Fun With Tablets!

Posted on August 8, 2003    Posted by John Scalzi

Hey, everybody! I’m entering this with the pen of my new tablet pc! Whee! I’m like a performing monkey!

Okay, enough of that. Pecking out words with your pen is fun and all, but it’s also really inefficient. I was using the little onscreen keyboard that comes with the tablet PC; I tried doing the actual writing and having the computer try to figure out what I was scribbling, but any of you who have seen my handwriting know what a lost cause THAT is. But suffice to say that the new computer is here and I’m going to spend a fair amount of the day playing with it in all its technologically snazziness. So far it works as advertised — it even found my recently-created home wireless network without a fuss. To which I say — cool. That’s why I bought the damn thing (well, that and because I wanted it. Never underestimate the pointless but compelling power of just wanting something).

I do have a legitimate use for it, however, which is to be the primary computer from which I do the AOL Blog. So why do I need a whole new computer to blog from? What an excellent question! Let’s move on.

I should note that this computer is not the computer I ordered a week ago. I cancelled that order earlier in the week because it became abundantly clear that the company from which I was ordering was staffed with atavistic genetic throwbacks who hadn’t quite figured out what an opposable thumb was for. I also suspect they didn’t actually have the computer on hand and were stringing me along to buy time until the computer showed up in the warehouse; at one point I asked for a tracking number for the computer and they gave me the tracking number for some guy in Queens. It showed that his stuff arrived on time, which was nice for him, but really, like I care.

So I cancelled that order and went with someone else. So instead of a refurbished computer, I have one that’s new out of the box with all the various bells and whistles and whatnot, including the built in Wi-Fi and Bluetooth capability. I don’t think I’ll be doing much with the Bluetooth (never trust a technology named after a medieval Danish king!), but I guess it’s nice to have. I ended up spending a couple hundred dollars more, but I still got it for rather less than I would down there at Best Buy. Thank you, eBay.

Now that I have this mobility, I hardly know what to do with myself, except to say this is my new superspecial travelling buddy who will go with me everywhere I go because it’s so pretty and nice. If you’re in Toronto at the end of the month and you’re wondering who the geek with the tablet PC, that’d be me. Especially if you see him writing a blog entry.

Off to check the mail. The real mail. You know, made out of paper and stuff. In the meantime, here’s some fun for you: Name my new laptop. Right now it’s going by the name of “Parker2” (my other laptop, which is now Krissy’s laptop, is named “Dorothy Parker”), but I think the name needs some more zing. Any suggestions?