Broken Sony Xperia Play

I have had my Sony Xperia Play for coming up to two years now, I love it. It is a very good phone with great features. The internet is reliable and the phone, despite being soaked through still works. However, there are certain things I am learning about my phone. The first of which, she doesn't like to get wet, do you best to keep her dry at all times. The majority of problems I have had with the phone can be traced back to an incident where the phone got wet. The first water damage issue. I used it to get directions in the rain. There was also another separate incident where I downloaded a free game, when I was in Serbia that caused it as well, easily rectified I deleted the game and the problem resolved itself. The second happened when I was using it with wet hands. It had two completely different reactions to each. The first time it broke, after repeated exposure to rain water, my sony Xperia play kept shutting off by itself, then turning itself back on. I followed the usual instructions, but it was a waste of time really, the problem was with the battery. The rain had wrecked it, and there was nothing to do, but replace the battery. That solved the issue immediately. The second time was different. Now it depends who you believe on this one the guy in the shop said the flip element had worn out, which meant that the screen on my xperia play was going fuzzy randomly. My friends said that I got water in the screen and that was causing the problem. I tried to dry it out, but that failed epicly. For a few moments I thought I was watching The Ring, it wouldn't work and when I took the battery out it was worse. I turned it back on and the screen was permanently fuzzy, it has been repaired, took it to the shop. The issue was related to the mechanism that detects when the phone has been flipped out, basically it was badly made and wears out. It is called the flex cable, Whilst I have had these problems I don't intend on changing phones anytime soon, because despite these issues the Sony Xperia Play is one of the best phones on the market, it is robust, reliable and fast. Unless they bring us out a Vita version, I will sticking with it for a few more years, so I am relieved to have her back from the brink once again. Had a new issue arise more recently, the screen on my Sony Xperia play is not responding all the time, this is an interesting issue, I think it arose from it being dropped a bit too much. Strangely though, I will check over the next couple of days, but the solution appears to have been giving the phone a squeeze. I am not joking check out this post Basically as near as I can tell dropping it has forced the screen to come away from the base it is mounted on. So applying a certain amount of pressure to the screen to press it back down appears to work. Now you have to be cautious, but what I did was put one hand on the back of it, and apply pressure to the screen using the palm of my hand, whilst also applying pressure to the back of it. You have to do it vigorously, but it appears to restore full functionality to the phone. I would love to know who figured this one out! Unfortunately it failed to work for me, I took it to the Carphone Warehouse and they basically said it was water damaged so needed a new digitizer, but said they would not provide me with one and the warranty was voided due to the water damage. So I took it back to a repair shop and they quoted me Sixty Quid for the repair. I went back and they told me it could not be repaired, which is sad. Since then I have made the switch to an Iphone 4, significantly better in terms of reliability, durability and longevity. I have never had to reset it, since I got it. Great phone and no more heart break for me!
  

Horror and Sci-Fi Writing Competitions

There are a number of writing competitions, however looking for ones specifically in the genre of horror is a lot harder. There are several though,  Dark Places Magazine, we accept submissions in the genres of Sci-fi and Fantasy. There is a quarterly prize of £50 for the best story; all other winners get published in the magazine. There is also Dark Tales, they have a prize of £500, but charge for submissions. Dark Moon Digest is another option, they offer a prize of ten dollars to every successful applicant, plus publication in their magazine. Spinetinglers are a horror writing competition based in the UK, they pay £100 for the top story, and the competition runs on a monthly basis.