In case you're interested in the status of my prepaid cell phone account--and how could you not be?--here's an update.

If you remember, I bought a prepaid cell phone last April with the idea of making a $100 card (1,000 minutes) last a full year. Actually, the minute count was more like 1,060, because the phone came with some minutes, and I bought the $100 card in May, so it doesn't expire until May 15.

When I first got the phone, lots of people said I'd need a lot more minutes than that, that I'd be using it all the time, that it would replace my regular phone, that I couldn't live without it, blah blah blah.

Sorry to disappoint them.

I have 382 minutes left for the final nine weeks. That means I've used about 678 minutes in 43 weeks, an average of just under 16 minutes a week. I'm going to have to up my usage if I intend to finish up the minutes.

Of course, I plan to keep the phone, and when I buy more minutes, the old minutes will roll over. But that means I'll have even more minutes to use up next year. But $100 a year ain't bad.

My only real complaint against the phone is that cell phone reception still sucks. The calls don't seem to be any better than they were 10 years ago. Other than that, I'll admit the phone has been a nice convenience. I don't have to search for pay phones anymore, which is what I used to do. I can drive down the highway, talking on the phone, weaving in my lane, oblivious to everyone else, a danger to you and your loved ones, just like every other jerk on the road.

If I'm traveling and I intend to have a long conversation, it definitely has to take place on a landline, because I don't have the patience to put up with the poor quality of a cell-phone call for long. It's not just my carrier, either. I've used friends' phones, and they all suck.

I've explored all my phone's functions--camera, video, text messaging, email, very limited access to some web sites, organizer, voice recorder, etc--and they are all pretty neat, but I don't use them. Except for the alarm clock. I use that on the road.

If you read all the way to here, you must be really bored.