Phone Phlip Phlop

The decision was made. I was counting down.

The Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first Ice Cream Sandwich phone ohmygodawesome!

With an NFC chip!

720p screen! 32GB of storage! Wowser wowsy wow!

But...

The other announced phone, the Droid Razr, has some significant advantages.

It's billed as being damn durable.

Kevlar construction.

Gorilla Glass (officially confirmed to NOT be on the Nexus)

"Splashguard" coating.

I've got a 3-year-old, and I'm not exactly the most graceful person myself. My next phone will get dropped and scratched.

Some other advantages too, like a removable SDcard.

Sure, it has a smaller screen, and no NFC chip (sorry Google Wallet!). Will be running Motorola-branded (not "Google Pure") Gingerbread out of the box, and will have to wait a few months for ICS (also probably not "Google Pure"). Non-removable battery (which could cause trouble in emergency situations).

But it is looking better for my actual use cases.

And then there is the HTC Rezound, formerly known as Vigor.

It's supposed to be in the same class as these two phones, but nothing has been announced about it officially yet. I don't know what that means.

It's a good thing I have some time to weigh the options and read the blogs.

I still don't think I will be waiting for the Galaxy S 3 (which could come in 6 months and might not be on Verizon), but the Nexus is not looking as shiny or obvious-choicey as it did. :/

Pining for SGS (but not SGS)

Being naive and dorky (and when "the web" was still in its infancy), I clearly remember one of the first things I did when I moved into the dorms in college: I took out a Magic card from my box, pasted it on my door, and wrote something to the effect of "If you know what this is, let me know!" One knock on the door later (from a guy postering for Film Series who I would later know as Juj) would eventually lead me to something I never could have imagined: a still-forming Gaming Club (the eponymous Strategic Gaming Society).
A weekly meeting of fellow dorks and geeks, getting introduced to games (including German imports like the original "Die Siedler") and having hours on end to try them and play them and even leave boards on a table in a locked conference room for a week.
For more than 4 years I was attached to this club (yes, I overstayed my welcome, the Film Series Curse that would take me some time to escape), I held every named position for some time, and I established some friendships that still last (cue sappy music)...

Sorry, where was I?

Oh yes.
Now, I'm old. I'm in my mid-30s, I have (in no particular order) a job, a mortgage, a wife and a toddler. I have "responsibilities". I have gamer friends with their own "responsibilities". The pact to meet monthly to play our old-folks D&D game cannot be kept up. I get to game on most Monday nights but the focus is usually on VTES.
I just don't have too much time to try out new boardgames (that support more than 2 people and/or that my lovely wife isn't interested in; thankfully she likes some Gamer games!) or to play the 3+-hour games too many individual times. Sometimes I wish I still had that flexibility.

Trying to organize my own "board game day" is only serving to prove my point. Gathering folks from several different gaming circles, even, on the one day in the near future that I can finally take one day to do such a thing, and I'm answered with a handful of (legitimate) No answers. Now, hopefully I can still enact this plan, and maybe there's even a prayer of making it something regular, but I can't help thinking about the days when I could just walk into a room in the Campus Center and say "What are we playing today?"