My tricorder!

I'm huge sci-fi geek, not much of a surprise to anyone out there. But for someone who loves science fiction, I'm really not much of a technology person (right now, Ed, my fabulous and wonderful friend and tech consultant/smart person, is reading this and nodding frantically. He's the one that gets all my "I think I broke the computer again. No, I mean I really broke it this time" phone calls). I love computers -- I hated typing on typewriters -- but I have no freaking clue how they work. It's pretty close to magic to me. My solution for all computer problems is pretty much the same thing.
Step one: Unplug the sucker, wait a few seconds, plug it back in and turn it on. See if that fixed it.
Step two: If not, call Ed.
Step three: Leave pleading and desperate voicemail about how the computer ate my latest chapter and I can't get it back.

So, this weekend, with all the stuff going on right now, book stuff, life stuff, etc, I was thinking about getting a planner. I used to use a Franklin Covey one until it became too huge and bulky to carry around with me, not to mention the expense of buying the pages. Plus, organization is something I use only intermittently, so I couldn't really see myself hauling that binder around everywhere.

My friends and my husband, when told of my plan to buy a cheap paper pocket-sized calendar, politely refrained from laughing and pointed out that a palm pilot would do what I needed and more. Plus, it would be smaller and not that much more expensive (if more at all) than a planner of the Franklin Covey variety.

So I found one on sale, the basic kind, at Target and bought it. Now, I think I'm addicted to it. I may have a slight gadget fetish (especially considering the ipod obssession of earlier this year, which I have, at the moment, recovered from.) It feels just so high-tech and futuristic. I feel like the away teams on Star Trek, running around, consulting my tricorder : ) I remember, though, when it was a weird concept to think about those people being able to communicate with devices like telephones that didn't require wires. Is it a coincidence that Captain Kirk's communicator used to flip open and now we have flip open cell phones? Hmmm. It's even more strange to me how dependent we've become on things like this. Last week, I left home with my phone on the counter still charging and nearly broke out in a cold sweat when I realized I was driving without my phone!!!! Despite the fact that I drove for years before I even had a cell phone. Will there ever reach a point when I can't commit to doing something without consulting my cool little palm pilot thingie? Probably. Right now, it's difficult for me to imagine life without my TiVo, another new techie thing we got this year.

Good grief. I am Best Buy's dream customer. If it's shiny and does cool things, I'll buy it -- aaack! This has to stop. Maybe I need to put "recover from technology addiction" on my list of things to do...where's my palm pilot?

: )

Talk to you tomorrow.