“What are you looking for?” She asks me, standing, cross-armed in WHSmith, her frown suggests many hours of frustrated waiting, yet in reality is nothing compared to the vacant days I have spent slouched against Next doorways, wondering if there is a special badge for trying on everything in the shop without a coffee break.
“Stuff, or T3″ I say, scanning the magazine lines for my monthly gadget fix.
“Oh” she says, arms crossing tighter, “Another gadget mag, what are you planning to buy now?”
“Nothing really, just, you know keeping up to date.”
Which is of course a lie. I am planning to buy them all, every gadget known to man, whether they have a use in reality or not. I can’t help it, not only am I a bloke, but I studied engineering which means I have equal desires in the latest kit and also wondering how they fit all that functionality in to a small but perfectly formed, nay sexy shape. In years gone by my gadgeteering desires came close to outstripping my income, but much zen training has strengthened my willpower to the point where reading about mp3 watches and pocket PVRs is almost enough to sate my appetite.
I do, of course have weaknesses, in particular for music gadgets, and especially those of Apple origin. Apple seem to have found my achilles heel. Aside from selling products with achingly beautiful design and smart, intelligent interfaces, they have a portfolio strategy of making the product I’ve bought almost obsolete by the time I get it out of the box, much like the Sony Walkman heyday of the eighties and nineties. My first iPod started with the 3G, piezoelectric thumbwheel and small as you like, my prized possession until the iPod mini came about, which was infinitely more portable and therefore justified being bought as well, to assist my painful waits outside of Next (see above). However, the mini is a right pain in the @rse if you are at the gym; sling it around your neck and I look like a geek Mr T (more Mr Muscle actually), stick it in your pocket and it will eventually wrap the headphone cable around the seat of the rowing machine, throttling you in front of the female gym members that you were trying to impress with masculine exertions on level 10. So I bought an iPod Shuffle, a miracle of design, big enough to put the ultimate gym compilation on (ie Eye of The Tiger, Gonna Fly Now and that other survivor song from Rocky IV), but small enough to tuck away to help pass those otherwise boring hours in the gym. Collection complete no more iPods required.
I avoided the iPod Photo, barely. The thought of album cover art almost swung it, but I resisted all summer.
Then they bring out the iPod Nano; one molecule thick, 15 hours battery life, what could I do? And it’s black - white is so chav nowadays!! And so I sit writing this listening to my Nano, looking cool in the office, wondering what the hell do I need 4 iPods for, and more importantly, what evil tricks are Apple going to pull to get me to buy the next one? I daren’t sell them on ebay because I’ll probably end up buying accessories for the ones I don’t need anymore. Dammit Apple leave me alone!
So what is a man to do? Perhaps someone will invent a device to prevent the gadgeteering instinct, aah they’ll probably have an article on it in Stuff…
May 17th, 2006 at 1:02 pm
Aha… you’ll love this then.
Someone has had the extremley smart idea of an MP3 player/radio that will fit onto any
firearm with a picatinny rail, no shit, there is a micro-thin keypad that is attached to
the foregrip somehow via adehsive tape. The player itself sitting neatly on the top or
side mounted picatinny rails.
This enables your standard trigger happy marine to listen to angry songs such as
Feuer Frei! By rammstein or Fire Water Burn by the bloodhound gang.
So yeah, everything comes with an MP3 in it these days, but eh, who dosent want to listen
to angry music whilst shooting people.