I found my original iPhone!

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

While organizing my possessions that aren't exactly the top shelf China, I found the original iPhone that I bought after returning from Scotland, when I disliked the time I spent with a regularly, lame-o non-smartphone.

There's a problem with the old iPhone, however: it can't hold a charge. No matter what I do, when the power drains the thing goes completely out. One side effect is that the clock dies and it thinks that the date is January 1st, 1980 when I recharge it.

Powering it up when it's in this state is a little uncomfortable, though. Here's why:

Back when I had this thing, I was living in my house in Thornton, Colorado all by myself. I let the lawn sort of, ah, go. Weeds were everywhere. During the (accursed) summer months, when the weeds got too high, I would get notices from the Weed Enforcement Officer in town. They would tape a warning to my door that effectively said, "Hey Dicko, you've got two weeks to mow your lawn or you'll have to appear in court."

THAT SAID, they would always follow up one last time before I had to appear in court to check the weed/grass length. This was perfect for me, because I would simply put off mowing and weeding until the day before they were going to do their final, no screwing around inspection. This worked for everyone: I had to cut weeds for the minimal length of time, the town didn't have to have their courts tied up with me and well now that I think about it, my neighbors probably didn't find the process working at all since my property was such an eyesore.

Back to the old iPhone: what I would do is add an event on the phone's Calendar app to remind myself to chop the weeds. So several times each summer from 2009-2013 I had calendar events like "Cut Weeds."

Weeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeell when your iPhone thinks it's 1980 and then has the current date re-set, one thing that it does is fast-forward through time and give you a pop-up for EVERY SAVED EVENT IN THE CALENDAR APP. So stuff like "Dad's Birthday" shows up and you have to touch the "OK" button. That's not too bad, but then the fast forward process gets to 2009 and suddenly I have to hit "OK" on every... single.... one...... of these "Mow The Lawn" and "Avoid Going To Court" notifications and suddenly it's an extremely humiliating travel through time. S-sorry, previous neighbors.

(I'm thinking the thing I could do here to never see the notifications again is maybe hard-solder the thing to my electrical box.)

[Ice Cream Jonsey]

(Oh yeah, the coda to this is that when I told Melissa this, she remarked on how I found the events popping up to be the humiliating part and not the, ya know, inability to keep a properly-maintained home like an adult. Diff'rent strokes, I guess.)

[Flack]

I have a drawer with five iPhones in it. I think 3 are iPhones and 2 are iPods, but whatever.

All of them are like yours in that none of them will hold a charge anymore. It must be something where when they are dead long enough, the battery just gives up all hope on life and offs itself.

As the patriarch of an iPhone-owning family, the two most ridiculous things about iPhones are (a) no external storage slot and (b) no user-replaceable battery. I think Apple actually charges $75-$100 to replace the battery. If you've got the skills, I think you can do it for around $30. Either way is highway robbery.

[AArdvark]

Weed Enforcement Officer

That job is SO different in Colorado now. We truly do live in the future.

My boy settled for an iphone because his wife got one. Buy one get one free or something when you re-up with AT&T. Or something, I wasn't paying attention.
Being an Android from-the-beginning guy, he hates it. He's living with it but he hates it.

THE
BAD PR
AARDVARK