VZ Navigator, ChaCha and my 13 year-old nephew add up to pizza yumminess

Not too long ago I wrote a blog post comparing the VZ Navigator application on my Verizon Wireless Env2 cell phone to my standalone Garmin Nuvi 660 GPS navigation unit. In the end I mentioned I preferred the Garmin Nuvi 660 which prompted several comments from readers defending the VZ Navigator and questioning my preference.

Most of the commenters touted their love of the VZ Navigator due to its small size, portability and lack of need to carry two different devices. While I agreed with most of the comments, I stand my ground on my preference for the Garmin over the VZ Navigator. That being said, I was served a dose of irony last night when my VZ Navigator application showed its true colors.

Local Search answers question, "What's near me?"

I was vacationing with my extended family and we all agreed that we wanted pizza for dinner. Since we were tired of the usual pizza establishments we sought out something new. Problem was, none of us knew any new places in the city we were in. That's when I thought to use the VZ Navigator's Local Search option.

The Local Search allows you to plug in a few search criteria to find out what is near your current location. I plugged in eating & dining establishments that have the word "pizza" in their name and instantly had a list of local pizza establishments within 15 miles of my current location.

Mix in a little ChaCha

The large list of establishments, however, presented a new problem. How did I know which of these places were dine-in and which of them actually had good pizza? That's when I thought of ChaCha. I sent a text message to ChaCha and asked them for the names of dine-in pizza places near me. Within a few minutes I had a list of 3 places to cross-reference against my list from my Local Search.

I quickly realized that the second restaurant listed on ChaCha's response--an italian eatery called Januli's--wasn't on my list of restaurants from my VZ Navigator Local Search. This was because I had limited the Local Search to only restaurants with the word "pizza" in their name. I guess I had been a little too restrictive in my search.

When in doubt, ask a teenager

As my family and I debated whether or not to take a chance on Januli's, my 13 year-old nephew settled it for us. That's because he had done a ChaCha search of his own (I only taught him about ChaCha a couple of weeks ago) and took a different approach with his question. Instead of asking for nearby pizza places like I did, he asked what the best pizza places were. Nice move. Guess what appeared at the top of his list? That's right, Januli's.

I fired up the VZ Navigator one more time and searched for Januli's. The VZ Navigator application had no problem finding it and within 10 minutes we were standing on Januli's doorstep. Two hours, a couple of large pizzas and a bunch of satisfied eaters later I'm happy to say that Januli's was a big hit.