Number, please

Last fall our two-year phone contract with U.S. Cellular was up, and Ereck and I decided to make the great leap to Cingular. We changed carriers largely because we thought the phones offered by U.S. Cellular were lame.

Making the switch proved ghastly. Thanks to a mistake that was entirely mine -- I transferred our phone numbers to Cingular a few days before our U.S. Cellular obligation ended -- we were billed hefty early-termination fees. And then all sorts of inexplicable charges appeared on our first Cingular bill. It looked as though we might be out hundreds and hundreds of dollars.

A few phone calls fixed all that. A very sympathetic U.S. Cellular representative waived our cancellation fees after minimal pleading from yours truly ("We hope someday you'll come back to U.S. Cellular," she said), and a Cingular representative agreed that the charges on our bill were inexplicable, and removed them.

Now, months later, having recovered from the trauma of the change, and not to be totally geeky about this -- but I love my new phone, the impossibly complicated Cingular 8125 (pictured). I'll spare you an exhaustive description. I do want to tell you, though, that not only can I make and receive calls with this thing (I like that in a phone), but I also, thanks to the built-in Wi-Fi, can surf the Internet while I am lying in bed, on my side.

Regular readers already know I have quirky sleeping habits. Time to add another one: Now I can serenely peruse gawker.com as I drift off.