August 28th, 2005

I recently mentioned that I inherited a punchant for puns, punny or not, from my father.

About the only person who hears them anymore is my wife ... and I count my lucky stars that she actually likes my particularly pungent sense of humour. I don't have to face the punishment I would otherwise if she were a non-punster. But this isn't the punt -er- point of today's rant, and I'd better stop before someone sends me to the punitentiary. (Ha ha. I am such a punk.)

Another thing I inherited from my dad is a very typically male disease known as gadgetitis. Gadgetitis, in case you are female, is the desire to buy all the little doohickeys, gew-gaws, doo-dads, and thingummies that you see advertised on TV or displayed next to the checkout as saving labour while performing repairs around the home. One tends to forget that we seldom perform such actions, that we'd rather let things rot, but we feel as though we are going to "turn over a new leaf" the moment we get our hands on this latest ... thing, whatever it is. When we see that combination nail-sorter/carpet-cleaner/tile-grouter, we just know that we are less than men until we have repaired our houses and condos with that new thing, and impressed the socks off our buddies. Besides that, these things are trophies; they are testament to our cleverness in spotting labour-saving, cost-cutting devices. This -er- addiction is dangerous, because it can easily and quickly bankrupt a guy. For my dad it is always screwdrivers that also make ice cubes, wrench/fire-starters combinations, magic toolboxes that contain 137 star-shaped screw bits for the power drill, and hammers that fold into beer can holders.

Or whatever.

My point is that he loves his gadgets, and is at risk every time he travels past a Canadian Tire. In the gadget respect he's a lot like that creepy Canadian Tire Guy that I call Mr. Beard.

But, unlike Mr. Beard, my dad is not a closet homicidal psychopath, lying in wait to slip a Canadian Tire brand longblade between your ribs, or drag a Canadian Tire brand straight-razor across your throat as you sleep on the Canadian Tire brand inflatable bed in the Canadian Tire brand tent, heated by the Canadian Tire brand heater powered by the Canadian Tire brand generator and solar blanket heater. I mean, Mr. Beard is frightening. I have nightmares involving him, tubs of lard, and sharp objects. I mean, the character must be banned from the half a dozen closest Canadian Tire stores because he gooses the cashiers and parts-counter clerks with his Canadian Tire brand 10-in-1 adjustable brake pad cleaner and personal floatation device.

Maybe the actor himself is a fine guy. Maybe it's nothing but a combination of boardroom edicts and bad directions that make him so disturbingly menacing ... but I would never take the chance and close my eyes around him. I mean, would you sleep in Mr. Beard's guestroom? Wouldn't you be afraid of nocturnal visits to your Canadian Tire brand bed by him sporting his Canadian Tire lug nut remover and pile driver?

But none of this is the point: I have gadgetitis too, but it is not of the mechanical tool-based variety. It is of the electronic variety. You see, the fact that I am "high tech" also endangers my credit rating, because mine must have miniaturized transistors or it's no good. Tiny little silicon microchips and Triple-A batteries are the "in-thing" for me. This started in my childhood with hand-held soccer, hockey, and football games, extended through my teen years with my PC-1211 Tandy Pocket Computer (a vast 1.7 Kilobyte memory and raw BASIC computing power) and has incorporated all manner of Walkmen, FM radios, Discmen, MP3 players, cell phones (of course), USB drives, all variety of watches that performed all manner of pointless -er- useful functions, and, of course, laptop computers. (I am typing this on my latest and greatest laptop computer—just the most recent in a long line—right now at 37,000 feet, somewhere over Idaho.)

So gadgets are not new to me, and try as I might, I cannot resist the ones I like once I am aware of them. So that is why I curse the day I saw a certain episode of Star Trek: The Next Generation (I could rant about that show's naivety and frequently shallow characterization for a couple of thousand words) where the captain finds a girlfriend who plays the piano. She has a flat roll-up keyboard more like a roll of thick plastic wrap than a keyboard, and when she unrolls, it, she plays it as though she were playing a full-sized piano. I saw that and thought, "Cool! A totally portable piano! I wonder if someday we might be able to really have those."

Well, they weren't too far away, were they? I just thumbed through one of those "Shopping Mall in the Sky" catalogues and saw exactly the same thing advertised for sale. The piano is not a full 88-key model, more like the range of a harpsichord, and it looks as though there is a larger box on the end, about the size and shape of a pocketbook, housing all the electronics. But the keyboard itself rolls up into a small cylinder roll, and it is definitely portable.

So, inevitably, a voice goes off in my head: "Gotta have it, gotta have it." And another voice goes off in response: "You don't need it, you don't need it." But the "dialogue" is a pointless waste of time; I know that it is inevitable that I will sooner or later buy one. Maybe not today, this week, or even this year ... but someday I will have to own one of them.

You know what other electronic gadget I need? I need a genetic marker heredity test kit. Yeah, I know, they don't exist yet, but when they do, I gotta have it, gotta have it. That way I can test whether gadgetitis is hereditary or socialized. Then I'll know whether or not to blame my dad for this, or just give in to the inevitable ...

Addendum, 1 hour later, still on the airplane

There is a woman sitting a couple of seats away from me with a tablet PC. She is using a stylus to write her own document, and the system is interpreting her printing and "typing" it for her.

... gotta have it ... gotta have it ...

Sign my guestbook - Email me - Back to the Rant-o-Rama index