Peaches and Dulcinea: science Fiction

Sci-Fi has to be believable, or no one would watch it (please ignore "king kong", "Godzilla" and the whole island of Dinosaur thing, Jurassic Park)

So ok forgive me for not swallowing Black Holes as they currently are presented.
https://www.nasa.gov/learning-resources/for-kids-and-students/what-is-a-black-hole-grades-k-4/#:~:text=Scientists%20have%20found%20proof%20that,hold%20a%20few%20million%20Earths.

Yeahbutt you just said they could be as small as atoms.

Plus Black holes (from the article) are stationary, sitting on their fat ass destroying their little corner of the universe by sucking in everything,

(But) planets are too smart to get close enough to be sucked in.

Right?

Oh, now, go quote your favorite Science-Fiction author. Puhleeze.

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Remember the "collagen" entry?

This is a biased sales pitch for robots.
(WHY do I say it's biased?

Look at the hyped up speed for anything the robot does....)

I'd still be watching but, the guy making the video seems to think reading his little magazine aloud is riveting entertainment)

There are of course better robot videos out there, I just don't care.
It's a train of thought from a waking dream, a stationary mini-robot nutcracker-style that had one visible motor on the bottom with sixteen or so tiny arms (it was a dream, OK?)

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Speaking of "science Fiction" (har har) the pixel 8 and the Pixel 8 pro.

One is "compact" (ooo, so compact) 6.2 vs 6.8 display. (over a half inch, I have envy)
One has a better camera (bcuz, yada bla whatever)

And the spider-fly promotions are tempting (Welcome to my parlor,

"don't be shy")

But carriers usually promise great deals for a year, or two, or "13 months"

and then suck you dry.

Buy "Plus" / "Next" (for 40 or 50 more per month) and get $800 off a new phone,

or pay off the (eg, $999) phone (for 41 more) with the current plan.
In english, that means:

You'll pay 40 more AND $199 @41/mo (so $81 more a month)

Or maybe they'll do that fancy-math thing, sending you rebates every month on the $40.

Einstein would be so happy. I'm not.

Plus it might be tempting to use my *new* temp-sensor

on the teapot and the toilet-bowl,

Promptly dropping the phone in either one (prolly the teapot) and ruining it.

Ahh, %$#@

"girly cute"?
I need "Tac"-something, preferably by "Hempvana"
Preferably with Copper-infused-things.
I want a case (for reals) you can see across a dimly lit room, WHY is that "girly cute"?
https://www.reddit.com/r/GooglePixel/comments/1803pv9/one_year_on_whats_the_consensus_for_the_best/

"consensus"? HA!

If I got one, (IF), I'd stick to my current plan and avoid the BS-promotions.
(unless there's a more decent promotion rolling in)

And I want a Pixel / don't want a Pixel, the reviews are simply horrifying.

I went off to google (this is an edit) reliable phones, and all the reviews are old.

2013,2017, and the defunct company LG.
The advertisements are thick for "best service, Best company," etc., which I am not interested in right now.
I realize (sort of) that everyone is either an iPhone or a Samsung user, all other candidates have dropped out of the race (how depressing) but one or two reviews seem happy with Pixels (ooold Pixels)

Apparently,

the people who owned Pixel-4's or whatever, long for a simpler time.

I get scared away, creep back to stare, I just don't know (Read my blog on "Towels" to get an idea of my fear of buyer's remorse)

I only just noticed that the most ebullient reviews on T-Mobile for the Pixel 8 pro were from "Influenster.com" who (apparently) reward loyal reviewers.
Which would be fine, no prob, but why are all the reviews sounding like they came from Bible college or "The Stepford wives"?

Conversely, the rest of the reviews all seem rather negative (and hateful)

This site reminds me of protestants and (uh,) Catholics (hmm) trying to convert each other.
It's as if...rival store owners want customers to drift over to THEIR side of the street.
I like reading the Pixel 8 pro ones, "They're not so bad, almost as good as the iPhone" yeah, whatever

"Hard up" is a phrase....it means (to me) a guy with a decent amount of income being drained away by debt, such that whimsical trips to McDonalds just never come up, they're too expensive, they would break the budget.
Well buying a 50.00/month phone is a HUGE expense (to me.)
no more towels, no more pot-roasts, just pay the damn bill, and shut up.
"Hard-up"

I almost-for sure want a pixel 8, but the undead Pixel 7 calls to me.

Could they be so incredibly bad???
It would come down to a price difference.

And, availability (damn)

One of the more heavily hyped features of a phone (besides the camera)
Is the software updates in the years to come.
This is ludicrous, the people praising that have little or no interest in keeping the phone beyond a few months, and I can only conclude that (in their head) this equates to a higher resale value.
Anyway a guy has to sort through meaningless specs and concentrate on the biggies: How easy is it to answer a damn ^%$# call before it stops ringing?
(And hang up before the office rep thinks you're too old to own a phone?)

When that steeewwpid computer asks "press one to continue" has your screen gone black and you spend precious seconds getting it back??

The spider-fly people hang around like hungry (...spiders?) waiting for me to switch carriers...

The REASON I've been looking so hard at other phones is Samsung's intrusive bloatware.
Wanna screensaver? Sign up for an account!!

I wanna break free of Smasung
(and its Pomps and works)

My phone as a trade-in:

"*"?
("Welcome to my parlor, don't be shy")

According to google there's a phone store nearby, but I wrote (didn't I?) about the strip-mall people fleeing for the hills (didn't I?)

But, if it's still there, couldn't

Just ...
sort of

Creep on in and trade in my phone, or would they insist on cash-up-front and a locked-in deal first?
Next month, uh, fer shure.

256GB version $60 more@amazon (o, who'm I kidding)

A Bigass NVM, I went with a white-elephant:

A review site run by bots (I think) seems to like the Pixel 7 over the "iPhone X"

which is what a friend has.
Brighter screen? But the iPhone is more detailed?

Well anyway assuming the mummified battery is still good, I got a comparable phone to iPhone X ("the best-selling, most fantastical phone in the world, ever")