Too many words about my phone cont.

My phone is sort of not doing too well at the moment. It hasn't been doing too well for a year or so. It's doing more not doing too well.

My phone is an early Nexus 6. Early Nexus 6es apparently have issues with the back peeling off, due to poor-quality adhesive. What was once a small space between the back and the not-back that got me worried about battery expansion is now most of the back of my phone not being attached to the not-back due to poor-quality adhesive.

Every exposed, adhesive-coated square centimeter of the back is covered in dust and hair and food crumbs. It looks very not good for the not-back parts of the phone that the back was supposed to be protecting from things like dust and hair and food crumbs. Some of the not-back seems to have a protective plastic cover though, so that helps.

I recently noticed that the power button and volume-up button seemed to be lagging. I was mildly annoyed. The next day, they didn't work at all, and the volume-down button seemed to be lagging. I thought it was an odd software issue and, since doing it manually would require a responsive power button, hoped my phone would spontaneously crash and restart itself. In the meantime, I installed an easy screenshot-taking app and rolled my finger around the volume-down button to get the on-screen volume bar to pop up when I needed to turn the volume up.

When my phone didn't spontaneously crash and restart itself, I looked inside the phone. There was a flimsy copper strip thing near the hardware buttons. I pieced together that there was some sort of connection between the flimsy copper strip thing and the hardware buttons. I noticed there were two parts to it: the flimsy copper strip thing, and another flimsy copper strip thing with a little chip thing with contacts that the first flimsy copper strip thing had been slipped into. The thing with contacts seemed to have crumbs around the contacts. I scratched at the crumbs with a toothpick because that's what you do to parts of an intricately assembled electronic device that seem to be physically obstructed.

While poking inside the poorly-lit phone, I noticed the chip thing on the second half of the flimsy copper strip thing. It just looked like a dark square sitting at an odd angle. I poked it inquisitively. Presumably due in part to poor-quality adhesive, it immediately snapped up and the flimsy copper strip things unlinked completely. The volume-down button was now unresponsive.

I was slightly satisfied with this because there was now a more definite problem to solve. The problem was going to be solved because my problems have such a great track record with being solved.

I prodded the flimsy copper strip things with toothpicks for several minutes. The one that directly connects to the hardware buttons has little hooks on the end that had been connected to the other flimsy copper strip thing. I could barely get the strips to reach each other now, and wondered how they were connected as well as they were mere minutes ago.

It seemed like, in the meantime, a better solution would be to install a hardware button-simulating app. I found one. It's an expanding toolbar on the side of the phone screen. I set it up with the special permission it needed to control the lock screen and some other personal taste stuff like keeping it hidden until I swipe inward from a specified region on the side of the screen, which scales and rotates with the phone.

I tested out the nifty buttons. Volume-up. Nifty. It works. Eww. I can't hold it. Eww. It also vibrates. Whatever. Volume-down. Nifty. It works like the volume-up button, but it turns the volume down instead. Power. Nifty. The phone screen turned off. I'm an idiot.

Thankfully, there's this nifty option called Ambient Display that wakes up the phone screen when you're frantically flailing around with the device. That is an option that can be disabled. I was glad I did not disable that.

I decided to disable lock screen control for the app. Things were now mostly fine. It was just a bit irritating having to constantly remind the screenshot app that it should work and not not work, and the toolbar got in the way of some expandable things in various apps that were completely shoved to the sides.

Last night, I noticed that, while watching in landscape, Neil Cicierega has a Nick Jr. logo in the bottom corner of his videos. Some people have been doing that logo thing. I was mildly amused and figured this wouldn't last forever.

I got the screenshot app up. It seemed a little slower than usual when it took the screenshot. I rotated the phone and video. Oh god what. It's lagging. Portions of the screen are rotating in chunks. The regular bar with universal phone-controlling buttons is now in the middle of the screen. So is the notification bar. Run for the home screen. The on-screen button is unresponsive. It lights up and goes to the home screen when I tap the normal area that goes to the home screen.

