I was waiting in front of Film Forum for my date, along with half a dozen other guys waiting for theirs. As I often do in a free moment, I pulled out my Palm and started answering e-mail or reading a novel or playing a game or what have you. Palmless, these guys paced, looked up and down the street, took their hands out of their pockets and put them back in, and generally and unsuccsessfully tried to look comfortable doing nothing.
Suddenly I had a flashback: Radnor High School dance, circa 1987. One of the DJs from MMR (my education in classic rock) is playing something like Billy Idol's "Mony Mony," or "Shout" from Animal House. In the cafeteria, everyone's doing the white boy dance, which basically consists of 1) jumping up and down, 2) shuffling your feet, sort of in time to the music, and 3) playing air guitar. I am standing outside with a friend, dateless and alienated as only a 17 year old can be. "You know," I said, "we should really be smoking now." Of course. Now I get it. That's why you smoked: so you didn't look like an idiot standing around doing nothing.
These guys outside Film Forum wouldn't have looked like idiots if they were smoking. They would have looked at least purposeful if not cool. Then it hit me: the Palm is the geek's version of the cigarette.
Consider the following:
1) Palm and a box of cigarettes are approximately the same size. (Note the even stronger resemblance of a Palm V to a cigarette case:)
2) Cool "Sliding" Action: removing a cig or a stylus, respectively. See illustration:
3) Addiction. A smoker would never leave the house without cigs. Most Palm users can't leave the house without their PDA.
4) Instant community. I remember my amazement on discovering that a smoker can go up to a fellow smoker who is otherwise a complete stranger and ask for a cigarette. I have also been approached by fellow Palm users on the subway, asking if I've got anything good to beam them.
6) Cool Idling. And of course, both enable you to stand on a street corner doing nothing, but looking like you're doing something.
| Cigarettes |
i've been trying to stop smoking for years.. this maybe the solution!
Thanks for giving me a reason to buy a PDA!
