Sunday, November 19, 2017

The iPhone X: Underwhelming

I've been cruising along on the iPhone 6S since January 2016 and it has since served me well. The only problem; it's just 16 GB storage. For the last, I'd say, 8 or 9 months, I've been constantly having to manage the space left and struggle lately to keep the phone above just a couple hundred MBs. Plus, as is the case with most phones nowadays, the batter life has slowly diminished, leaving me to charge it every single night. When I first got the phone, I was getting a day and a half easy between charges - mind you, leaving it in Airplane Mode overnight, but still, not bad.

Anyway, my biggest three reasons for looking at new phones is because (1) the storage is lacking big time, (2) battery life is less than stellar, and (3) I literally can't update my phone anymore because of the limited storage space. I've tried removing any apps that I don't use anymore, but I noticed if I wanted to make a dent in free space I'd have to remove Spotify, as that app is using nearly 2.5 gigs of space with all the music I downloaded for offline use. My point is, I can't free up anymore space because there's nothing else on my phone that I'm not using that much.

Now that Apple has launched the iPhone 8, 8 Plus, and X, I've got some options. I checked out the X yesterday since it's the 10th anniversary of the iPhone and supposed to be the "future of smartphones". The minute I picked it up and unlocked it, I realized I didn't want this phone. Nothing about it made me giddy or feel like it would be even close to worth $1,000. I checked out the Animojis, and those were really more like something I'd have fun with for the first few weeks and then quickly lose interest in after that. Plus, I realize I still prefer having some kind of a physical home button, even if it doesn't actually click anymore. FaceID is probably cool and I'm sure works really great, but TouchID feels better for some reason. Not to mention, the multitasking features are a little awkward. You can't just swipe up and have any opened apps appear; you either swipe up and hold for a second, or swipe up and slightly to the right. To close them out, you hold down on them first and then swipe up to remove them, which sorta sucks.

After my test-run and further thought, I'm probably gonna go to the iPhone 8 and get the 256 gig model. That way, I've got a phone that I know I'm gonna like (same design as the 6, 6S, and 7), plenty of storage, and can keep it going for possibly 4 or 5 years. The 8 and X have the same processing chip, so there's nothing like a loss in power on either end, and TouchID is still there, so I consider this a win-win for me.

But yeah, the iPhone X doesn't seem like a phone that lives up to the hype the internet was surrounding it with. It's very similar to my 6S in many ways, only differs with no home button and almost all screen, and isn't by any means worth the down payment on a car. I'm gonna save the couple hundred bucks, get a phone that's like mine but much more powerful and hella storage, and zoom off to the future. Why did I say that.

So that's my, as some would say, maybe, "hot take" on the iPhone X and why it's underwhelming. It's as if someone took my 6S and made the screen bigger and took away the home button. Meh.

Saturday, August 26, 2017

It's Late But I'm Still Posting

I've never realized, until very recently, how much money people probably spend on dating sites. I joined Tinder in mid-to-late June, and then followed that with OK Cupid a week or so ago, and then hit up Match.com and Zoosk. Between those four sites, you could easily spend at least $50/month or more just to have anything from unlimited likes to actually viewing messages from others or seeing who liked your profile. Tinder Plus is $10/month for unlimited likes and a new "Likes You" section, OK Cupid as "A-List Basic" and "A-List Premium" to see who likes you and when a message you've sent is read (among various other "perks"), Match has several tiers of subscriptions, and this site is near-useless as a free user. Unless you pay a minimum of $15/month for 3 months, you can do no more than view profiles and like them. No messaging, no viewing messages, no seeing who likes you, none of that. Zoosk has subscriptions to use "SmartPick" and view profiles of those who liked you.

The first girl I matched with on Tinder is done with. She stopped responding to my messages last month for whatever reason. I haven't matched with a single person since, across any dating site. I've gotten plenty of likes from others, but all of them on OK Cupid weren't my type/very attractive, and Match doesn't let me see them without payment... kinda the same with Zoosk. I kind of figured there would be a point at each one where certain features weren't free, but holy shit, the smallest things they hide. Wanna see who likes you? Give us $20 and we'll tell you! Wanna see this message? Subscribe for 6 months and you'll get it!

