Oddities and annoyances

[ellarien]

I know that dishwashers -- American ones, anyway -- are not generally considered capable of actually washing dishes without prerinsing so extensive that one might as well just do the washing up by hand. Being British, though, I've always cheerfully ignored this, and let the unrinsed dishes sit around for the week it takes to accumulate a load, and my (quite elderly and basic) dishwasher has mostly coped. The load I ran last night, though, came out with about half the items not noticeably cleaner than they went in. I suspect it's a problem with the newfangled detergent sachets; will have to look again and see if I can get one of the older formulations. In my experience, the much-advertized fancy new ideas never work as well, possibly because they're user-tested under standard usage assumptions.

I have a rudimentary prepaid cell phone, to which about four people have the number. It's intended for emergencies, or at least contingencies, not for idle chat, and is mostly more useful as an alarm clock/organizer than a phone. In the last couple of weeks, I've been getting a surprising number of wrong-number calls from the local area; to my mortification, one came while I was in a meeting at the Monterey conference, and I was so used to never getting calls that I hadn't thought to silence it. There were two more this morning, one while I was enjoying a lie-in.

Comments

phones

[ellarien]

Mine's a Virgin Mobile, on the lowest pay-as-you-go tarriff; in principle you have to add $20 every three months, but I can never find the $20 cards, only $30 ones. The minutes don't vanish if not used in that period; they're expensive -- 25c a minute for the first ten per day, 10c after that -- but straightforward. I think I've used less than $10 worth since I've had it. I don't think they do refinements like multiple lines, though.

Re: phones

[anghara.livejournal.com]

I've got the Virgin pre-oay too but I really only use that phone when I'm on the road and my husband is NOT, which doesn't happen that often. It's an emergencies-only phone if I take it with me anywhere at all within greater Bellingham. I just cannot justify paying 40 bucks a month minimum for an actual monthly service when I use a cell phone so little - but having one handy when I'm travelling, so that I can call a cab when I want one, for instance, is wonderful.

Re: phones

[ellarien]

I got mine mostly for travelling purposes, too, and it's come in handy a couple of times. I do tend to use it for in-state long-distance now, as it isn't any more expensive than my landline plan.

Judging by the packaging and website, I think those plans are mostly aimed at the teenage market, but the phone itself isn't obnoxiously teenagerish.