I'll be the first to admit I've never been one for technology. We've never really got along, and by that I basically mean I'm a human circuit breaker. I'm positive that something in me is hardwired to break down whatever electronic device is nearest to me. iPods lose their batteries, TVs become creepily blank and I'm pretty sure I even caused a power outage on a city block.
It would be a pretty cool superpower if it weren't so totally lame and caused me to miss repeated episodes of BBC's ""Masterpiece Theater"" on whichever Dickens novel they're reenacting this week.
Otherwise, technology has probably shaped me for the better, as it helped me to become the totally awesome nerd you see before you, who, instead of watching ""Jersey Shore,"" reads ""The Time Traveler's Wife"" in order to understand what the masses are thinking.
Unfortunately for me, like the phrase ""GTL"" (which stands for gym, tanning and laundry according to the cast of ""Jersey Shore""), technology is creeping into my life, and I feel both are something that must be reversed immediately. I know, they aren't new by any means, and I should've stood up for myself before, but really I was just too busy reading ""The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"" to bother with it until now. Also, I figured the printed word was safe until Starbucks, McDonald's or Wal-Mart came up with a campaign against it, though I wouldn't put it past any of them to have ""GTL"" as a starting point.
Then, last month, it happened. Apple, in its bid to retain the crown for really cool unnecessary devices, came out with the unfortunately named but sweet looking iPad.
Obviously until this happened I assumed that books were OK. Sure, Amazon's Kindle tempted bibliophile technophobes like me with its long battery life and easy-to look-at screen, but as a machine that markets itself only to book readers, I figured books were still safe.
Now, I'm not so sure. With the iPad, appealing as only Apple machines can be, and signing nearly every major publishing company onto their docket, I'm worried that the casual reader may be lured away from all of those shoddy paperback novels I cling to and eventually I'll be left alone in my love for the smell of musty old books.
As exemplified by the focus of my rants, I am all for people reading; however, I have to stand up and defend the printed word from these attacks.
Take the idea of trading up to an electronic version of Leo Tolstoy's ""War and Peace."" You will be paying about the same price to carry around a lighter version of that beast of the novel, but you will lose the overawed stares of those around you when you pull it out for some light, before-class reading.
So retain the moral high ground with me and stick to reading the printed word. Trust me, even at the Kindle price of $9.99, it's not worth losing the irreplaceable new book smell and the oh-so-important bookshelf bragging rights. Cause that's really what it's all about.
Think the book as we know it is on the way out? Trying telling the technophobic bookworm at kuskowski@wisc.edu.
