Eees and Wiis and Flying Machines

I have fallen into the trap that tempts all technology semi-junkies. My tech has become trendy and...(horror of horrors)...cutesy.

It all began when my brother and I bought our mother a Wii for Christmas. She had been talking about it for quite a while, and when we went to Wal-Mart to do some last-minute shopping on Christmas Eve (because I hadn't yet done any shopping), there it was -- three boxes left of the toy of the decade. (This was only the latest in good luck, beginning with a series of incredible train/ferry near-missed connections, followed by the U.S. government changing its passport policies apparently just so I could go to Canada for New Year's Day.) So on a complete whim, we bought one. And we played it (even my father). And it was incredible.

When I left Maine, and my mother's Wii, to go back to school, my hunger wasn't sated, but whetted. As it so happened, I found out by chance that a friend had a Wii that he was no longer interested in, so after thinking about it for half a day, I broke down and bought it. And played it. And it was great.

I swore to myself that this period of riotous spending was all over, but then calamity struck -- my laptop died. Fortunately, I've been taking most notes by hand this year (to good effect), so I wasn't left completely adrift, but it was still a bit of a shock. At three years old, it practically costs more to fix a laptop power supply (which involves some major-ish surgery) than it does to just buy a new laptop, so I started looking around for what I could get for under $400.

The more I looked, the more it seemed like I should just buy an Eee. An Eee weighs less than 2 lbs, is about the size of a small hardcover book, runs a customized variant of Xandros Linux that is incredibly intuitive (if not amazingly smart), and costs less than $400 (by one dollar). I already carry all my files on a flash drive, so it doesn't matter that it has minimal hard disk space, and I've been using Linux for almost two years, so running an "easy" version is even simpler. I don't need a PC for gaming anymore, thanks to the Wii and the Virtual Console feature, and all my applications are becoming Web 2.0-based, so the chances I'll ever need to download any Windows program again are minimal.

So I did buy one. And it was amazing. Go out and buy yours today.

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Normally, I frown on this sort of post. But as I plan on exploring some more open-source and licensing legal issues in March, it seems appropriate to take a moment to mention my relationship with fun technology. I'm no techie, but I understand enough to get by, and enjoy being a power-user of interesting tech, even if I'll never be a coder.