I almost did nothing today. I did rather little all weekend. Of this, I am proud.

It’s been raining in between gusts of wind of house shaking velocity. In other words, perfect weather for lying around in bed. M., prince that he is, accommodated this lying around joy by trucking a small table next to the bed, filling it with bagels, coffee and granola. Propped up on pillows with a giant, hot mug of joe, listening to frightening gusts that have me shaking in my boots for the future of my fruit trees. So far, survival.

I did manage a couple rather placid activities this weekend.

It started when the workplace’s IT dude gave me back the old, first generation iPhone I lent them for testing whether they could work on our network. I took it home with an eye to hacking it, thanks to the kindness of Saurik and the good fellas at the iPhone Development Team. When I plugged it into the ‘puter, iTtunes asked to upgrade the software, and I figured I’d start with an updated slate. Alas, shortly thereafter, I couldn’t use the bottom buttons in some, but not all, applications. No joy in lacking the ability to put spaces between words or hit return.

M. needed to go to the mall, and we figured, what the hell, might as well ask how much the geniuses behind the counter in the back of the Apple store how much something like that would cost to get fixed. I wasn’t feeling optimistic, lacking the desire to sink any cash at all into a spare 2-year-old (I mean ancient) phone with some dings and other signs of hard usage.

I undid all of the hackery I had begun, blanked everything out, and we headed to what’s general the mellowest, friendliest Genius Bar around. Here’s a hint if you are in Steve Jobs’ neighborhood, avoid the main Apple Store, possibly one of or the first of the retail outlets, on University Ave. in Palo Alto. It’s almost always crowded throughout the store, and maybe the employees are afraid the master himself might enter, but except for one person I’ve encountered, they seem kind of clenched.

You can wander that big store for a while, and while the folks with the matching colored t-shirts and handheld scanner holsters will smile, nod and say “hi,” they generally are rushing around so much helping you doesn’t seem to be a primary concern.

Down the road at the Stanford Mall, the store is less store and more boutique, tiny compared to its neighbor, and sitting in the swanky, most well-heeled of all area malls. Those guys, they like to help you. Pretty much, you can’t stand there looking at headphones or otherwise not seeking help for greater than three minutes without some offer. I got concierged, despite already seeing my name up there on the reservations board.

So, I sat down and I told my genius about upgrading the software and then trying full restore, etc., etc. He took the phone into their mysterious back room, and I fiddled with my actual working 3G phone out front. He grimly gave me the verdict that it couldn’t be fixed. And, then, he slid an unmarked, plain white box towards me and asked if it would be OK to replace it. He said despite the clearly out of warranty nature of my phone, the dings and scratches, the dead bottom row was a known problem, and Apple would just assume give me a new one.

I got me a brand-new, old-style iPhone.

I promptly took it home and hacked the living shit out of it. It is a phucking sweet device now. It’s not a phone, but my working phone’s SIM card worked just fine, when I tested it. It’s a tricked out iTouch with the capability of VIDEO RECORDING. Rock on Cycorder developers. I heart you.

OK, that’s enough geekage. Especially since I had a major moment of developmental disability in the geek world amidst the iPhone jailbreaking. Wanting to test the possibility of putting a prepaid cell phone SIM card into the refurbished iPhone, I picked up a cheapo throwaway at Rite Aid with a plan to activate and pull the card out of the cheapo. Only, after a major brain cramp, I bought a $10-dollar Virgin Mobile phone. AKA, one without a SIM card, because it ain’t on that kind of network. D’oh.

Back in the rain, today, Rite Aid actually took the phone and the initial call-time card back without hassle. Shocked I was, considering I had to slice the shit out of the damnable plastic packaging to get to the phone to open it and discover it was useless.

With M. serving breakfast in bed, Apple slipping me a new phone and Rite Aid cooperating and giving me back my $10, I can’t stand how well the service economy is working out for me.

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