Back in Action

Man, it's been a wild couple of months. Found a job, possibly a roommate for a long-term apartment, got a new smart phone which I've been glued to since December, and my buddy just got engaged. All told, it's been an eventful chunk of time.


But I finally found a job! I'm working at a publishing firm down in Union Square, and I'm kicking ass and taking names. I got this the week before Thanksgiving, so that was a crazy start to a fast-paced job. Throw in a hefty Christmas break and some random holidays to boot, and time has been speeding by.


One of the guys that I work with is out of his lease in May, so that might be the break into becoming a grounded tenant that I've been looking for - thank God.


And the phone! Holy crap you would never think those things would change your life like they do. For a little background, I've been using "candy bars," as I think they're called, for the better part of ten years. I felt proud of myself for getting a Razr when people were drooling over the iPhone 4 - so I was a little behind the times. My last two phones combined cost less than my monthly laundry bill, so I think it was time to upgrade.


So while I'm still a self-proclaimed cheapskate, I shelled for an LG Esteem from Metro PCS. The phone cost more than I would liked to have spent, but at the end of the year I'm going to be paying about $800 all told, maybe 66% of what the next cheapest plan would go for. Plus, I get unlimited everything and 4G which is pretty dirty.


But talk about awesome. Reading books, checking stocks, doing banking, playing games, looking up recipes, watching netflix, listening to Pandora - the thing is more addictive than Starbucks (call me a yuppie, I deserve it). I even downloaded an emulator (digital version of a video game console) so that I could play Mario 64 and the old school Star Fox for SNES. I would be lying if I denied a three day addiction to Harvest Moon when I got the thing.


But it's also scary just how "connected" you become when you get that thing. Email, texts, Twitter, Facebook - the thing is a nexus for all that is media, and it makes you understand just how easy hackers have it when it comes to jacking personal info. Our digital selfs are all over the place, with information strewn around like debris after a twister.


Just the info alone that I had to submit to Starbucks to register my damned gift card was insane. A hacker could pull that and pretty much know my life story, and then I'm reading that sites all over the world are getting broken into on a daily basis - 40,000 accounts from Facebook and 24 million accounts from Zappos, think tanks, online games, and JPMorgan-Chase? It's a wonder the NYSE hasn't been "deleted."


But anyway, like I said, my buddy also just got engaged to his college sweetheart. And that's gonna be one hell of a bachelor party. The guy planning it has no sense of morality, caution, or prudence. It's either going to be the most epic time of my life, or half of us aren't coming back. Who knows, but I can't wait.