i did it, i dumped verizon

about 11 or 12 years ago my parents bought me my first cell phone for x-mas. it was way back before smart phones and color screens. i was psyched. i remember reading my new phone number and memorizing it instantly (it was an easy number.... 2014240606, that number's gone now, so feel free to prank call the next dude who gets issued that number).

the phone was put under my stepfather's name cuz i didn't have credit. i was dealt the immense responsibility to keep current with the payments cuz if i didn't, i'd be messing things up in his name... not my own.

i kept this number and this contract, under my step dad's name, for years... up until this month actually. sure i could've changed the name on the phone, but i'm lazy... very lazy. so i never did. i just went with the flow and ended up 30 and still using a cell phone under my step dad's name.

throughout the years and several phones i had through verizon, i could never complain about the reception. verizon always had great reception and they knew it. they used that as an excuse to never cut me any slack. throughout my 12 years as a loyal verizon customer, the only special offers i ever received were discounts on new phones every 2 years.. but i'd only receive the discount if i renewed a contract with them for another 2 years.

as the years went by, the plans verizon had to offer for the extensions got more expensive. what had started out as a $40 a month commitment back in the day was now averaging somewhere in the mid $80 area. i had let verizon nickel and dime me the whole way... just accepting it, figuring that's how things are. if you want the phone with the good reception, you gotta be willing to pay the price.

and throughout the years, anytime i'd log into the verizon wireless website, i'd see awesome deals for the hottest new phones for new customers. NEW customers.... here i was, 10+ years in the game, never seeing these sorta prices offered to me... even when they offered discounted phones every 2 years.

sometimes i'd try to act tough and call customer service to try and get a cheaper price. each time i tried, they'd offer me cheaper plans. but the cheaper plans always sucked. it was always for a ridiculously low amount of texts and minutes that i'd definitely go over. so i went on, paying the high prices, accepting it as fate.

this year things started changing. metro pcs's stared popping up everywhere. they started offering $40/month, unlimited text and call plans with no contracts. i figured that was because the reception sucked. but one day i was hanging with a buddy of mine and we went to a metro pcs store to check it out... he needed a new phone. he bought one and went with their plan. i checked in with him periodically to see how the reception was, and he'd always reply that it was good.

this opened my eyes. i started seeing other hard to believe plans from other carriers. i started to feel like a big sucker for sticking it out with verizon. i was comparing the whole thing in my head to someone who sticks around in an abusive relationship and says, 'things will change, it'll get better. i won't always get fucked over.' meanwhile i had to sit in jealousy and watch all my friends find themselves in new, healthy cell phone relationships that made them happy and saved them money.

it was around this time that one day i woke up and my cell phone wouldn't turn on. it had shut off and it wouldn't come back on. i messed with it all day trying to get it to work, but to no avail. i had a broken phone. i took this as a sign.

i took a few days off from owning a cell phone (i highly reccomend the few day long cell phone break. it's nice to get off the grids and not be easy to find sometimes). gave myself time to think about it. googled other plans. then on the way home from work one day i noticed a new virgin mobile store around the corner just about to open its doors for business. i took that as another sign and checked out their website....

BOOM!!! $25 a month, unlimited text, data, and 300 minutes talk time (i don't think i've ever gone over 300 minutes in a month, i'm way more of a texter). i immediately felt like this was the start of something good. i checked out their phones online. they had a rogue touch for $150. it had internet and a touchscreen. shit i've never owned before in a cell phone. i was sold.

so a few days later i went to a local radioshack that sold virgin mobile... got the phone, got the plan... that was about a week ago... and i'm happy. way happier than i was with that wicked bitch verizon.

the kicker is that i had to pay an early termination fee to get out from verizon's evil grasp. $95... well spent. almost like they say in the movie, 'a bronx tale,' forget it, it cost me $95 to never have to deal with them again. with the $25 a month price tag for virgin mobile, it'd all pay off in no time anyways.

later verizon. we had some good times. but we were younger then. i grew older and grew apart as you grew larger, more corporate, and more greedy. sure, your reception improved and got better over the years, but you used it as an excuse to treat me bad. you expected me to just stick around and never leave.

