• I am recalling April 1, 1978 – thirty years ago today. I was young and stupid and in college. (I’m not young or in college any more). I had finally decided that the long distance relationship that I foolishly considered a viable romance was neither viable nor romantic. It’s a shame I didn’t figure that out before the previous summer, when I spent $1352 for an airplane ticket to South Africa where she lived. Like I said – it was a long distance relationship. She’d long since quit writing to me and my Mom said “You know, there are an awful lot of cute girls at Westmont”. So thirty years ago today I asked one out on a date.
Nobody ever tells you “Listen, this is the woman you will one day marry. You might want to reconsider on this idea of asking her out on April Fools’ Day. Or at least make it something better than going to a Marx Brothers Film Festival. After all, this is going to be the story she tells her children.”
As my beloved has said many times – it sort of set the tone for the whole relationship.
• Google has announced its partnership with Virgin on the Virgle project to establish a thriving colony on Mars. And the Abbeyrd page has revealed a secret clause in the McCartney/Mills divorce agreement which gives Heather a say in forthcoming Beatles reissues. Elsewhere, Pacific Islands Bible College has acquired the University of Southern California. In other news, our senior pastor told the staff this morning that he was preparing to accept a call to a Lutheran Church in Washington. Something about today’s date makes people get very silly.
• Brad (who also authors crazy4Citrus.com) asked me about Magic Jack, about which he and I blogged, and for which I took the plunge and bought one. So Brad and everyone else: here’s the update.
Magic Jack is a device that plugs into your USB port on your computer and gives you free phone service across the US. It costs $20 for the jack itself and $20 a year for the license. It came with a 30 day money back guarantee. I probably should have sent it back but I didn’t. It works as advertised. But the phone number it assigns you may not be local enough to suit you. The software it loads on your computer is pretty invisible, but does not come with an uninstall, and your registry will be difficult to clean up. And of course it connects one phone to that number. In order to get your whole house on that number you have to acquire some additional equipment which I am told can be purchased at your typical Best Buy type store. And of course, if you lose power or internet service or turn your phone off, your phone service is gone as well. Even though the financial savings seems considerable, I suspect if you want to go with VOIP, Vonage might be a better choice – at least until a few bugs get worked out.
3 comments:
Thanks for the Magic Jack update.
Rick, I've been thinking about MagicJack for a work application. When I do a festival I set up a temporary office in that city. MagicJack seems like the perfect solution. All I need is one phone in an office. The phone is mobile in the sense that whenever/wherever the laptop with the MagicJack is online -- in the office, at a coffeeshop, at an arena, etc. -- it's available.
All it would cost me is $40.
The only hang-up I see if that if I didn't get a local # then every time some local person would want to call the festival office they might have to make a long distance call. Any way around that?
Post a Comment