TRAIN FODDER

Here’s what I want: a tablet PC that’s about as thin as my PowerBook’s LCD monitor. It will come with document management software, so that whenever you come across a document on the web, either a web page or a PDF or whatever, you hit a button and that document is downloaded in it’s entirety (formatting, images, etc.) and added to a queue. Then whenever I feel like reading some articles, I can just pull up the queue and read the next things on the list. I come across so many long-format articles that I just don’t have the time or the patience to read when I’m browsing. This way I could read in a more comfortable chair, and beyond the reach of internet connectivity. Yes, I am dumb.

The Nintendo DS is nothing like this imaginary device, but it is still damn cool. Two screens, 802.11 capabilities, unit to unit multiplayer, requiring only one game cartridge for multiplayer, and this PictoChat thing? Chatting and whiteboard, on a portable?! This thing sounds amazing. Granted, all I play on my Gameboy Advance is Advance Wars 2, but think of all the five-year-olds I could trounce at random on the train. At 8:30 am. Commuting. Alas. The only other people I’ve seen playing video games on BART are this extremely intense nerdy guy playing Diablo on his laptop, and an equally intense less-nerdy woman playing something on her GBA. I’m not sure I’d want to get on their bad sides.