After a bit more reorientation, the left side of the screen now features multiple lines of visual noise and a few shades of distorted notification bars atop sections of my wallpaper. The right side has Neil Cicierega's gloved fingertips handling McDonald's cards as if they were rare and priceless. This is still what my phone looks like.

I took a video of my phone looking like this with not my phone. https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=naYNnxyMP5Y

Given that my phone seemed to be frozen, I figured my schedule, normally about 110% comprised of goofing around on my phone, would need some alternative filler material. I did human things, like drinking tea and peeing. I read some of the Hyperbole and a Half book's exclusive stories that you can't read on the blog because I hadn't yet despite having the book since it came out because of the internet. I thought about using electronic devices. I thought about maybe writing about this experience when I could, as if I had a blog.

I also poked inside the phone a bit more because it made me feel like I was accomplishing something. My only accomplishment was acquiring progressively more knowledge of how incapable I was of reconnecting the flimsy copper strip things and maybe being able to tap or hold the power button. It seemed that the back of the phone was pulling on the flimsy copper strip thing with the contacts, which was probably affecting the buttons more than the crumbs and was probably why it snapped up so readily.

I noticed my phone could still taunt me by dimming the screen after a period of inactivity. Normally, the phone would go to sleep if left alone. With a little exploration, that is an option that can be disabled. At the moment, I am not particularly glad that I disabled that. But it's the Android devs' fault for including an option to stay connected to Wi-Fi while the phone is sleeping that doesn't actually prevent apps that require a constant connection from disconnecting while the phone is sleeping.

I experimented. I tapped the home screen button several times, then tapped around where the YouTube app is located. I rotated the phone the way it was when I took the screenshot. I hit play. I was actually able to hear Neil Cicierega keep talking about McDonald's cards. I paused it. I noticed a sliver of the screenshot button was frozen on-screen. I tapped it. It did not give any indication that it took a screenshot. I swiped open the hardware button toolbar. It was mostly responsive. Delayed vibrations told me the volume buttons were lagging. I tried opening SoundCloud. I couldn't play anything. It just occurred to me that I may have been moving icons around on the home screen, combining them into folders, removing them, and hopefully not uninstalling them.

Eventually I set everything else aside, plugged up my cavities with candy, and went to sleep.

I woke up to find my parents marveling at the frozenness of the phone screen. I warned them it could still smell their fingers on its apps and went back to sleep.

I woke up with Dad's Kindle beside me. That's what this is. It is not as versatile as my phone. I'm able to do basic web things, and not much else.

I experimented a little more. I tried blindly navigating to an IRC server and monitored my success with KiwiIRC. I don't know how far I got. I did not see any messages from myself. I also called my phone to see if it would wake something up. It did not vibrate or otherwise indicate someone was calling. It did, however, unpause a media player when I hung up, which is now looping a clip from a song I can't work on. I did not try dropping my phone to shock it to the lock screen because it would probably become more broken.

I can't manually restart the phone because the power button is disconnected. I can't unplug the charger and let the battery run down, not that I ever do anyway, or I won't be able to turn it on again. I don't know if I can force a restart with the simulated power button. I don't know if I can somehow force it to crash, but it seems like the media player I can't turn off has previously been involved with system crashes. I don't think I'll be successful with trying to blindly navigate to anything like the power button permissions. Making a backup of everything and getting a new phone seems like the only option.

Next phone must be a rooted Android phone with a stereo mic and at least a 32 GB drive. dzzboudit rly.

/‾\
*^* UPDATE AFTER MANY HOURS
###

I GOT BORED AND FRUSTRATED WITH THE KINDLE AND JAMMED THE FLIMSY COPPER STRIP THING INTO THE OTHER FLIMSY COPPER STRIP THING DECISIVELY. THE VOLUME STARTED INCREASING AND THEN THE PHONE CRASHED AND RESTARTED ITSELF. I'M USING IT AGAIN. I BREAK PHONE SO GOOD.