Necessity is the mother of great gifts

So, whilst I was in Boston for the holidays, my cell phone died. Well, it didn't die exactly, so much as crap out in a kind of interesting way. I could still make calls (to J.R. because he's the only one I programmed into my speed dial), and I could still receive calls (from anyone, though I had no idea who was calling unless it was J.R. because he had a special ringtone). Since my screen was black (or occasionally a creepy gray with a strobe effect), texts were out of the question. All in all, exactly what you want from your phone when you're traveling and don't have old-fashioned things like address books around. Bygones. The point is this: When I got back, J.R. gave me an early birthday present: a shiny new Windows 7 phone. As I am new to the smart phone world (and an admittedly reluctant entrant), I chose the LG Quantum phone, as it has the slide-out keyboard.

I have to say, I pretty much love my phone. I had some minor issues getting my Gmail account to sync up, but J.R. fixed it (and claims the problem was due to my having a massively ancient Gmail account). I was able to connect to my Xbox Live gamertag without effort, and I snagged the two free games immediately (ilomilo and Flowerz). I then proceeded to play them posthaste to grab some achievements. (Yes, I had achievements before I connected to Facebook or Twitter.) On the whole, I've got no complaints. Camera is good, keyboard is good, and I'm even getting use to the touchscreen. If you'll excuse me, I have to go find some more games for my phone. Now, if only there were some way to gift Xbox games for my phone ...