well i left. you may find other customers, but me and you are a thing of the past. and i'm better off without you...

josh
+
virgin mobile
4eva
(or until virgin mobile grows larger, more corporate, and more greedy)

reasons why i jumped on the lakers bandwagon

i wanna start this off by declaring that i am a new jersey nets fan first and foremost. however, if my team is not gonna even make it to the playoffs, i enjoy playoff basketball too much not to root for anyone.

you'd think being a nets fan that i'd HATE the lakers since they stood in the nets way of ever winning a championship. and for a couple of years, i hated.

but i got over it.

the catalyst was 2 years ago, the season the celtics beat the lakers in the finals. i started off the season with a fresh belly full of hate for the boston celtics. they had an awful season the year before. but in the offseason, they made monster trades to get kevin garnett AND ray allen on their squad. i was mad. i was mad cuz i'm a nets fan and the celtics are in the same division as the nets. i was also mad cuz it just plainly sucks to watch the celtics go from a suckfest to champions in ONE YEAR!

so it was those finals when i decided to root for the lakers. i also had grown to respect kobe's game. and i felt like he was being overlooked. he no loger had shaq. guys like lebron james and dwayne wade were doing their thing, and mvp awards were going to the likes of nash and nowitski. i thought that in the mainstream, kobe was getting dissed.

unfortunately 2 seasons ago, the lakers lost and the celtics won. and that made me wanna despise the celtics even more.

so here we are two seasons later... celtics make it to the playoffs, but not as the best team in the league or even in the east. they were unexciting and had no buzz....

....until they beat the cavs. not only did they beat the cavs, but lebron looked like a punk towards the end of that series (i'm in no way saying that lebron james is a punk, but towards the end, it just seemed like he wasn't his regular, awesome self).

the celtics then go on to beat the orlando magic. AND i had picked the magic to go all the way this season after their loss to the lakers last year. and all of the sudden here are the celtics, just as awesome as they were 2 seasons ago.

other reasons:

-lebron got the mvp award this season, but kobe played more like an mvp during the playoffs, when it matters most.

-phil jackson. the zen master is awesome. he's probably the best coach of all time.

-the celtics have 3 of the biggest mouths i can't stand in all of sports:

kevin garnett
rasheed wallace
(saved the bet for last) paul pierce

-derek fisher rules:

he's been on every team that kobe's been on that won a ring.

when he was on the jazz, he flew back from nyc (where he was visiting a doctor for his sick daughter) to utah during a game, suited up, and went bonkers and helped his team win.

he took a paycut to go back and play for la because he would be closer to a doctor who specializes in his daughter's illness.

he's clutch.


-how can you not root for the team that jack nicholson roots for?

-how can you root for the team that dane cook roots for?

-the lakers are the true underdogs. the celtics have historically owned the lakers throughout the history of the nba finals. pretty sure the celtics are out of space for championship banners in their arena.

-i'm not rooting for a big baby.

-ron artest needs a ring. no one wants to retire with 'punching a fan' as their only claim to fame.

-the patriots suck and tom brady looks like a douche

-so i can one more time tweet, 'hey shaq, how does kobe's ass taste?'

happy belated birthday to jogging josh

i started jogging around the lake at james j. braddock park a little over a year ago. i don't even remember the exact day, but i know it was sometime over the memorial day weekend. developing a jogging habit was something i thought about a lot. but i was just too fuckin lazy. i'm still too fuckin lazy... but now at least i'm a lazy dude who jogs.

i used to come home from work and go straight to the tv. and that was it. that'd be my night. if it wasn't tv at home, it was out drinking somewhere. i like drinking. i did it a lot... still do actually... though jogging for a year has naturally scaled back some of the drinking. still, i'm no sober saint.

the first time i tried jogging, i couldn't even make it half way around the lake. i walked the rest and went home.

next day i did one lap and it sucked. i was miserable, out of breath, in pain.... just all around shitty.

next day i ran a lap and it sucked a little less.

