Cracked Technology

Okay, I have to state for the record that I love my BlackBerry. I mean, my friends and family accurately refer to it as my "CrackBerry" (I know that terminology isn't unique, by the way, but it is apt), and there's even the occasional joke made about how I'm married to it.

That being said, though, there's a part of me that misses the simpler world. Don't get me wrong, I love being able to hit IMDB when the name of an actor is on the tip of my tongue or check the weather as needed or scroll through status updates on Facebook. It's just that I can't remember what it was like before the answers to the world's questions was at the tip of my fingertips. I'm even a welcome sight at times as in, "Oh, good, you're here. Can you Google how much it costs to make a penny?" (The answer, by the way, is 1.4 cents ... but that's a post for another day)

This realization has hit me hard the last few days as my beloved BlackBerry is having a nervous breakdown. I need to go to the Verizon Wireless store and get it straightened out, but suffice it to say that I'm having a hard time making calls (it starts chanting, "Enter a voice dialing command. Enter a voice dialing command. Did you say, 'Call MOM'?" It's really kind of funny, except of course that I also miss calls and don't receive texts until I take the battery out and reset the whole thing.

Technology is great when it works. Trust me, I enjoy it (revel in it is more accurate ;)) as much as anybody. However, when it flickers in dependability, it's a harsh (and frankly kind of frightening) reminder of a simpler time ... and that makes me sad, for some reason.