As for phones....NOT an LG Chocolate. I call people with my face all the time because of the touch pad. However, it has the Vibrate AND Ring feature, plus, it's neon green, and it's really loud and pretty reliable, so I put up with it. But the face-calling thing has convinced me that when I'm eligible for a new phone...I'm getting a new phone.
You might want to check on Ebay. My boyfriends moms phone broke like a month after its warranty ran out (of course!
) but he ordered her one off of ebay for about $50 and it was much better than the one that broke! If you got a cheap one off of there you could wait until Colins contract runs out and then sign you both up for ATT and get new phones!
My phone got ran over 2 years ago... (yes ran over... by a car) and I went to cingular wanting to look at buying a new phone and the cheapest they had was $150... and it was a piece of poo with no front screen, not a flip, nothing. Phones are horribly expensive if you arent getting a plan!
I just got a Tilt. It's a bit heavier, but that's not really an issue for me. I love the keypad, the writing recognition software, having Word & Excel on it. The camera is a 3mp.
You've learned the hard way, just like I did. If something is important enough to you that you will be upset if it is ruined, you have to keep it put away in its correct, safe place. This works for kids, pets and spouses.
That sucks, but I would take the dog to the vet just to make sure he didn't eat anything. My dog growing up ate the couch... straight down to the wood. We almost had puppy for Thanksgiving dinner... haha. Pebbles stayed away from my Mom for nearly a year after that one.