Crisis On Infinite Gadgets

By Will on July 8, 2011 • ( 0 )

For the past few years I have somehow staved off my mutant abilities to destroy nearby gadgets. My first ever handheld device is the much maligned, and deservedly so, Palm Zire 71 back in 2003. It’s that cute blue thing whose abilities I cannot remember, because it would break down one way or the other every two days. Len-Len Lim being my partner in everything back in clerkship has become my technological emotional vampirism receptacle, ie, he would be on the receiving end for all my endless groanings and complaints and high-pitched, incensed questions about the unit. It is to Len-Len’s credit that he didn’t just grab the damn thing and shove it down my throat. In 2007 while riding an ordinary bus I asked the ticket boy for my ticket. He brought out a Palm Zire 71 with a mini-printer attached to it and printed me a ticket.

Recently, however, my gadgetification proved to be quite fantastic. My first generation clunky-looking Lenovo has never broken down, and it has survived multiple drops, spilled drinks, and all sorts of physical abuse. The iPot has also been wonderful, and to quote Dickie Greenleaf in The Talented Mr. Ripley when he expressed how much he loved his new ice box: “I could fuck this ice box!” And the poverty Sun phone peddled two years ago in PGH–fantastic, fantastic buy.

Except. In the past week, for some reason, gadgetification united has decided to make inarte. And because they know that I’ve weathered all sorts of gadget tantrums in the past they’ve decided to make a different sort of inarte: all their chargers stopped working. But I wouldn’t throw a fit, I said, having emotional-technologically matured from the dark days of Zire 71. I went to Rob, calmly bought all sorts of cords and sardines for dinner, and had them functioning again. Sometimes these things just want attention.