xtcian

joys of 9-year-old technology

6/1/04

I'll tell you right now: I'm the biggest gaybot ever when it comes to new technology. Like Garrity, I can't help but have the latest updates of everything, and I read Gizmodo with the kind of primal longing usually reserved for 3rd graders planning a trip to Magic Mountain.

That said, there were two bandwagons I was late to jump on: the iPod, which I only bought long past the time when it was cool - and a webcam, which I finally got working TODAY.

Obviously, webcams were one of the first reasons anyone got broadband, and chicks were undressing for them way back in 1995. I always considered them vulgar, intrusive and useless. But something about the new iSight at Apple gave me pitter-pats and slight vasocongestion, so I saved up money from my paper route in 1981 and decided to buy one.

Problem is, I don't know anyone else with an iSight to chat with, so we bought one for Sean & Jordana as well. With a minimum of fuss, I logged on to the computer around sunset tonight in Santa Monica, while Sean did the same in Queens (pitch black outside).

The picture quality is fabulous, so don't let these screen shots sway you - I blew the image up to fit the gargantuan screen, so it became pixelated. When kept at the regular size, it was like watching television, only the shows were set in our living rooms 3200 miles from each other. There was only a slight delay, and the audio was impeccable.

Sean took us on a guided tour of his apartment (recently re-arranged) and we showed him the sun setting over the Pacific Ocean and the plants blooming in our back yard. HOW UNBELIEVABLY AWESOME IS THAT?

Yeah, so it won't feed the Sudan, and it won't fix the financial woes of South America, but I'm still enough of a Poindexter Spaz to find this technology cooler than the Pink Floyd The Wall Laser Show.