I just heard a little “beedely-beep” coming from the general area of my desk. Oh oh, my cell phone is showing “Low Battery”. That’s weird, I plugged it in before I went to bed last night. And when I went for a pee in the middle of the night and again this morning, I could have sworn that the backlight was on, which it generally only does when it’s charging. So why didn’t it charge?
Personally, I blame The Connector Conspiracy. The connector on this cell phone is little, and fiddly, and doesn’t make a very good or reliable connection. I don’t know why they have to make a different connector for every single cell phone brand out there, but it’s either:
- greed – they could save a few cents per phone by using this new funky connector instead of something simple and positive like an RCA-style jack or
- greed – they realize the real profit is in making the chargers and car adaptors and the like, and the only way to make you buy their chargers and car adaptors is to use a different connector than everybody else.
Either way, it’s damn annoying. And I’m cellphone-less for the rest of the day because the only cell phone charger I have at work is for my last cell phone. Not that I’d have anywhere to plug it in – I’ve already used the only slots in my power strip for my PDA and my iPod. The fact that at work you can only use power strips that have been attached to something in a vertical orientation is rant-worthy, but maybe for another time.