October 21, 2005, 11:43 AM — Hi. I'm Dave and I'm addicted to gadgets.
This is when all of you say "Hi, Dave," in unison, welcoming me into the fold.
I know that I've had something of a gadget addiction for a long time. A really long time. Here's how bad my problem is: When the first cordless phones first appeared on store shelves in the mid-80s, I spent about $200 -- a huge sum of money for me in those days -- so I could have one in my college apartment. Why? Probably because it was the closest thing to a Star Trek communicator I could get my hands on at the time. A decade or so later, when cell phones were still relatively uncommon, my wife and I were the first people in the family to get one. Why? We rationalized it to everyone we knew using the old safety and security argument. The truth -- and I've never admitted this to anyone else on the planet until this very moment -- is that we liked the idea that we could use it to call ahead to our favorite restaurant from the car.
When PDAs came out, it was like splashing gasoline on a campfire. I had to get each new one as it came out. Addicted to the Apple Newton MessagePad, I dropped about a grand every time Apple released a new, slightly different model. And I took my Newton seriously. At the time, I was the technology columnist for the local newspaper. When my editor made disparaging comments about my choice of PDA (he was a fan of the then brand-new PalmPilot), I arranged to steal the keys to his minivan from his secretary, and filled the entire vehicle--top to bottom, side to side, front to back--with Styrofoam peanuts. Yep, I was hardcore.
At least it's reassuring to know that I'm not the only one with a "gadget problem." Recently, we conducted an online poll to coax some gadget confessions out of readers. And we got a lot of fascinating stories.
I found that one recurring theme is an inability to come clean with our spouses about gadget purchases. One reader claims that he bought a Garmin GPS device over a year ago, but still hasn't shown it to his wife. Where does he keep it? In his sock? Sadly, though, he's far from alone. Another reader claims that he always buys the latest model yet convinces his wife that it's the same one he had before. How can he keep up the charade? Won't she notice the bank account dropping in $400 increments? Yet another reader appears to have that angle covered: I keep a separate account to pay for gadgets that she doesn't know about, he says.
That's sad, but not quite as sad as the readers that use their PDAs to watch Laverne and Shirley re-runs. Surely this is not what Jeff Hawkins had in mind for us when he invented the modern PDA? Or the clown who reports that he uses Bluetooth receivers to eavesdrop on his colleagues.
I think that it's heartwarming, though, to hear about some of the clever ways we use our gadgets. One reader explains that he keeps details about his wife's reportedly huge family on his PDA. When they talk on the phone, he refers to his PDA so he doesn't come off like a total clod. Of course, he says, "I'm up the creek when we are face to face." And then there's the guy that claims he bought a robot for "work purposes," but ended up using it just to run his trash to the trashcan.
While I've never been crazy enough to invest in a TrashBot myself, that reminds me of my final gadget confession. If you thought I was geeky before, wait till I tell you about how I took some old Palm PDAs and converted them into robots. That's right, folks, any old Palm OS PDA can be bolted down to a simple three-wheeled chassis and taught to skitter around the house using sensors and servos. So, in retrospect, I suppose there's no hope for me. But as long as you aren't the reader who is apparently proud of the fact that he bought a Palm wristwatch -- there might yet be hope for you.
