BlackBerry outages leave users textless

It was as if the right arm of millions had suddenly been chopped off. Twice.

BlackBerry, the handheld phone and computer often called a Crackberry for its seemingly addicted customers, sent many of them into a tizzy with its second outage in a week Tuesday and Wednesday, according to the Associated Press.

No instant messaging. No texting. No Internet in many cases. No way to conduct business.

The holiday-time breakdown probably won't help BlackBerry's reputation for dependability among its 36 million subscribers as competitors such as Apple's iPhone and Motorola's Droid carve out their market share.