Funk Babblings

At lunchtime today I kept having trouble with my 6-year-old Verizon/LG cellphone turning itself off unexpectedly. It may have been my fingers hitting the wrong keys, and it may have been the phone finally falling apart, but when I start thinking about conspiracy theories there are at least two other culprits I can think of:

1. Verizon, realizing that "get a new GPS-enabled phone so that enhanced-911 works" didn't entice me to buy a new phone (or sign onto another two-year contract with a "free" phone), has started messing with my phone so that I feel a more pressing need for a new one. Dangerous, since they don't know whether I'd stick with Verizon.

2. The powerful and all-knowing Google. The tech press has been talking about rumors of a Google Phone (gPhone!) coming next spring, and I've started thinking that I should wait until that's available to finally replace my old phone. This morning Google finally acknowledged those rumors in announcing their new Open Handset Alliance and upcoming "Android" phone platform and Software Development Kit. (The idea is to open up phones to third-party applications more than ever.) Anyway, the timing is rather suspicious -- gPhone announcement this morning, my old phone starts acting up at lunchtime. Hmmmm.

I guess if I'm going to get a Google phone I'll need to brush up on my Java abilities.