HULK SMASH!

Hulk displeased with manufacturing
quality and longevity. Hulk SMASH!

Today my trusty and beloved hated Google/HTC Nexus One decided that it was no longer a phone, but rather an extremely expensive and worthless brick.  It froze up while I was trying to get a FIRST POST on SlashDot; I tried the old three-finger-salute, but that failed, so I flipped out the battery.  Little did I know that would be the last time I saw the thing working.
After four hours of reading informative worthless forum posts from hundreds of other people with similar problems, I can only conclude that I'm hosed.  The phone is JUST still in warranty, but I unlocked the boot-loader and that has probably voided the warranty.  Inconveniently, I am also located in Europe and the HTC support for my particular phone is located (shockingly) in the USA where I bought it.  They are more than happy to help me, but I have to send the phone to the US.  If they determine that the unlocked boot-loader caused the problem, I'm simply done.  They won't do anything for me.
At this point in the story, I'm just barely restraining my inner Hulk and trying desperately to not chuck the phone out the window.  The most unsatisfying thing about having a new-fangled brick is the inherent lightness of it.  I mean, I don't think I could even wing a squirrel with this thing.  It's engineered lightness doesn't even lend its self to hunting small mammals after it breaks.
Sigh.
So, what phone do you all recommend?  I'm leaning toward an iPhone, but I've grown quite accustomed to having the Google watch my every move from my Nexus One.  The google integration, online sync, and general awesomeness of the Android OS will be sorely missed.  Then again, the gee-whiz, it just works factor of the iPhone is pretty appealing.

Rogaland Rambles

We had great plans to head out for a nice hike somewhere near Forsand, but somehow managed to leave the house without a guide book, money for the ferry or drivers licenses.  Strong start to a hike.  Fortunately, Agnes and Neil had a map and a plan.

After a few false starts with various car troubles, we finally headed out to Forsand with vague plan of hiking to Tindefjellet.  By the time we made our way near to the mountain, we realized we had neither the proper equipment (skis and snow shoes) nor the time to make it all the way to the top.  Instead, with the aid of a local farmer, we decided to bush whack our way from a farm up in the general direction of the mountain.
We eventually just set out right up the side of a ridge.  Fortunately, it was fairly wind-swept and covered with a thin crust of snow that made handy foot holds.

DIY Lighted Kindle 3 Cover

At christmas, my parents gave me an original Kindle e-reader that was struggling to work for more than 10 minutes at a time.  It worked just well enough to suck me into the fantastic Freedom by Jonathan Franzen.
After calling Amazon's tech support and explaining that I had to rip off the back cover every few minutes, the offered me a gift certificate valid for $89 off a new Kindle 3.  How could I resist.  You know the answer.  A few complex calls to DHL Norway and a few days latter my new Kindle 3 arrived.  Of course I started reading right away, but then I needed to know what was inside first hand.
Guided by my trusty co-pilot, the interweb, I tore into my kindle to discover the awesome potential for hacking over on the left side.  Of course I had to tear into the thing and see what was ticking inside.  I didn't tear the whole thing apart, but I did get a first-hand look at the guts  and take some readings with my trusty RatShack multi meter.

The Fate of all Blags...

I suppose that all blags that aren't produced for pay (or beer, or some other "favors"), or by OCD'd folks that document the minutia of their lives almost always meet the fate of this blag.  They sort of peter out when something more shiny comes along.
In my case, the shiny thing was beer, but fortunately in a way that doesn't require any kind of intervention or 12.5 steps to overcome.  I started working for Lervig Aktiebryggeri here in Stavanger.  After five months and 25 days of patient waiting interspersed with spurts of nagging at the police station, the Norwegian government finally decided that I wasn't too much of a threat to the life, liberty and well-being of Norway and decided to offer me a visa.
The day after I got my visa, I somehow talked the fine folks over at Lervig into giving me a job.  Since then, I've been packaging beer and trying not to break expensive things.  While I've been mostly successful with the former, I've only been marginally successful with the latter.  In  my long tradition of finding the most expensive thing at my place of work and bringing it to some horrific end, I managed to soak an ATP meter in coffee.  Needless to say, it's complex and sensitive electronics didn't care much for the soaking.  At least I haven't imploded any of the 60,000 L fermentation tanks yet.  I was rather surprised to find out that you can wreck one of those guys in about 10 seconds.
When I'm not breaking expensive things at Lervig, I've been working at the International School of Stavanger as a substitute.  I haven't found anything there to break yet.  They don't have much that's expensive, just kids.  Thankfully, in my experience kids are pretty resilient and difficult to break.  So far there's no word as to possible employment at the ISS.  If everything goes as I hope, I'll be working there next term.  Here's to hoping.