Yeah, again. I sort of dimly recall having heard good things about “Dust”, a new theme that is (or at least was) in the running to be the default for Intrepid. Intrepid’s out in beta now, and will be released on the 30th of the month, but I hadn’t really paid too much attention. Hardy works fine for me, and although I’ll probably install Intrepid very shortly after its official release (just because I can), it doesn’t really matter too much to me until release time. Anyway, I got bored with my black and gold theme, so I went back to my customised Ubuntu Studio for a day, and then got bored again. I went looking for more dark themes, but nothing really caught my fancy. Then, I came across a mention of Dust, and finally decided I’d go see what the fuss was about. The plain, default Dust theme is very nice, but I got a pack with some variations as well; there’s Dust, of course, and Dust Sand, Dust Burnt and Dust Aurora. I love “Aurora”! Most of my wallpapers tend toward grey-blue-black, so I had to do a bit of searching before I found one that I liked with the new theme. Most people use reddish or “wood” wallpapers with it, but I don’t like those; I wanted something abstract and a little different. At first, I wasn’t sure I liked this, but the more I looked at it the better I did like it. I hope they do choose Dust as the default Intrepid theme, or at least make it available. I did change the icons because I don’t like the orange-ish folder icons that come with it, and of course I changed the pointer to my beloved “neutral”, but the rest is very nice. Oh yeah…the Dust FF theme is separate (that’s for when I forget and don’t know why FF didn’t take the Dust theme the way I remember. Hehe).

I set up MSN on P’s new phone, too, which means that I can send him quick messages if they’re not important enough to make him answer his phone when he’s on the road or in a store (we both hate it when self-important idiots are shouting into their cell phones in the store, as if, “Have you left Wal-Mart yet?” is somehow critical information). He also said that he wants me to get a phone, too. I haven’t had a cell phone since….oh, I think it was 1999 or so, and didn’t really want one until I got to play with P’s new one. He has all the bells and whistles because NREC pays for his, but I don’t need all of that. I don’t spend enough time on the phone to need unlimited minutes, so as long as I have a reasonable number that I can roll over if I don’t need them, and can send text messages, that’ll do. MSN would be a bonus, but if that’ll put me on a more expensive plan, it’s not really worth it. I looked at phones last night and found a pink Sony “Walkman” phone that I like; it’s got a 2mpx camera with 4x zoom, music player with Memory Stick (mini) slot to expand storage, and although it has more features than I’ll need with the limited plan I’ll get, it’s fine because NREC pays up to $150 for the phone, and there’s a rebate, so it’ll end up costing us nothing at all for the phone itself. Besides, it’s pretty, and it’s pink. The discount NREC offers for the plan (to family members of employees) is only 8%, but considering they don’t have to offer anything at all, I’ll take it. 🙂

Another potential consideration is the Samsung Blackjack II in pink, because it’s got a full QWERTY keyboard, but it’s really got a lot I won’t use, doesn’t have expandable storage, and I didn’t have any trouble typing on P’s phone when I was playing with it this morning, so…meh, I dunno. I haven’t decided yet.