I finally had a use for Verizon

I've had cell phones since the mid '90s. My first phone was a Bell Atlantic Mobile / Ericsson bag phone. I've had several phones since then. A few Nokias with BAM. I switched to NEXTEL when I saw a coworker with those cool radio phones. From then on, it was Motorola all the way. When Sprint took over NEXTEL, I stayed with Sprint. When the Sony Ericsson Xperia PLAY came out on Verizon, I immediately left Sprint for Verizon. A year later, I switched to AT&T, and had to buy another PLAY since Verizon uses CDMA and AT&T uses GSM.

So, I had two Xperia PLAYs. So, when I look back, I'm glad I had Verizon, but for only one good reason. I wasn't glad, however, at the time I had Verizon. I hated Verizon.

When I had BAM, their customer service was very helpful. When I switched to NEXTEL, I got better customer service. When NEXTEL was taken over by Sprint, I got the same level of customer service, but better.

My first smartphone was a BlackBerry 8350i. When I had a problem with it, and called Sprint, they connected me to the BlackBerry customer service department. My second smartphone was a Motorola i1. When I called for help with that, Sprint connected me with their Android customer service department. I was very happy with this level of customer service.

When the PLAY came out, I had to have it. Being a big PlayStation fan, I immediately dumped Sprint for Verizon. At the time, the PLAY was a hot-lick phone, and Gingerbread had come out not too long ago. Everything was fine......until I needed customer service.

I called into Verizon with a question about my PLAY, and Verizon customer service connected me with the dumbest mutha-fuckin' CSR in their call center. The next time I needed help, they gave me the second dumbest fucker in there. No individual Android department like at Sprint. Nope, just any stupid fuckin' shit in there. The first dumb fuck to answer the phone.

When AT&T got a GSM version of the PLAY, I was so happy. Most of my family was on AT&T, and happy with the service. I dumped Verizon, and got an AT&T 4G PLAY.

But, I was a bit of a klutz with the phone and it wasn't too long before I dropped the phone enough times to crack the screen. Through normal use, and a few more droppings, I had a screen that was all fucked up, but still functional. I had the AT&T insurance, but by the time I considered getting a replacement, the PLAY wasn't available anymore. I decided to live with it 'til I was eligible for a new phone. A few droppings later and the screen would flicker. Then later the screen wouldn't light up unless I played with the screen. And later, it wouldn't light up at all. Now, I have an unusable phone.

Then it hit me: swap screens from my Verizon PLAY. Hooray, I finally have a use for Verizon. Bought a cell phone repair toolkit (64-190) from Radio Shack, took 'em both apart, swapped the screens, and viola!:

I think my next phone will be an Xperia TL or ZL (when it becomes available). I'm happy with the Sony brand, and those phones have 40 times the on-phone storage capacity of my PLAY.

Verizon sucks!

"Down goes Frasier, Down goes Frasier!"

Found a tutorial on the xda forums to downgrade my Xperia PLAY from .285 back to .270. Amusingly, I couldn't make it work in windows, but the Linux version worked perfectly.

So once again, goodbye Star Battalion, Asphalt Adrenaline, Crash Bandicoot, and the rest of that shit.

But, once again, the dilemma is that now that I have enough space to install what I really want, once I install what I really want, another space deficit is created.

The bitches slapped back!

Seems that AT&T, Google and Sony watch the developers sites often enough to see people rooting their phones using the DoomLord/ZergRush exploit. An update to my Xperia Play was issued mid April. Build 3.0.1.B.0.285

Most idiots like myself install these updates thinking that we are getting something new.

There is nothing new about this update. In fact, there is no changelog for this release. That should have been bellringer for me, but no. About the only new feature about this update is that it fixes the DoomLord/ZergRush exploit.

I had also heard that most updates that are released should be installed using PC Companion instead of OTA, but no. I read on xda developers forums only after I updated my phone that in order to keep root I should've updated OTA.

After the update, those pesky games and bloatware apps have been reinstalled without a care as to how much phone storage space is available. When my phone was done, I had only 3MB of phone space left. AT&T Navigator, Office Suite, Star Battalion, Crash Bandicoot, all of 'em, they're all back, and I can't re-root my phone using the previous exploit.

I have been reading about doing a software downgrade from the current version .285 to the previous version .270. But, I'm giving more consideration to installing a custom ROM like cyanogenmod instead of fuckin' around with the stock ROM.

We'll see.....

Yeah bitches!

Finally rooted my Xperia Play using the ZergRush method, and then was free to delete all those memory stealing apps and games that were driving me crazy. Android has got to be the one and only proprietary Linux distro, which goes against everything Linux stands for. Thankfully, there are developers (in the 90s, they were called hackers) who are hard at work looking for exploits.

The best part about using the ZergRush method is the Linux port. Because Linux supports nearly all USB protocols right outta the box, there is no need to install special drivers. Another great thing about ZergRush it's that it runs standalone. No need to install Eclipse or the Android SDK.

Once rooted, I installed Titanium Backup, and uninstalled all those pesky games and apps I'll never play or use, like Star Battalion, Sims 3, Dungeon Defenders, AT&T Navigator, etc.

Now, I must say, when I say "Yeah, Bitches!", as much as I love Sony, AT&T, and Google, I'm calling them bitches for telling me I have to live with their bloatware. No, thank you.