Hey! It’s Boxcar Pete! You know, the lovable hobo that talks like a pirate? Little known fact about Pete, there’s no eyeball behind his monocle. Some say he isn’t a man at all, but a horde of ravenous rats stacked 6 feet high. Those people are stupid. He’s obviously a stab-happy hobo. Josh must be meeting him in a dark alley way to make arrangements for BCP (yeah, you know me) to wait in line for him on iPhone 3GS launch day.

I bought the original iPhone (2G? I guess that’s what we’re calling it.) a little over a year ago. I got one for my wife for her birthday and another one for myself for her birthday. We’ve really enjoyed the “internet in your hand at all times” aspects of the iPhone but have always been frustrated by the slow speed. I resisted the urge to upgrade to the iPhone 3G since it would raise our bill a bit and we had only had our phones for 6 months when it came out. Now that the iPhone 3GS is coming, the “upgrade bug” is irrisistable. There are a few contributing factors: A) It’s fucking sweet. Have you seen it? Sweet. B) My wife’s iPhone has screen issues that are a giant pain in the ass C) I can actually sell my iPhone and her wonky-screen iPhone on eBay for nearly (if not entirely) enough to buy 2 of the 32Gb iPhones 3GS.

It turned out in our favor that we never upgraded before now because AT&T isn’t extending the promotional pricing to existing 3G owners. They really can’t complain, though. They already got to break an existing contract and get ANOTHER subsidized iPhone. Bitch all you want but there isn’t really an argument to justify, “BUT I REALLY WANT ANOTHER NEW iPHONE AT A PRICE DRASTICALLY BELOW RETAIL!!! WAHHHH!!”

So I ordered the new iPhones from the Apple store yesterday after a bit of confusion regarding how to keep my familytalk plan, and I’ll post our original iPhones for sale on eBay this coming Monday. Hopefully I’ll walk away breaking even and getting a far superior handheld. You guys know I’m super broke-sauce, so I’m REALLY hoping this works out. My desire for a new iPhone and my lack of funds don’t see eye to eye.

I have learned one thing in the last couple of days. NO ONE at Apple has any idea what’s going on right now. I called Apple customer support to find out if I could keep my familytalk plan and I was on hold for an hour and a half. Eventually I got a guy that told me I had to go into an Apple retail store to do what needed to be done. I loaded up the family and went to our local Apple goodsery and I was greeted almost instantly buy 3 or 4 dudes talking over each other, “We don’t know anything about reserving iPhone 3GS’s, they haven’t told us anything, please go away, WE’RE FREAKING THE SHIT OUT!!!”

Dismayed I went home and took my problems to the fine folks of the internet. I got a lot of helpful ideas and suggestions. One of the FB’s even works at Apple Tech Support and emailed to let me know that everyone there is “FREAKING THE SHIT OUT!!!” My buddy Bill, told me I was a stupid asshead for creating this problem as that it was a non-issue. Turns out he was right (and bald! Did I mention he’s horribly bald?). If you just go through the online upgrade process, it eventually tells you that your voice plan is “unchanged.”

I first put two black iPhones 3GS in the cart and it told me I couldn’t have two black ones. So, reluctantly, I removed one and added a white model to the cart. I went through the rest of the checkout and eventually got a notice that said something like “Why are you buying two iPhones at all? What’s  your deal? Are you some kind of asshole? Are you a terrorist? Are you bald?” So I closed the door to my office making sure my wife couldn’t hear me removing “her” phone from the cart and checked out. Then I started over and bought another black one. Simple as that. You absolutely can’t ever never never ever buy two iPhones at once unless you order them about 45 seconds apart. Then you can do whatever you want.

iPhone owning FB’s: Are you upgrading to the 3GS? Why?

Non-iphoning FB’s: Is the new $100 price point on the original 3G going to bring you into the fold?