There is one girl I found on Match who's very pretty and a Packer fan (golden package right there), but she hasn't been on in 2 weeks, and I can't do anything but Like her as a free user, so it's nearly pointless. Even if I did have a subscription, who's to say she is a subscriber and won't see the message anyway?

That's all I got in the tank for this one. It's 1:34 AM, I'd like to be up by 9 and drag myself to the gym sometime tomorrow. G'night!

Tuesday, August 1, 2017

What Other Way to Say It

I've been trying to find some way to talk about this on here, but every time I do, I either say "Fuck it, this sounds like shit." or "I sound like a whiny little bitch.", so maybe this is whatever-times-the-charm on this one. I'm not sure if some of the stuff I'll be saying in this post has been mentioned/talked about before in previous posts since I've done so many drafts, but here it is.

The girl from Tinder, Anna, that I hung out with at Summerfest and saw Andy Grammer with (alongside my second oldest and youngest sisters), hasn't said a word to me since July 11th. She was helping get ready for the The Little Mermaid musical that The Hartford Players put on last month, and I guess was so busy she wasn't able to reply too much, which I was fine with... at the time. It's been almost 3 weeks since anything's been said back to me, and I'm so worried that she's either done with me and won't say anything or something else that I don't understand. I'm not mad at her, I'm just frustrated it's like this right now. I try so hard not to think about it at work and just anywhere else, but eventually my mind strays back to why she hasn't said anything for coming-into-a-month now. Everything was going well, like... everything. We hit it off on Tinder pretty well, moved it to texting almost flawlessly, and enjoyed (at least I thought) each other's company at Summerfest. She even texted me first the next day, which to me was a big plus. I'm not sure what to do. I have this somewhat extensive paragraph written up in the Notes app on my iPhone, wondering if I should send that sometime this week or continue praying to God she eventually responds, or both. It's basically me saying, "Hey, I know you've been busy with musical stuff lately, but you've been pretty quiet on here lately... I like you a lot, wanna take you out to a nice place... hope you feel the same." that sorta thing. I'm gonna see what my younger sister says about it and if she thinks that's a good idea after waiting this long, or what the hell I'm supposed to do.

The last thing I wanna do is assume we're not gonna happen, go back to Tinder, find a couple matches, and then like the next day find her responding to me again. I'm trying my hardest to hold out for her and focus on just her, but I'm almost beyond discouraged at this point. Who knows, though, I may just be over-thinking it like always and she'll say something tomorrow about being away for so long. I just get really saddened by it all because you'd think after 3 texts and no responses, she would've said something if she were still interested in me. That leads me to wonder why I should even send her that last message, because why should I think she'll actually respond to that when she hasn't said a word in three weeks? I mean, I don't know how else to get through to her. She's not responding to my texts, but... oh yeah. That's another thing.

She seems to have no problem posting on Instagram and liking stuff on Facebook, but she can't respond to me. The only thing that is still giving me a little hope is a post of hers on Instagram where she's showing off a mask she's making for another musical, and in the description she says something like "Sorry I haven't posted in a while, I'm in the middle of going from one musical to the next and it's been a bit nuts." So, maybe it's just the biggest effing time commitment I've ever heard of and she's not saying much to me? I don't know. I just feel so crappy inside from it and it makes it a lot harder to get through the day when I still don't hear from her. I'd just like to know something. Anything. Even if, God forbid, she was done with me, at least have the respect/decency to tell me, so I'm not sitting here wondering what's up and trying to stay on her radar like it's the only thing that matters right now.


Again, I just don't know. I really want to send that last message, but then again, I also want to wait it out just this weekend yet, but I'm so damn torn. The worst case scenario, really, at this point is that I send that message telling her how I feel, and she doesn't even respond to that. Then I'll know she clearly isn't into me or thinks it's okay to leave me in the dark for eternity.