and then a week later i ran 3 laps. i never had a 2 lap regimen. just went from 1 lap to 3laps. it felt right. and things were starting to click. i was starting to develop a better jogging form and finding myself in less pain.

then one day i ran with liz. and she pushed me to do 4. that was awesome. i was so set on sticking to 3 laps. 4 laps wasn't in my head at all. i was just satisfied to go from lazy couch potato to 3 lap jogger, that 4 laps just didn't exist to me. but on that day, in a moment's notice, at the end of the 3rd lap, liz said, 'c'mon, let's do one more.' and we did.

i stuck to 4 laps for a most of the year. it was only about 2 months ago that i pushed it up to 5 laps, which is what i'm currently running every time i hit the lake now. many days i run at the gym at my job. they have treadmills which are ok, but i prefer running outdoors.

there was a week i spent in buffalo, ny to visit my dad's family. it was about 2 months into my jogging year. i had just made the 4 lap leap. and i was determined not to let a vacation deter me from my new jogging habit. i woke up early every day and ran for 40 minutes around my uncle's neighborhood. it was a very cool week in my jogging year. i don't know the distance i ran exactly, but i got to explore a town i knew nothing about every day while jogging. and when i was done, i'd go back to my uncle's and jump in a pool. to this day, it's one of the biggest thrills of my life... to put my feet to the pavement in the summer sun for 40 minutes with the glory of a cannonball jump into a swimming pool at the end.

over the year, i've ran at least 3 days out of every week. ideally, i'd like to run 5 days out of the week, and most weeks i do that. but sometimes i slack, but no matter what, i always find a way to make time for 3 times out of the week.

it's also a hell of a reliever. any shitty day i find myself in a funk, a good jog around the lake usually gets the funk out of me. at the least, it helps me end the day more at ease.

i don't know where this whole jogging thing will go. i enjoy it a whole lot and i've felt immensely better all around since i've started. i'm not the fastest jogger or the jogger who goes the longest distance... but jogging's a lot like life in general. you gotta find your pace and what you can do and what you feel good about. and right now, i feel pretty damn good!

so happy birthday jogging josh. cya next year.

I saw conan o’brien!

If you don’t know, I’m a huge conan fan! And last night I had tickets to go see his live, ‘legally prohibited from being funny on tv’ tour at radio city music hall. it was awesome from beginning to end! I laughed my ass off surrounded by my fellow team coco brethren! It was a good night, one to definitely be remembered.

He pulled out some old tricks from the late night show that he didn't get to do on the tonight show, like the masturbating bear (which has been renamed to the ‘self-pleasuring panda’ due to legal issues) and the walker texas ranger lever. Conan was wacky, weird, witty, intelligent, self-deprecating, and funny as ever. it was a joy to see him with the leash a little loosened. He was stealing vodka from fans and drinking and cursing on stage (not overly vulgar, but he cursed a little which you’d never see on tv, and he even got the audience to call him a PUSSY in unison).

I’m not gonna go into super specifics of the show. I personally don’t like when people try too hard to describe something that’s inevitably going to end with, ‘I guess you had to be there.’ but it had everything a good show should have… laughs, music, special guests, an insult comic, fan participation and an all around good time!

It left me stoked for conan’s return to tv. His new tbs show will definitely be on the top of my dvr list.

In a selfish way, I’m glad this whole ‘tonight show’ dilemma happened to conan. I never took advantage of seeing his show live when he was in NYC. So as soon as I found out about this show (which wouldn’t have happened if he was still on the tonight show) I had to get tix for it! and I think I probably got a better experience than seeing a tv recording. It was a live performance in a theater, never to be televised. It’s like our own special experience that no one else can get in on.

In closing-
Conan’s the man! I could go on and on about the things that make him awesome. If I lived my life to only be half as awesome as conan o’ brien, I’d consider my life a total success!


ps- if you're interested in what people who were at the show thought- check out twitter and search #oldyolsen

as you came into the theater there were signs posting that stated if you were gonna tweet about the show, to use that hashtag. pretty cool.