I love not spending money on a cell phone

If you know anyone who needs to find a good way to trim the bills, tell them to get a pre-paid cellphone. I know that in the States we think of pre-paid cellphones as ghetto, trashy accessories for drug dealers and people with bad credit, or sometimes really cute little hoppers in West Baltimore, but I'm telling you, it's an awesome concept. Here in the UAE, I'd estimate that at least 90% of cell phones use pre-paid minutes, and even the post-paid plans are charged on a per-minute basis (no "monthly packages"). It's so cheap!!! I spend probably, on average, about $6 a month on cell phone minutes. Granted, I don't do a whole lot of text messaging or yammering on for hours, which could maybe bump me up to $10, $20, or $30. Still, what's a cellphone plan in the US these days? $60 a month? Ridiculous. I'll never pay that much again. I don't think people sell SIM-cards though, just pre-paid phones. And can you get a cool phone, or only a janky one? If you can only get a janky one, then there's a gap in the market here and someone with some entrepreneurial spirit needs to start selling sweet high end phones and seperate SIM cards with cool numbers and cheap minutes. It's a no-lose formula for riches and fame.

In other news, my mom's going home today (awww) and I bought tickets for the Dubai Tennis Championships. Unfortunately I was late this year (no sitting up on the internet waiting for the opening bell to snag tix) so it was all sold out except for the early rounds, day 1 and day 2, which also happen to be workdays. Hopefully we'll be able to go down in the evening and catch some action with the players we like.