BUT I STILL DON'T UNDERSTAND WHY SHE'D TELL ME ABOUT TWO MORE REHEARSALS LEFT AND THEN JUST BAIL LIKE THAT? WHY? OR ADD ME ON FACEBOOK FIRST. I never took her as someone who'd be like this. Even at Summerfest, she seemed really cool and had an amazing personality. It never crossed my mind that "Oh jeez, she's not digging this very well." Sure, it took her a while to respond at first on Tinder, but hey, that I fully understood; you wanna make sure this guy isn't a creep or someone who's gonna demand they get a response right away. And I kept my distance until she got more comfortable.

Anyway, that's my rant for the night. Time for bed and another day at the office. I continue praying as always.

Please, Anna. Just tell me what's up. I like you, you're pretty, your red hair, all of it. Whole 9 yards. I'm holding out for you while I keep my head up.

Sunday, June 25, 2017

Online Dating

While I sit and wait for my iPhone to charge its final two percent, I thought I'd share my experiences so far with the world of online dating, and specifically, Tinder. Alright, I just checked, and it flipped to 100%, but I'm still writing this post. Anyway, last week Monday I decided to download Tinder and create my profile. I didn't actually get it set up until about 11:30 PM, and having a job and all, needed to be up by 5:45 AM, so I got as far as connecting my Facebook account, typing up a quick bio, and just briefly checking out the very first girl Tinder presented me with. Her name was Paige, 21, and currently attending UW-Oshkosh. She seemed cute, but I was too nervous to actually swipe right at the time, so I left it at that.

This brings us to the next day at, oh, I'd say... around 1 PM. I was in the middle of my work, had my phone sitting on my computer desk. Suddenly, I saw a notification from Tinder pop up, and it said "Someone has liked you! Swipe right to find out who." With this, I thought it literally meant swipe right on the notification to look at who liked me. I left that alone the remainder of the afternoon because I didn't want to be on a dating app during work, kinda awkward for me. I couldn't have been more wrong on the initial notification, but we'll talk more about that shortly.

At around 9 PM that night, I went ahead and looked at the notification, and again thought it would show who had liked me. It opened Tinder up, but to my surprise showed the same exact girl. Sticking with my initial assumption, I figured this Paige girl was the one who liked me since she was first on the app. I swiped right on her because she was attractive, but the whole "It's a match!" thing didn't pop up, so that clearly wasn't the one who liked me. Anyway, I decided to swipe either left or right on a few more, but had not yet arrived on the girl who liked me.

Fast forward to the next day, Wednesday afternoon at work again, I did some more swiping behind the scenes (I know, what a sneaky employee.). After about to or three swipes, I came across this girl named Anna, 19, who is attending UW-Stout for Studio Art with a minor in Performing Arts and a focus on sculpture. When I first glanced through her photos, I thought she was pretty cute and had some cool stuff going on in her life. I swiped right, and lo-and-behold, "It's a match!" popped onto the screen. HOLY SHIT, IT WAS HER is exactly what I thought as I discovered her. I had two options, "Send a message." and "Keep Swiping". I chose keep swiping as I had no idea how to start a conversation at that moment, so I left it for a little while.

By a while, I mean Thursday evening. Yeah, again the next day. Throughout the work day on Thursday I tried coming up with unique ice breakers, but the few I brainstormed were shit. Then, after remembering she loved Harry Potter, I figured I should use the dialogue from the scene where Ron Weasley is attempting to perform a levitation trick on a feather sitting before him in class. He's sitting next to Hermione Granger, and he says "Wingardium Leviosa!" with no success. I said that exact thing with some other funny stuff, hoping she'd come back with "No, no, stop it! You're going to take someone's eye out. Besides, you're saying it wrong. It's LeviOOOOsa, not Leviosaaa." so that I could respond with "Well you do it then if you're so clever. Go on, go on!" but she just said "That's so me as a wizard I swear" with 3 crying smiley emojis. Good enough for me though.

