Tag Archives: blackberry messenger

Verizon Rocks

Seriously, you don’t hear that often, right? Always complaining about not getting what you need from giant Telecom? Well I would like to personally thank Veronica at Verizon customer service (no joke, I wonder if all the CS peops are alliterations), who felt my mom pain and allowed us an early upgrade on my daughter’s blackberry to an international Tour so she can BBM us from her semester abroad.

When does this happen? Um, hardly ever. For me anyway. It’s usually all sorts of fighting and carrying on to not get what you need. Thankfully Verizon recognized my family’s superior status as a quality customer and showed us some mercy. Either that or poor Veronica simply felt bad for me. Big Telecom with a personal touch, how lovely.

For those unfamiliar, BBM is Blackberry Messenger. This is like texting but it is internet-based and you do not pay per message. To translate that into dollars and cents, international texts, are 99 cents each, national are 54 cents. Let’s be conservative and assume she would only text the boyfriend three times a day (unlikely), her other assorted friends that she is traveling with 5 times a day, and us, well probably once a week or when there was a problem. That would be around $818 for the five months she is away. Yeh, crazy right? And those were conservative estimates.

These few little comments could have helped me get what we needed:

  1. Veronica, are you a mom? Ok, well imagine your daughter being in a foriegn country and not being able to stay in touch.
  2. You know Veronica, I am a rabid Apple user. I want an iphone more than anything but I won’t ever leave Verizon.
  3. What? You need to ask your supervisor? Oh, is she a mom? Tell her as a mom I would really appreciate her consideration on an early upgrade to help my family out.
  4. And my favorite of all times which really made her happy: Veronica, YOU ROCK MY WORLD!

The moral of this story? If you are persistent, personable and play on the mommy heartstrings you can usually move mountains. But you all new that already!

    Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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    Filed under college, Jana, moms, technology, travel

    All thumbs

    Texting, or BBMing (blackberry messenger texting) is the way many of us communicate these days. It is not only the kids that converse this way, now many adults do as well. The keyboard-based phones have revolutionized the speed in which we can now get our message out. Back in the day of traditional cell phones (jeez, that does sound ridiculous) we were forced to spell things painstakingly with triple keystrokes to get the correct letters out. The full keyboards have eliminated that awkwardness and helped us to type out error free, coherent messages.

    Well, most of us.

    Every crowd has one. The person who loves to converse in BBM and does so regularly. That person is sensitive, completely in touch, a responsible friend and the worst damn thumb typist on the face of the earth. Many try to understand her messages but few can decode the nonsense that rolls off her fingertips and out into the BBMosphere. I have gotten pretty good at looking at the letters on the keyboard next to the ones that have been typed to try to decipher her messages.

    Oh, honey, you know who you are, and so do all your friends. But we love you just the same.

    Full disclosure, I asked permission to write this and she is a damn good sport.

    To give you an example of how funny things can with a friend like this, here are a few examples that happened during a not so funny time in her life this week.

    First, she bbmd her husband who was picking up her daughter at college with an urgent message. He looked at it. Looked at it again. Then handed it to his daughter and said, “Can you tell what she is trying to say here.” The daughter’s response was, “Hmmm, there really is no way to tell.”

    Later that day she sent me a message about her son having to have some unpleasant test while in the emergency room. Here was our exact conversation:

    Me: Ew at 50. Ewwwwwww, kill me now at 14.

    Her: That’s what linda said

    Me: Who the hell is linda?

    Her: Long Nails

    Me: Linda long nails?

    Her: no I mean that is what he kinda said. my nails are long for typing

    Me: OMG, I thought the nurse giving him the test was named Linda and she had long nails.

    I am happy to report her son is now ok. But during the afternoon we did get to talk about ‘ibtestines’, i found out that ‘whabdoesnt kill u makes us stronger’ and she shared that nails were a mess because she had ‘missee her monicrd’.

    Yeh, well, better to be all thumbs than tongue tied, right?

    Wishing a speedy recovery to a 14 year old who is a reeeallly, reeeallly good sport!

    Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog. For photo enthusiasts, visitLeaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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    Filed under conversations, health, humor, technology

    What Movie Was That?

    The following is a direct transcription of  a story Jana told me today on Blackberry Messenger. 

    Jana: OMG, the funniest thing happened this morning!

    Me: What?

    Jana: This morning someone said to Hannah ” your presentation is today. Are you nervous?” And Hannah goes, “nervous?”

    So I am sitting there for a second thinking and I start laughing and everyone’s like what are you laughing at?

    I was trying to think of what movie that was from where the person repeated the last word of the question someone asked them and then I’m like, “Oh wait, that’s not a movie, that’s my parents!” (we need to work on the *like* thing)

    Hahahah.

    Me: Hahahaha (seriously I could not stop laughing because that is SO us! Guess which one I am?)

    Jana: Everyone thought it was so funny.

    Me: May need to use this as a blog post.

    Jana: I approve.

    And there you have it kids. The joys of living in my house.

    Oh, and one last shameless plug for her Dance Marathon fundraising. She has reached 95% of her goal, anyone who would be gracious enough to tip her over the top would make her day. Here is her donation page.

    Haven’t had enough of me yet? You can also read me at 50-Something Moms Blog.

    For photo enthusiasts, visit Leaving the zip code, photos from outside the comfort zone.

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    Filed under absurdities, Jana, relationships