The real issue is the phone. I am almost at the end of the contract that binds me to Verizon and to my pink Blackberry Curve. It hasn’t been a bad run; I’ve never had an issue with Verizon aside from their draconian tendency to declare a payment “late” five minutes after it’s due, and I mostly like the Blackberry. It has limits, though, the Blackberry – I would like a bigger screen, faster connections, and the ability to play music from my iTunes library. I have long dreamed of a single device that would replace the Blackberry/iPod Touch combo that I now carry everywhere I go for more than five minutes, and that dream could, of course, be answered by an iPhone. That slender, shiny object has long been the Holy Grail of technology about which I have barely allowed myself to dream; we are a Verizon family, I had A Contract, it was Terribly Expensive.
In a world filled with war, poverty and oil spills, it seemed beyond petty to spend time thinking about a phone, even a phone that would play my music, offer me Doodle Jump when my oral surgeon left me in the chair, and allow me to use my index finger to scroll swiftly to the last comment on a post. I do think about it, though, growing faintly fevered as I contemplate the possibilities. No more juggling the Blackberry and the iTouch while driving. No more endless scrolling with the little ball to get to the bottom of a screen. The end of receiving calls asking me if I had intentionally made a phone call when I had, in fact, dialed accidentally through pocket or purse.
For geeks everywhere today is the day we finally see the device we
have all been talking about for the last year. For the last week I’ve
seen prediction pools where you get 1 point for each correct answer.
Seven or ten inches? Verizon or ATT? Stylus or finger?
I can’t imagine being separated from my iPhone for even a day. Its intuitive features have become essential to my life. But, now, with the application “Big Oven” I feel like my favorite room in the house, a kitchen, has been added to my screen. This is the BEST app that iTunes has to offer. Of course, that is only my opinion. 
Yes, a pedicab. That was my ride home last night. Crammed in the back
seat with two friends, and leaving a party far away from downtown, the pedicab,
peddled vigorously by a bearded mountain man named Declan, was our only chance
of getting back to home base (by the way, I’m now convinced that pedicabs
are the most expensive mode of transportation on earth).
When I got my first tattoo at age 16, I pretty much knew I'd want it gone by the time I was 30. My rationale went like this: the year was 1995, and I figured technology was bound evolve to the point where, by the time I was that old, tattoo removal would be cheap, fast, and easy. Wrong! But I'll get to that.