1 year with the Chumby. Verdict: Winner, winner, chicken dinner!

I remember telling one of my coworkers about the Chumby for the first time:

"Dude, did I tell you I've got a Chumby?"

"A what?"

"You know, Chumby? Bean bag looking thing?"

He stared at me.

"Runs Linux?"

"That's fucking weird man. Don't talk about your chubby anymore."

Unfortunate name or not, Chumby does what its supposed to do and more, and I really have only a few complaints about it after a year of ownership, so I'll get those out of the way. The touch screen is not so great. You can poke it and it usually does what it is supposed to, but you're not going to be enjoying touchscreen games on this little device (though accelerometer games work great). It sometimes flakes out and requires a restart. This is very un-Linuxy and very disappointing. Finally, text entry is terrible (ties back to the "poking" problem above).

So what does it do well? I know this sounds weird, but for an alarm-clock-radio replacement with an Internet connection, this thing is deluxe. The way you can program alarms for different days well in advance is the Chumby's killer app, as far as I am concerned. The alarm feature couldn't really be any better, and its just awesome that you play any kind of digital audio you can think of (Internet radio, MP3s, iPod, and more!).

The Chumby's ability to dish out the Internet in bite-sized chunks is also nice. The Google News app works well, I like the Rotten Tomatoes widget the most since it can tell me about new movies right away, and the Flickr widget gives me something to look at in the morning when I'm trying to motivate myself to roll out of bed. It's also nice for when I'm going to sleep to listen to Soma.FM at a very low volume instead of having a laptop or some other wasteful device piping out music.

The hardware is also damn cool. I wish my laptop was covered in semi-plush pleather and had big spongey buttons and controls to do stupid things (not text entry--stupid things). The fact this thing is fully hackable immediately gives it a much longer service life than iPods even have, and I can see the community carrying this device on for many years to come.

Heck, I even like the menu. The menu, as the story goes, was designed by one of the UI folks who worked on one of Apple's System 7, and it does show. The buttons are intuitive and I never raised an eyebrow at the placement of any options (other than the button to open up SSH and other hacking features, but this makes sense from a consumer-protection standpoint).

Finally, above all the sunshine I've blown into the ass of my alarm clock, this is a device that gets better with age while not having to invest another dime in it. Smart phones have app stores and service contracts that cost lots of money while the Chumby continues to sit and be awesome.

Don't let the fact that this computer-clock-Internet-thing comes in a miniature laundry bag (which I still use to this day... most eco-friendly packaging ever) sway you. If you are thinking this would be a cool device to replace your alarm clock or want to give it as a gift, then do it. They are currently on sale with a $40 off coupon, bringing the price down to $169.99 with free shipping.

Link.

UPS=Urinal-Poop Service

Holy damn and hell do I hate UPS. I hate UPS so bad I might staple my nut sack to my face so I don't have to look at my tracking page any longer. For those of you not personally acquainted with me or have no reason to hate UPS, here is how they left something else big and brown, besides a truck, in my life:

On November 12th, I decided it was finally time to buy a Chumby. You know, that cute internet TV device that everyone should be talking about. I forked over my ~$180.00 and started waiting... and waiting... and waiting. By the 16th (when it originally should have been delivered), I checked the tracking page and nearly had a coronary. My Chumby had made two fucking trips across the Pacific Ocean. Two. Not one. Two.

At that point, it was in Kentucky. Kentucky would now become the primary place of residence for my computer-in-a-laundry-bag. By the end of that day, it had finally made a trip to Salt Lake City. I thought my worries were over. Then it went back to Kentucky.

I gave UPS's Kentuckites the benefit of the doubt. "It must have been a logistic error in customs. I'll bet it hasn't left yet." On the nineteenth, it got an arrival scan in Salt Lake City. I was relieved that I would receive my Chumby soon.

Then it went back to Ken-fuck-me again.

It went back to Salt Lake.

It went to Kentucky to get it's snow-plow on again. (Four (4) times, for those not counting.)

Needless to say, I was so pissed I started urinating all over my desk and everything around me in a ferocious rage. I was screaming shit like, "QUIT PLAYING LONG-DISTANCE KEEP-AWAY WITH MY CHUMBY! YOU ASS HOLES!" It was a titanic mess.

After being released from police custody for assaulting a tree with a golf club (the tree dropped the charges), I called up UPS to see why they wouldn't give me my damn toy. The representative assured me, "I am pleased to inform you, Mr. Alex, that your package has not been lost."

That is verbatim what they said. Mister Alex. That would have pissed me off, but I like the sound of Mister Alex. It's an excellent porno-actor or else pro-wrestler name. But, that's beside the point. I explained that I would not go to Kentucky once, let alone four times, but they seemed unsympathetic. They told me to call them back once it said "ARRIVAL SCAN" at Kentucky so they could catch it and put it on a truck to my house instead of, you know, Vancouver.

So, distraught, I called up the people at Chumby. I spoke with a very helpful gentleman (who, unfortunately, did not address me as Mr. Alex) who said that he would put a trace on my package so they could file a claim once my Chumby was in Fiji and get me a new, less cosmopolitan Chumby.

UPS comes to your house and shits all over your expectations when you ask for that thing that you ordered.

Don't believe me? Well here's a link to my package's tracking page.

Update:



:(

I have to wonder what else is missing/illegible/eaten/exploded.

Update #2:

Chumby has arrived in all of its Chumbalicious glory. The Kentuckites treated it quite well, not a cut, scratch or scrape on its soft exterior. In a way I am surprised that my Chumby wasn't on fire when it arrived. Pleasantly surprised. However, under the circumstances, I still have to recommend UPS as a parcel service if you feel the need for some shit to go down in your life.

The Chumby itself? It's amazing. If you are a geek or even half a geek, you need to own one. It is just such a neat little gimmick that can occasionally be used for practical purposes, that you can't avoid touching it, shaking it or doing other unspeakable things to its plush exterior. I will try and cobble together a complete review on it, but one can already guess the outcome:

:D