Cyber-Geek Fashion Police

Mercy on ye who use not gadgets of the ORTHODOXY. I learnt this painful lesson at work from J, our resident hi-tech junkie. J spends much of his disposable income on the latest hi-tech toy. He has not just a phone, but a flip-screen fully-featured computer. A flip of the screen reveals a full qwerty keyboard underneath, albeit one for tiny little hands. When he talks into his phone, it looks like he is talking into a palm-pilot . He can telnet to our servers at work 24/7. And he does. He was the first to buy an iTrip, a Powerbook, an iSight and he's probably going to buy an iLife.

Last but not least, J has a iPod. Or at least I assume that he has. But considering that he probably carries his Powerbook everywhere, he may treat his laptop as a very large MP3 player.

I had recently arrived in our lab and penniless from travelling, I had bought a cheap-ass hand-held radio. Listening to my radio with my headphones on, I passed by J's office. As is his custom, he glances up to see who walked past. On seeing my radio, his face passed through a series of expressions, from puzzlement, to approval, to disbelief, and finally to disgust, with a little slight upcurl of the edge of his lips. "Is that a.. a.. a.. radio?" he asks. I answer yes, and he just shakes his head like a father discovering that his son is gay for the first time.

Later, I managed to fish out of him what had gone on in his head. "Well,", he explained to me. "First, I saw that you had a music of device of some sort -evident from the earphones trailing out. I looked a bit closer and then realised it was a radio receiver. Now that couldn't be because that's just so wrong. [puzzlement] So then I thought you couldn't be that sad and so it must be an MP3 player with a retro design [approval]. I look a bit more and then relief that it really was a radio [disbelief]. That is just too sad. [disgust]."