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Today. In the London underground. Yes, even ultra-rich and famous use public transport sometimes.

Well, kind of. It was his lookalike, or maybe fake Steve, or maybe his brother, apparently less harsh version of Apple CEO.

Usually I hate taking pictures of people in the public places, but could not resist this time.
Why so blurry? Taken with iPhone…

The day has finally come. After almost 2 years and 9 months of my employment with pod1 I said goodbye to my employer.

These years were truly great for me. I was lucky to work with other people, who were smarter then me and I could learn a lot from them. It was also the time when pod1 was the fastest growing agency in the industry in UK, so, as you can imagine, in many ways it was a fantastic experience. I also made a lot of friends (I believe) whom I am going to miss, again a lot…

So what’s the plan? For the next few month I see myself doing contract/freelance work. At pod1 I was the head of Front End Development team, so will happily continue cutting up HTML/CSS templates, as well as carrying on freelancing as a web-designer and developer, something I was doing in my spare time during the last few years.

I have always been enjoying being involved in the creative side of things, not just technical, so it is something I hope to be doing a lot now :)

My leaving party was great and I just want to thank everyone who joined me. See that night photos below, I picked the nicest, the funniest and probably, the least controversial ones, hehe :) And I think it was KJ, who did the most of the job of picture taking. Can’t credit myself for that :)

On this picture you can see the fine example of a superb product wrapping/packaging. Makes you want to keep it…yeah…or to put it in a frame… or to donate it to the local art museum… beautiful…

So it has finally happened. iPhone has arrived. And yes, O2, my new mobile operator screwed up my supposed-to-be-the-happiest-day-in-the-year-of-2008. Doh! In spite of the fact that I made sure to register myself for my new friend the very moment I received an email saying ‘Go! go! go!’, and though the website said ‘yes, your 16G black is still in stock for you’ at that early morning hour, and even though my bank account was credited immediately (thanks guys!), they still failed to deliver it to me on the day of the release. Those were the darkest hours of July 11… Too dark to write about…

The next delivery could only be expected in a week or so, and still that was not the fact. So I mourned for almost two days… And then I found out that Apple store had got plenty of them in stock. The next day I called O2 and told them I did not want iPhone from them anymore, but was going to go down to Apple store and buy it there. And this is exactly what I did.

I made sure to skip my lunch break and thus finished my day earlier. I was in the store at Regent street right after 5 pm. There was a queue of around 15 people on the ground floor, which I joined. After queuing for 45 minutes and already reaching the top of the line I realized that at that point there were already 50 people behind me. I felt lucky. And smart, for coming earlier. At 6pm they stopped taking any more people into the queue, which meant it was going to take up to 3 hours for the last guy in the line before he could actually get his lusted tool of communication.

While moving along the line my heart was being filled with a greater and greater joy. And then I was taken to the top floor and found out there were… another 30 people queuing there, separating me from the Holy of Holiest - IiPhone counter. But the good news was there were chairs for all those impatient consumerists, so the queuing experience just got much better from that point. Luckily I had my laptop with me, so just started answering all the email which were begging for my attention for quite a while. And when I got bored with that I started talking to a gentlemen sitting next to me, who had a Russian name Yuri (actually named after Yuri Gagarin, the first Russian cosmonaut). So, long before we ran out of topics of conversation I was called to the counter. Another half an hour of formalities, credit check, collecting of details and all sort of registrations and finally, it’s here and it is mine! Mission accomplished! Now my life is perfect. My life is complete :)

It’s great, it’s awesome. It changed the way I organize myself, deal with emails and facebook, entertain myself while commuting, search places, navigate in town, traveling, communicating … etc etc etc. Though at the same time it does a fair bit of spoiling me, because now I want more of it: I want copy & paste, I want sync through wi-fi, I want it as a storage space, I want video recording, I want MORE… MORE… MORE… I want it to find me new music I would like, entertain me, talk to me, pay my bills, cook my breakfast, do grocery shopping… Oh… wait…

Yeah, I know what you are going to say… Other phones can do the same things… Yeeees, but it’s not that much about what it does, but rather HOW it does it :) And yes, there ARE things I could whine and complain about, but it is still The Gadget of this year. (It also brought texting back into my life [at this point i am getting quite emotional. Where was my handkerchief?? ] … I hated doing it on a tiny (yes, now it is tiny) Nokia screen with a help of just 10 buttons… I never used more then 5 texts a month out of hundreds available free on my tariff… Ouch. What a waste! …)

And one more thing. The very next day after I told O2 I was getting my iPhone from Apple store, surprise..surprise… I got a text, saying my headset had been dispatched and would arrive the next day. So, basically they were saying, ‘Oh Mr.Skrinda, you know what? We went down to the warehouse and searched it through and oh, wow, we found one more headset right behind those big boxes in the corner! And it’s just like the one you have ordered!” Yeah, right… Sure….

