Thursday, July 31, 2008

Give me a call, I'll be in the toilet


So, yeah, yesterday I dropped my phone in the toilet.

I have a good friend who did this same thing a few months ago, Heather Moore. Except she did it the same day she was expecting a phone call from a NY agent. At the time, of course, I made fun of her with ruthless glee. What kind of a person drops a phone in the toilet? I mean, what exactly are you doing in there that makes this situation come to fruition?

Now I know.

I tried my best to dry the thing out (I must've washed my hands 50 times yesterday) and the thing still didn't work. No big deal. The phone was ancient (at LEAST 2 years old) and I was due for a new-every-2 upgrade from Verizon. I marched down to the Verizon store and this awesome dude named Nik helped me for almost an hour.

My new phone is the red enV2 (see picture). I finally woke up and joined the new generation with internet and email on my phone now. But that's not very exciting. What IS exciting: I now have GPS and navigation - it's only 10 bucks a month! This seems far too good to be true. It's as good as any navigation system I've seen, with the hot mama lady talking to you and everything. I think I'll call her Jane.

This will be so valuable to me as I go on tour, visiting all those schools I've never been to before, hotels, restaurants, bookstores, etc. So I'm very pleased, and thank the laws of gravity for pulling my old crappy (no pun intended) phone into the deep waters of the abyss.

There are a few things in life I just can't believe I ever did without. TiVo, iPods, HD, laptops, wife and children (not, um, necessarily in that order). Well, add this cellphone GPS navigation thing to the list. Jane took me to a Taco Bell yesterday. It was very nice of her.

And Jane only costs 10 bucks a month! I told my wife I'd go one year without the NFL Ticket to make up for my additional monthly costs (hey, the Falcons are gonna suck this year anyway, har har).

This phone also makes it much easier to take decent pictures and email them to myself, so hopefully I'll be better about putting pictures on the blog while I'm touring and such.

For those of you who've been here awhile with the Dashner Dude, you may remember a time when I couldn't wait to get an iPhone. Please. I'm anti-iPhone now. Steve Jobs ticked me off when he made it sound like the newest one would be really cheap - he failed to mention the wee little fact that was only for people UPGRADING from an old one.

So I could get this phone for free (after rebate), have internet, email, and a kick-butt navigation system on the most reliable network, or pay 500 bucks for a fancy schmancy iPhone. No thanks.

Note to friends and family: they weren't able to transfer my address book over. So I lost all that. Call me sometime so I can get you back in. I don't have any phone numbers memorized.

THE MAZE RUNNER is still going strong. Yesterday during a brain storming session, I may have come up with the single most important epiphane of my author career so far. The ending will be so much stronger now. Word count is up to 51,000.

15 comments:

Kimberly Vanderhorst said...

Bwa. Ha. Ha.

I laugh because it's the sort of thing I can picture doing myself and I'm soooo glad to hear of someone else doing it first.

Okay, I probably would've beaten you if I actually owned a cell phone...

Shanna Blythe said...

James, it looks like a nice phone! And can I just say BLECH!

And the new iPhone costs that much unless you sign a 2 year contract with them--then it is 199. Of course you may not have wanted to do that! But can I just say? I LOVE MY iPHONE!!!! But I have the old one--not the new one.

Besides aren't you rich now? You're published--isn't that how it works??!! ;)

Ron Simpson said...

you should have gone to an At&T store, ported your old number to our network and bought an Iphone. Then you can have all that stuff and more. It has GPS, data and an Ipod all in one.

Q said...

Is it weird that I'm curious as to HOW you dropped your phone in the toilet? I don't think I could ever manage that. Unless it was on purpose.

Unknown said...

Cool Beans! My phone is ancient, it was my little sister's! So I'm definitely due for one. I'm jealous!

J.N. Future Author said...

this really has nothing to do with dropping a phone in the toilet.

But i once put my best friends phone in a ziplock bag, and sunk it to the bottom of a pool. it was soooo funny trying to see him get it out. because i dropped it in the really deep part of the pool, the one they use for high divers. so it was like 15 feet. and whenever i would call it, a light would apear at the bottom of the pool, and you could faintly hear the ringtone.

Scoops Mangum said...

James, now every time I get an email from you, I will worry that it's from your bathroom. Should I call Jane and have her schedule a time for you, me, Lisa and Macotar to visit Taco Bell? Crown Burger was great, but it's been to long! Now that I'm finally employed again, I can afford to go! :)

Don said...

Been there, done that.

But I'm surprised you would name your GPS "Jane". The naming thing doesn't surprise me (the gal needs a name), but the fact that an uber-creative guy like you came up with "Jane".

Of course, if she 'told' you her name was Jane, then I guess there's nothing more to be done.

Dedee said...

Can I have one? It's beautiful. And mine is currently in two pieces.

Heather Moore said...

Yeah, uh . . . SO glad I checked this post. NOT!

James, really, I mean why are you revealing my secrets? And to set the record straight it was LAST YEAR, with a different agent, not the one I'm working with now.

At least you didn't tell the worst part . . . that I called the agent and actually hung up on her when she answered. By mistake, of course. So I called her back and of course, seeing it was the same caller who'd just hung up on her, she let it go into voice mail. I left a totally lame message. And THAT's when I came back into the building and dropped my phone into the loo.

Basically . . . one of the worst days of my writing life.

Crystal Liechty said...

I think "Jane" refers to the computer character from Orson Scott Card's Ender's series... am I remembering that right? Or am I way off?

James Dashner said...

Havy any of you guys even READ my book! HELLO? Mistress Jane?

Heather, thanks for making yourself look even better. :-)

James Dashner said...

Oopsie daisy. That'd be Have, not Havy. Havy. Interesting word.

James Dashner said...

Scoops, I'm ready for lunch anytime, anywhere.

J Scott Savage said...

wife and children (not, um, necessarily in that order).

*************************

Um, I hope they came in that order.