My wife and her gadgets

My wife, the lovely and talented K, is addicted to gadgets.   

Marketing courses at business schools all across the land teach how to appeal to people with her mentality.  They're studying her like psychologists study rats in a maze.  

"What classes you taking this semester, Bill?"  

"Oh, you know, the usual....B law 314, statistics 421, management 330, and Advanced Kelly 4540."

I have periodic garage sales just to get the gadgets she "couldn't live without" out of the house to make room for the next batch of gadgets I know she'll be bringing home soon.

She has waffle makers, panini makers, tea makers, mixers, food processors, crock pots, a "Magic Bullet" blender, some kind of big fancy blender, a mandolin, multiple coffee makers that were "to die for" last week, but this week are just not cool anymore.

These garage sales often come back to bite me in the ass when she sees an advertisement for a gizmo that she once had, then I sold, and now she wants again.  She's gone full circle....she's become a serial same-gadget buyer.  

I tolerate all those kitcheny things because, honestly, I eat very well.  And besides, they're not very expensive....$40 here, $60 there....they're not breaking the bank.

Kelly's vision of Heaven

Her electronic gadgets are a whole 'nuther matter, however.  Those little electronic bastards cost a fortune!  Here are the ones she's had that I can remember:

HP laptop

HP NetBook

iMac (mine now)

MacBook

Nintendo Wii

Kindle, generation 1

Kindle, generation 2

Kindle Paperwhite

Kindle Fire

Google Nexxus

Samsung Galaxy S2

iPod Shuffle

iPod Nano

iPad, generation 1

iPad Mini

iPhone 3

iPhone 3S

iPhone 5

There are probably more, but my brain is too shell-shocked to remember them all.

Today she saw on Facebook that one of her friends accidentally washed his iPod Nano, so she said she was going to sell him her old one.  I can see what's coming next:  She bought it for $160 a month ago, now she'll sell it used for $80, and a month from now Apple will unveil a "new, improved version in 10 striking new colors", and of course she'll just have to have one for the pre-order super-sweet "better hurry 'cause they won't last long at this price" of $180. 

Publicly Apple will say the higher price is due to "raw material price increases", but among themselves they'll just giggle and call it the "Kelly premium".

I'm considering an intervention.  (Who am I kidding.  I don't have a chance in hell of pulling it off.  :)

S

"Mr. Watson, come here."

These were reportedly the first words Alexander Graham Bell spoke into his new invention, the "tele-phone", back on March 10, 1876.  As I've read that Mr. Bell was quite a player back in his day, I'm guessing when Watson showed up he said, "Check this out, bro.  I took it with me to The Watering Hole last night....chick magnet! "

In 1966 I was in the AT&T pavilion at Disney Land where the demonstrator lady held up "the phone of the future" and asked, "see anything unusual about it?"  It had NO WIRES!  Whoa!

Fast forward to April 3, 1973.  One Mr. Marty Cooper, a techie at Motorola, called his buddy Joel Engle, another techie working for AT&T, and said, "Suck it Engle.  I'm calling from the world's first completely portable mobile phone.  It's gonna be a real chick magnet.  I win."

And that's where it all began.

As I recall the first dilemma was whether to get a bag phone with more power and better range....

....or a less powerful but much cooler looking brick phone.

I remember my friend Jim Williams had a very early mobile phone installed in his truck.  It had a box the size of a computer tower (remember computer towers?) behind the seat, an antennae on top of the cab, and a handset....with a cord.  He was considered a complete nerd in his day.  And a rich nerd because it cost over 2 Grand.

I was a late bloomer.  I didn't get my first cell phone until the early 90's as best I can remember.  It looked something like this:

I remember I had it about a week before I ever talked on it because I was afraid of going over my minutes.  I would pull it out and show friends, flip it open and show off the lighted keypad, then very carefully replace it in it's belt-mounted case.  Smokin' hot!

I especially liked it when my wife called me when I was at the grocery store and told me to get such-and-such while I was there.  This was significant because she once called the office at Tom Thumb (the grocery store) and asked them to get word to me to pick up something she remembered she needed.  

They fired up their PA system and announced, "Customer Scott Park....customer Scott Park....your wife wants you to get some butter and some cream cheese, too."  (True story!)  I couldn't find a hole deep enough to crawl into and hide.

Here it is today 40 years (this week) after Marty called his buddy and razzed him, and now there are six billion cell phones in the world.  I was wondering how that could be as there are only six billion people in the world, but then I saw this....

and this....

....so I guess it's possible.

Then came the smart phone duel between Steve Jobs and Kimchee Samsung*.  I have an ancient iPhone4, while K has a Samsung Galaxy #?.  She says hers is better, but I'm used to Apple and afraid of change.  The new Samsung is out now and Apple's next new version is expected to be out as soon as June.  And I'm due an upgrade.  Decisions, decisions.

See what you've done Marty?

S

*Not his real first name, but it was the only other Korean word I knew.