A droid, a hog, and a dumbass (me)

I used to be fine with my phone.  Not over-the-top in love with the thing, but I was pleased.  Now, my just-fineness status has dropped to ambivalence.  See, here's the thing.  I have these two friends...I will call them Gill & Fob.  They like to abduct my phone when I'm out of the room and tweet things like, "I want Franks hog in the pooper" and "Frank's hog makes me giggle like a little Asian girl."  Let me explain, which will make things clear as mud:  Frank is Fob's father.  Apparently, his hog is substantial.  I have met him once, briefly, at a grieving event.  For whatever reason, though, I will always be connected to Frank and his hog.  Usually my butt is involved.  I have no idea.

So, back to the phone thing.  Although my Twitter friends seem to get a healthy kick out of the Frank's Hog tweets, I was growing tired of them.  And their frequency.  So, I decided to lock my phone.  The droid uses a pattern locking thing where you draw a pattern connecting at least four dots.   It worked well for a while.  I'd spy Gill trying to figure out my pattern, by pressing separate dots.  She'd give up with disgust, foiled by my mysterious patterning.  Then, one night recently, Fob and I were out and I went to the restroom, confidently leaving my phone at the bar.  I returned to a blinking light on my phone...someone had texted me!  Yay.  People like me.  No, that's not it:  I want Frank's hog AGAIN!  That douchebag Fob had figured out my pattern!  Sneaky bastard had been watching me operate my phone and I had no clue.

Then a bit of time went by when I didn't see Fob.  He went on vacation, I worked, yada yada yada.  But Friday night, we celebrated our friend Picole's birthday at her house.  Me, Gill, Fob, Picole....and Frank's fucking Hog.  Will I never learn?  No.  So, Saturday, I got all proactive and decided to change my locking pattern to something more complicated to stop this Frank's Hog nonsense once an for all.  Sat on Picole's deck on a nice day...enjoyed the nice weather, enjoyed surfing the web on my phone.  Then I went inside to do some junk, came back to the phone, and promptly forgot my new pattern entirely.  After 5 tries, you have to wait 30 seconds to try again.  5 more attempts:  no dice.  5 more?  I'm frustrated and have failed to execute the pattern.  Then you are fucked.  But, oh wait!   Forgot your pattern?  Just enter your Google email and password!  We'll hook you up!  OK.  Melzer knows her email just fine.  Password?  Engraved on my brain.  However, my phone tells me: Nope, Dumbass, you've entered the wrong username/password combo.  I tell my phone:  Hello, Motherfucker, I *know* my Google stuff.  Don't mess with me.

Got on Picole's computer, found a bunch of stories of the same thing happening to other idiots who couldn't remember their locking patterns.  Rockin'.  At least I wasn't crazy, but how shitty is that?  Anyway.  Read a bunch of forums, scanned a bunch of potential fixes/tricks.  Tried a bunch of solutions.  None of them worked for me.  I was still locked out of my phone.  The solution that everyone said to do if nothing else works....hard reset.  Ugh. I was beyond flustered, frustrated, and fucked.  So, I followed the directions and just did it.  Sickening feeling.

The good news:  my pictures were apparently safe.  The bad news:  I believed I'd lost all my contacts.  But I didn't.  I just lost all my text history.  It's just a pain to find people's stuff to text them/call them now.  Oh well, I'll get back to a comfortable point sometime.  But what suuuuuuuuucks is all my apps will have to be reinstalled.  Luckily, I didn't have tons, but I effing used the ones I did have.

I mean, I can get over this happening and having been inconvenienced and all.  And I can admit I was pretty stupid for forgetting the new pattern, but I think it's stupidly outrageous on Verizon's (Google's?) part for having this "bug" or whatever.  If you're going to offer a backup for forgotten passwords/patterns (and you absolutely should), the damn thing should work.  Seriously, nothing frustrates me more than knowing I'm doing everything right, yet I get no results.  And, I was in a crappy-ass mood for sushi and then for a drink at a trendy rooftop bar downtown for Picole's birfdai celebration, part 2...as a result of the whole ordeal.

And future locking patterns?  Not for me.  Phone will have to remain unprotected.  Still not too keen on Frank's Hog.  Guess I'll have to get a holster and start clipping my phone onto my waistband. ;) 

In conclusion, I've lost some respect for my phone.  Probably should have just gotten a BlackBerry.