King Geek For a Day

I’ve been trying to observe a seven-day wait period on expensive gadget purchases. Unfortunately, I have yet to observe it successfully. The latest breach of willpower: on Friday, I found out that the incredibly cool wireless Bluetooth headset was available in the US. The headset uses radio to talk to your cellphone, instead of wires, so if you’re wearing the headset and your phone rings, you can just casually reach up, tap the headset, and answer the call WITHOUT TOUCHING THE PHONE IN YOUR POCKET! Or, get this, if your Palm device has a Bluetooth card, you can tap “dial” in your contact list and start talking on your headset, again WITHOUT TOUCHING YOUR PHONE! Oh, this is great. So I found a tiny place on West 38th street where I could buy the new Bluetooth-enabled Ericsson T39 GSM mobile phone. With on-board Bluetooth, GPRS, and a bunch of other cool features, the T39 hasn’t been officially released in the US, which gives me lots of geek points. The phone doesn’t even come with a US charging adapter; it comes with a colossal three-pronged UK plug, and instructions on how to attach the charger to “the mains.” Ha! Then I ran to Penn Station to buy the headset kit and accept the adulation of the cell-phone vendors “Damn, is that the new T39? Can I touch it?” Then I rode to Philly on the train, talking importantly on the headset while the little flashing green light on the end of the microphone boom announces that I am the Uber-Geek, the King Megillah of wireless headphone users, the High Lalapazooza of tiny, expensive, easily breakable devices.