PS. As stupid as it might sound, there was something about queuing there. Something charming. Probably the dedication and excitement of those sitting next to me :) A bunch of morons, you say?

This image represents me as being very angry, because someone is wasting my time. Also… because reading long posts is boooooring, so here you go, a picture. And yes, it’s a facial mask. Good for your skin.

Since the 11th of July, arguably the happiest day of the year 2008 in the Universe, the day of jezuzPhone’s second coming, is approaching, I made sure I was ready for this glorious day. I called my mobile service provider to terminate my contract. I was suspecting they were not going to be happy about it, but I failed to realise the catastrophic effect my leaving would produce. :) Keep on reading.

So, the conversation went something like this :

- Sir, what is the reason you are leaving us?
- I’m paying too much.
- Ok… Give me a second… We can actually offer you a much better deal. For just £10 a month.
- Now this is exactly what pisses me off. Last time I called, you told me the lowest plan possible was £25 a month. No, I want to cancel my contract.

The rest of the conversation isn’t worth mentioning, for the guy was still trying to convince me. But I was as solid as stone.

Few days later i got another call from another department.

- Sorry you are leaving… But we want to give you a better contract. £10 per month, 500 minutes, 800 skype minutes plus brand new handset and on top of that, this 10 quid a month plan will be for you for the rest of your life.

Ok, that was quite a proposition :) And funnily enough, they convinced me. No, I wasn’t going to give up on the most perfect mobile gadget of all times, I just thought, “Hmm, ok, maybe I should keep both numbers and have that ridiculous amount of minutes?” So I agreed.

The next morning though, I checked their website for available offers and found out, that the deal they were giving me was good, but not mind-blowing. Besides, do I really want the hassle of owning 2 phones? Naaah, screw it. And I called them to cancel the contract. Again :)

They thought they got me already, but not quite :) So the girl was going:

- Do you think you can get such a good deal anywhere else.
- No, I really don’t think so. But I don’t want it.
- iPhone is a very nice phone. You can keep both.
- No, I don’t need that hassle.
- But you can keep this new phone for someone in your family…
- Everyone in my family is happy with their contracts [not that that was really true, but that wasn’t the point ]

She was trying for 15 minutes before she gave up. Finaaaally!

In a couple of days I still received the new handset. Ok, nice try ;) I called them back to arrange the return delivery. And the guy on the other end was going:

- So, sir what’s the reason for your leaving?

Wooot?? They just don’t get it.

- I’ve told you my reason already. I’m leaving for another company.

And then I thought this waste of my life was over. Nope. Silly me. They just don’t give up! The very next day (today, actually) I got another call from them:

- Sir, we just wanted to confirm you have received the PAC code. [ As if I haven’t already confirmed that last time ]
- Yes, I have received it, thanks.
- So, sir can you tell me what is the reason for your leaving?

Ha-ha! No way!! They are still doing it!

- I told my reasons to you guys several times already. I am not going to do it again. Check it in your system.
-Thank you sir, good bye.

Is it ‘good-bye’? I don’t know, but probably yes :) So here is the morale: if you are not happy with your contract, just call your provider and tell them you are leaving (don’t say you are thinking of leaving, though, otherwise it’s not going to work), and you can definitely expect a call from them within the next few days with a much more sound offer. Seriously, just do it!

So Rory is leaving in a week time. I am going to miss this guy…

Apparently he was extremely bored today… more than usually :) Here is our IM conversation. Enjoy:)
Rory - how was the burger?
Oleg - heavy for my stomach, as always :) it was good. why you ask? :)
Rory - dunno, just bored. thought it might be an interesting topic for conversation. but its not
Oleg - haha. u bore me now
Rory - i bore me too
Oleg - u can play some boring music to us all
Rory - haha im playing it to myself. got my headphones on
Oleg - play to us, bore us to death!!!!
Rory - what do I play that is boring?
Oleg - i dunno… everything?
Rory - your music doesn’t even have words. And most of it is electronic. Electronic music is for people who have no soul
Oleg - ok, but your music is so old that its for those people who have no teeth…
Rory - haha. but just because it is old, doesn’t make it less good.
Oleg - of course not.
Rory - all the best music has already been made. I don’t think it is possible recreate the excitement of that music
Oleg - but u play old AND crappy one
Rory - hahaha
Oleg - i think i beat you this time
Rory - no chance. I cant convince a soulless person about good music. i feel sorry for you
Oleg - i dont feel anything for u
Rory - thats because you have no soul
Rory - I think we need to play fussball later on
Oleg - u gonna bore me again
Rory - yeah probably…