phony

I ended up, this weekend, with a lot more time on my hands than I'd thought I'd have:  my Korean coworker didn't have the time to print out material for me to proofread, so there was no reason to go into the office today.  Instead, I decided I'd spend the weekend focusing on some me-oriented projects:  getting a new cell phone, getting a new pair of glasses (I've been using Mom's old pair of glasses all this time, but my eyes are getting older, and I need a new pair—something I can wear in public without making people wonder whether I'd stolen my glasses from a helpless old granny), and making a heap of fried rice for the coming week.  I also needed to break down and clean my electric fan, which had accumulated an impressive layer of dust on its cage and blades.

Anyway, I did what I'd threatened to do:  I cleaned my fan, cooked a load of rice, ate lunch by myself at Fun Beer King in the Express Bus Terminal (where I'd eaten with JW last week), then went out late this evening to the local Samsung service center and bought myself a spanking-new Samsung Galaxy S21.  Fucker cost me almost W900,000 (about $800, US).  I'll be curious to see whether this phone proves to be as tough as my now-previous phone, the 2013-era Galaxy S4.  I'm keeping the S4, by the way:  I can still use it wherever there's Wi-Fi.

Obtaining the phone took a long time at the service center:  the USIM card inside my old S4 is nothing like the new, much tinier USIM for the S21, so the staffer had to go through a whole long procedure to get my new phone ready for me, including prepping the S21's new USIM.  Long story short:  the data from my old phone have been transferred to the new one—Kakao Talk chats, stored photos, and various files (PDFs, Word documents, etc.—things downloaded from online).  The staffer told me I'd need to re-log into most of my services (Kakao Talk, Gmail, Kindle, etc.) because I'm on a new device, now, so that promises to be a slog, especially since I'm not sure I remember all the various dang passwords.  I may need to get a password manager for my new phone (or maybe it already comes with one); it's no longer possible to remember over a dozen passwords.  (I already use Chrome's password manager for all my browser-related activity.)

The new phone has a ton of new features that I'll have to explore and get used to; I was tickled to see that the camera actually has a "food" setting for those of us who like to take food pics.  The S21, like an Apple iPhone, now has a non-removable battery:  if you have battery-related problems, you have to go to the service center, just like with an Apple product.  That kind of sucks, but all tech seems to be moving Apple-ward, so maybe this is the inevitable future.  The phone's battery also has a differently configured charger outlet, so I have to once again buy all-new charger cords.  I don't think this'll affect my portable-charger situation; portable chargers come with a variety of charger ports.  But we'll see.  I've only just bought the new phone, so I'm still figuring things out.  It might take me a few days to work out all the kinks.

I didn't get my new glasses today, and I won't buy the rest of the fried-rice ingredients until tomorrow, so stay tuned for more news later.

ADDENDUM:  I forgot to mention that, while I was at the Express Bus Terminal, gorging myself on more snail pasta and fried chicken, I decided to lumber-waddle over to the B&C Market to buy myself a hand mixer—something I've been wanting and needing for a while.  I got a Kenwood for W45,000 (which isn't far from Amazon's price for equivalent mixers), and I saw that B&C has Kenwood stand mixers on sale for about the same price as KitchenAid stand mixers sold at Costco.  Kenwood is a well-known British company that makes decent-quality products... should I get the KitchenAid from Costco or the slightly cheaper Kenwood from B&C?  I'm still thinking the matter over.