After that, I said some other HP stuff, but here's where things are getting a little dry. She never responded to my second message, so I waited until that evening where I followed up with "But anyway, UW-Stout, eh? How was your first year of college?" and yet still hasn't responded (I should probably also mention that she didn't respond to my first message that I sent at 6:30 PM until 10:20 PM, and I didn't reply until nearly 1 PM the next day... so... yeah. It's not that I purposely waited that long, I just was in bed early and took until my lunch break to finally respond.)

I'm reaaaaaally hoping she just doesn't go on Tinder that much, because otherwise I don't know what the long gaps are for, unless she's been talking to other guys already and lost interest in our conversation so soon, which I find hard to believe. I mean, I did change the subject to her schooling, so the ball is still in her court. I have every bit of faith she'll respond, because it's not like I left the chat at a loose end. I also hope she responds because she's got red hair that I don't think I've seen anyone else rock better than her, seriously. Plus she's just so damn pretty and I hope to develop this into a relationship off of Tinder. I realize Tinder isn't exactly what people think of as a way to meet his/her future spouse, but hey, why can't it be my way?

For real though, I'm holding onto faith that she responds, and I hope she does. This Anna seems like someone I could get to know well and take somewhere nice and show her what a fantastic gentlemen I am. I shall remain humble however. But I also got this. *thumbs up or fist bump or however to end this post strong and now get to sleep because I need it*

Sunday, January 22, 2017

Packers in the NFC Championship game!

Well, I don't know how else to start this, other than what the title says. The Green Bay Packers made it to the NFC Championship game after narrowly defeating the Dallas Cowboys with a 51-yard Field Goal by Mason Crosby on Sunday, January 15th. Today they take on the Atlanta Falcons, and I'm just as worried about this game as I was about the Cowboys. Almost everything that I read about the game from NFL.com and other videos on YouTube is saying the Packers are underdogs and that the Packers' defense is what could easily decide the game. I have to agree, as Green Bay's defense has always been a major sore spot all season, and ever since they went 6-0 last season and then started falling big time against the Denver Broncos and ended the season at 10-6 they've shown how much they struggle stopping solid run and pass defenses.

I haven't blogged since before Christmas last year, and have been meaning to get back to it before the football season is over. We've got the NFC Championship game today, of course, and then Super Bowl LI is on Sunday, February 5th in Houston. The Pro Bowl is next Sunday, but it's such a joke, not many people watch it. Anywho, the Packers went 4-6 to start this season, and Rodgers made another famous statement: "I feel like we can run the table, I really do. If we can just get one win, and get things rolling, I think we have a real chance." Wouldn't you know it, they go on to win 6-straight, win the NFC North, and make it to the Championship game, sitting just 60 minutes from another Super Bowl.

As for my prediction with this matchup, I'm thinking it's gonna be another big shootout. Being a Packer fan, I have to stick with my guns, and I'm pushing for a big game on Rodgers' plate. I'm saying, this time, it'll come down to a final big touchdown, sending the Pack to the SB, 42-35. No Field Goals, no onside kicks, just a solid 5 TDs on either side of the ball, with Rodgers sending a rocket into the endzone and continuing their ride. I'm actually watching the game as I anxiously type this stuff up, and it's not good as of yet. Atlanta just rolled through Green Bay's defense, and Rodgers just went 3-and-out, with Crosby's 41-yard FG NO GOOD. That really sucks, since he had a 22-FG streak going in the postseason. DAMMIT.

All that aside, it'll be a heck of a game. Or maybe not. Maybe Atlanta will just totally rip our defense apart and make them look like the Bears. Or the Packers will magically gain momentum and win by 10. Who knows? You won't know until the clock hits 0:00 in the 4th quarter. Unless, of course, somehow we tie, and you all know how that usually ends for the Packers in the postseason, a game away from the Super Bowl.

Alright, enough talking and potential jinxing. Onto the current game and praying the defense can do even something against Matt Ryan's full-throttle defense.