Is there anything as exciting as getting a new electronic gadget to play with? Alright, so there are hundreds of things that are more exciting (winning the lottery, for example). However, at the moment that you have that new piece of technology in your hand, it’s like Christmas morning. Unless, of course, that piece of equipment busts…which brings me to our stories for today.

Many of you will remember all of the problems that I had with the Treo 700p in late 2006 and through the winter/summer of 2007. These problems are so widespread in the Treo 700p owner-base that many disgruntled owners have taken to posting their problems on the official Palm blog.

My last experience with Palm was sending in my busted 700p for the third time for a third weird technical failure (the touchscreen stopped working and the phone stalled on the welcome screen). That was last summer. For their part, Verizon Wireless (another bunch of crooks) sent me another replacement Treo 700p and it sat in my desk drawer, untouched, until about 2 weeks ago. It was at that time that I decided that I could no longer let this $250 - $500 piece of equipment just sit there and collect dust.

So I switched back to the Treo 700p. Stupid move.

The phone had a bunch of technical problems to start with in terms of incoming calls. With the help of an online forum, though, I was able to fix that problem (why should the end-user be fixing technical glitches). As you can tell, I wanted this thing to work so I went the extra mile. And then let me give the devil his due - the phone worked fine for about 10 days. Then, out of the blue, the headset connector stopped working. In other words, I would plug my earpiece into the phone and while I could hear the person on the other end, they couldn’t hear me. For a guy who drives at least 2 hours per each day as a part of his commute, that is prime communication time for me to catch up on a bunch of my personal relationships. If I’m silenced for those 2 hours, forget about it!

And once again here I am…I’ve have another broken Treo 700p and I don’t know what to do with it. Sure, I could go through the motions with Verizon Wireless again and receive a replacement phone in the mail, but the truth is that I want nothing to do with another 700p. I could go through the motions with Palm again and have them tell me that the problem is on the service provider’s end and not theirs and that there is nothing they can do. Quite frankly, I’m not interested in playing that game. I’m not interested in playing any of these games, really. I want my money back or I want a free upgrade, period. Verizon Wireless refuses to give any refund (even a discounted one) on faulty equipment - even if you’re going in for your 4th replacement phone. Palm won’t even listen to the argument. Could I bitch and moan and argue for an upgrade? Sure, but that does not guarantee that I’ll be getting an upgrade so I’m not willing to put in the effort.

Any advice out there on what to do with this faulty piece of garbage? I tried to sell it on eBay for half of what it’s worth and even THAT didn’t work!

As for my other technical problems, I don’t know if any of you heard about this, but Activision released Guitar Hero III for the Nintendo Wii with no surround sound support. Dopes. I have my GH3 disc in to Activision and I am awaiting a replacement. Not that it matters if I receive the replacement disc right away…my Nintendo Wii is back in the shop! Some of you may recall that my Wii had a faulty graphics chip. Well, I sent it in to be fixed in December and instead of fixing it, they sent me what had to be a refurbished Wii - complete with a broken door on the top of the machine and scratches on the side (and a new serial number). I procrastinated calling them to complain until about 3 weeks ago. When I did call, however, they were extremely friendly and helpful on the phone. They sent out a shipping slip right away and I sent them the refurbished Wii for repairs. The repaired product should be coming back to me this week sometime.

When I have kids, I think I’m just going to give them wooden blocks to play with! No worries about lead paint, no worries about something breaking, and hey - they may even learn something!

Another e-mail from my Mom. This one contains random bits of wisdom for a variety of topics ranging from the best way to peel a banana to how not to burn your house down via your clothes dryer. Enjoy!

Peel a banana from the bottom and you won’t have to pick the little “stringy things” off of it. That’s how the primates do it.

Take your bananas apart when you get home from the store. If you leave them connected at the stem, they ripen faster.

Store your opened chunks of cheese in aluminum foil. It will stay fresh much longer and not mold!

Peppers with 3 bumps on the bottom are sweeter and better for eating. Peppers with 4 bumps on the bottom are firmer and better for cooking.

Add a teaspoon of water when frying ground beef. It will help pull the grease away from the meat while cooking.

To really make scrambled eggs or omelets rich add a couple of spoonfuls of sour cream, cream cheese, or heavy cream in and then beat them up.

For a cool brownie treat, make brownies as directed. Melt Andes mints in double broiler and pour over warm brownies. Let set for a wonderful minty frosting.

Add garlic immediately to a recipe if you want a light taste of garlic and at the end of the recipe if your want a stronger taste of garlic.

Leftover snickers bars from Halloween make a delicious dessert. Simple chop them up with the food chopper. Peel, core and slice a few apples. Place them in a baking dish and sprinkle the chopped candy bars over the apples. Bake at 350 for 15 minutes!!! Serve alone or with vanilla ice cream. Yum

1. Reheat Pizza
Heat up leftover pizza in a nonstick skillet on top of the stove, set heat to med-low and heat till warm. This keeps the crust crispy. No soggy micro pizza. I saw this on the cooking channel and it really works.

2. Easy Deviled Eggs
Put cooked egg yolks in a zip lock bag. Seal, mash till they are all broken up. Add remainder of ingredients, reseal, keep mashing it up mixing thoroughly, cut the tip of the baggy, squeeze mixture into egg. Just throw bag away when done easy clean up.

3. Expanding Frosting
When you buy a container of cake frosting from the st ore, whip i t with your mixer for a few minutes. You can double it in size. You get to frost more cake/cupcakes with the same amount. You also eat less sugar and calories per serving.

4. Reheating refrigerated bread
To warm biscuits, pancakes, or muffins that were refrigerated, place them in a microwave with a cup of water. The increased moisture will keep the food moist and help it reheat faster.

