Unhealthy Relationships with Google

I received a new phone in April. Rather, my contract was up June 1st, and I became eligible for a new phone April 1. I may or may not have stayed up past midnight the night of March 31 to order my phone. Really, it's all a little fuzzy.

So now, I am the proud owner of a touch screen Samsung. Or does it own me?

This thing is slick. I feel like a high powered attorney or New York executive with this thing, rather than what I really am, a struggling Wisconsin housewife with an attitude and bratty kids.

But hey, it's all about perception. Or attitude. I can't remember at this point.

It's not like I had many options with which phone I got. Since I share a plan with Disgruntled Husband, and he has to have a data plan, that means I have to have one too. (Though I wonder just how productive he is with his severe Angry Birds addiction.)

Now, I had a Blackberry before, and it was cool. I could get my email on it and Facebook, plus it took pictures, and I loved the keyboard possibly more than life itself. But that was about it. Now that I have my new phone, a whole new world has opened up to me, confirming what my friend suspected:

Google is going to take over the world.

And I'm okay with that.

Before I got this phone, I had my regular email address (on the archaic AOL webmail server. Techno-geeks, you may now cringe) and a Gmail address I made for this blog. Well, imagine my surprise when I realized I could sync my Gmail contacts with my new phone, along with my Google calendar, automatically.

(Cue Handel's Messiah.)

Oh calendar feature, what did I do without you? I now have my appointments on my calendar, a separate calendar for the kids (which I color coded), and I set up DH's phone, so the kids' calendar syncs with his phone, too. Speaking of DH, once I showed him Google domination his Gmail account calendar syncs with his phone automatically, he has shared his password with his secretary so she can put his appointments on his calendar and he never has to call frantically from court ever again.

(Well, at least not for his schedule, right Carol?)

There's also the small matter of apps. That is, how I love them and letting me count the ways.  I have apps for cooking, for lists, for the news, for my stocks (I have two stocks, checking them makes me feel smart), I even put one on there to shut my kids up occupy my children during times they need to be quiet. (Like during the longest Easter service in the history of Christianity. Good thing my brother came too, so we'd have three phones available for the kids.)

Now I have Larry Potter telling me he needs an Android, which is an upgraded request; he used to just ask for a cell phone. (I told him he can get a cell phone when he's at the age I was when I got one...which is 21.) Who's he going to call, the Tooth Fairy?

I bet there's an app for that.