I'm guessing he is an AT&T customer: more bars in more places.

Note to self: Never borrow another person's cell phone -- you don't know where they've been.

Update: Further DNA analysis has revealed that the 4 right feet are not all from the same person.

"the collected jwz bicycle wisdom"? Lame. He forgot one:

0. Don't take cycling advice from some random internet tool who still thinks a black background on his blog will make him seem moody and cerebral.

A few years ago while living in Poland I had a Motorola cell phone. I don't remember the exact model number -- it looked somewhat similar to the current V190.

One "feature" that stands out in my memory was its alarm clock. I often use my cell phone as a travel alarm. Motorola went "above and beyond" to make this as painful and useless as possible:

1. Setting the alarm required setting the full date and time for the alarm. There was no way to set an alarm for "the next time it's 7:00am".

2. The date for setting the alarm did not default to today's date; it defaulted to the previously set date. If you last set the alarm a few months ago, you had to scroll through the calendar to find today's date. (There was no "go to today" button on the alarm's calendar.)

3. When the alarm rang, pressing any of the exterior buttons disabled the alarm. The phone was a clamshell design; if it happened to be closed when the alarm activated, you had to open it very carefully (with sleepy eyes and fumbling hands).

4. One specific button on the keypad would activate the snooze feature. Any other button would disable the alarm.

5. After three snoozes, the alarm would auto-disable. No warning, no notice, no alarm.

There were many other user interface gaffs as well (including the texting behavior you mention). For example, the external black & white LCD displayed the current time when the unit was closed. When opened, it showed only a Motorola logo. This made it impossible to see the current time while actually talking on the phone.

This phone was eventually stolen from my backpack in an internet cafe in Wroclaw, Poland. I was so happy. Not only was I rid of this infuriating device, but I knew the thief really deserved it.

After my experience with this phone I resolved to never purchase another cell from Motorola.

It looks like a giant toilet.

Now that's a blast from the past. I have fond memories of visiting Nortex and other Fort Worth area surplus shops when I was a child. My father, my brothers, and I would go there on our semi-annual gadget hunts. What a great way to spend a Saturday afternoon!

On one particular trip we found an Autonetics D-17, the guidance processor from a Minuteman I. It was a thing of beauty -- discrete components (no ICs back then) with dozens of circuit boards fanning out from a central core. It looked vaguely like a toy Cray I.

I had no real use for it, but I wanted it. I still kick myself for not scraping the necessary funds together. Attach a piece of glass to the top, and it would have made a dandy coffee table.

Back then (early/mid 70's), Fort Worth had a number of electronic surplus shops, but most seem to have disappeared. I really miss the smell of these places. Surplus electronic shops have a distinctive aroma that's probably some toxic combination of burned capacitors, broken phenolic boards, and years of grease and dirt accumulation.

Blue skies, Mr Cearley.