5. Newspaper weeds away
Start putting in your plants, work the nutrients in your soil. Wet newspapers, put layers around the plants overlapping as you go cover with mulch and forget about weeds. Weeds will get through some gardening plastic they will not get through wet newspapers.

6. Broken Glass
Use a wet cotton ball or Q-tip to pick up the small shards of glass you can’t see easily.

7. No More Mosquitoes
Place a dryer sheet in your pocket. It will keep the mosquitoes away.

8. Squirrel Away!
To keep squirrels from eating your plants sprinkle your plants with cayenne pepper. The cayenne pepper doesn’t hurt the plant and the squirrels won’t come near it.

9. Flexible vacuum
To get something out of a heat register or under the fridge add an empty paper towel roll or empty gift wrap roll to your vacuum. It can be bent or flattened to get in narrow openings.

10. Reducing Static Cling
Pin a small safety pin to the seam of your slip and you will not have a clingy skirt or dress. Same thing works with slacks that cling when wearing panty hose. Place pin in seam of slacks and — ta da! — static is gone.

11. Measuring Cups
Before you pour sticky substances into a measuring cup, fill with hot water. Dump out the hot water, but don’t dry cup. Next, add your ingredient, such as peanut butter, and watch how easily it comes right out.

12. Foggy Windshield?
Hate foggy windshields? Buy a chalkboard eraser and keep it in the glove box of your car . Wh en the windows fog, rub with the eraser! Works better than a cloth!

13. Reopening envelope
If you seal an envelope and then realize you forgot to include something inside, just place your sealed envelope in the freezer for an hour or two. Viola! It unseals easily.

14. Conditioner
Use your hair conditioner to shave your legs. It’s cheaper than shaving cream and leaves your legs really smooth. It’s also a great way to use up the conditioner you bought but didn’t like when you tried it in your hair…

15. Goodbye Fruit Flies
To get rid of pesky fruit flies, take a small glass fill it 1/2″ with Apple Cider Vinegar and 2 drops of dish washing liquid, mix well. You will find those flies drawn to the cup and gone forever!

16. Get Rid of Ants
Put small piles of cornmeal where you see ants. They eat it, take it
“home,” can’t digest it so it kills them. It may take a week or so, especially if it rains, but it works & you don’t have the worry about pets or small children being harmed!

17. INFO ABOUT CLOTHES DRYERS
The heating unit went out on my dryer! The gentleman that fixes things around the house for us told us that he wanted to show us something and he went over to the dryer and pulled out the lint filter. It was clean. (I always clean the lint from the filter after every load clothes.)
He told us that he wanted to show us something; he took the filter over to the sink, ran hot water over it. The lint filter is made of a mesh material - I’m sure you know what your dryer’s lint filter looks like.
Well,…the hot water just sat on top of the mesh! It didn’t go through it at all! He told us that dryer sheets cause a film ov er that m esh that’s what burns out the heating unit. You can’t SEE the film, but it’s
there. It’s what is in the dryer sheets to make your clothes soft and static free — that nice fragrance too, you know how they can feel waxy when you take them out of the box, well this stuff builds up on your clothes and on your lint screen. This is also what causes dryer units to catch fire & potentially burn your house down with it! He said the best
way to keep your dryer working for a very long time (& to keep your electric bill lower) is to take that filter out & wash it with hot soapy water & an old toothbrush (or other brush) at least every six months. He said that makes the life of the dryer at least twice as long! How about that!?! Learn something new everyday! I certainly didn’t know dryer sheets would do that. So, I thought I’d share!

Note: I went to my dryer & tested my screen by running water on it. The
water ran through a little bit but mostly collected all the water in
the mesh screen. I washed it with warm soapy water & a nylon brush & I had it done in 30 seconds. Then when I rinsed it — the water ran right thru the screen! There wasn’t any pudding at all! That repairman knew what he was talking about!

My Mother sent this information to me in an e-mail the other day. I got a kick out of reading it and imagining myself and my friends doing this stuff randomly! Enjoy!

1. At Lunch Time, Sit In Your Parked Car With Sunglasses on and point a Hair Dryer At Passing Cars. See If They Slow Down.

2. Page Yourself Over The Intercom. Don’t Disguise Your Voice.

3. Every Time Someone Asks You To Do Something, ask If They Want Fries with that.

4. Put Your Garbage Can On Your Desk And Label it ‘In’.

5. Put Decaf In The Coffee Maker For 3 Weeks Once Everyone has Gotten Over Their Caffeine Addictions, Switch to Espresso.

6. In The Memo Field Of All Your Checks, Write ‘ For Smuggling Diamonds’.

7. Finish All Your sentences with ‘In Accordance With The Prophecy’.

8. Don’t use any punctuation.

9. As Often As Possible, Skip Rather Than Walk.

10. Order a Diet Water whenever you go out to eat, with a serious face.

11. Specify That Your Drive-through Order Is ‘To Go’

12. Sing Along At The Opera.

13. Go To A Poetry Recital. And Ask Why The Poems Don’t Rhyme?

14. Put Mosquito Netting Around Your Work Area and Play tropical Sounds All Day.

15. Five Days In Advance, Tell Your Friends You Can’t Attend Their Party Because You’re Not In the Mood.

16. Have Your Co-workers Address You By Your Wrestling Name, Rock Bottom.

17. When The Money Comes Out The ATM, Scream ‘I Won! I Won!’

18. When Leaving The Zoo, Start Running Towards The Parking lot, Yelling ‘Run For Your Lives! They’re Loose!’

19. Tell Your Children Over Dinner, ‘Due To The Economy, We Are Going To Have To Let One Of You Go.’

20. And The Final Way To Keep A Healthy Level Of Insanity… Send This E-mail To Someone To Make Them Smile. Its Called…therapy.

Ha ha ha!