my sister's-dog picture are still on my old mem card. Current cat pic is not as good, & best dog is no more, except in memory. I probably should have kept card in lead somewhere, instead of in plastic in my purse. Don't laugh. My T-pass & credit card hold their charge, but an NYC Metro card got somehow wiped clean of about 17 bucks.


Store couldn't even transfer contacts I had put in from 1 live phone to another. By hand will work. And I will take old dead good phone to a store that claims it can fix phones, just to see if they can get stuff off that T-Mobile couldn't. New help menu in new used phone, that wasn't in old good, until it died phone, claims T-Mobile automatically backs up your stuff at an address they give. We'll see. This has some goodies my dead phone didn't, so it must be a later model even though it has the same model #.