In the never ending pursuit of my employer to make me and my colleagues as accessible as possible to annoying clients, I am now charged with a little Blackberry device. Along with my cell (which I leave off unless I need to use it ) Truly I am just a freakin' call or "click" away.

But, of course, the deployment I received does not permit the downloading of file attachments. Therefore, I remain unable to respond to those clients who send me urgent messages that say: See attached!. Quite a few of them cannot be bothered to put a subject in the e-mail header either. It's just as good that I can't download attachments. My unit has an old-fashioned monochrome LCD screen with a very dim backlight which would make it useless for viewing attachments anyway.

The nice news is that it is adequate enough to replace my PDA and I intend to let it replace my laptop as well. No more lugging about a 7 pound weight and having it taken out and gawked at by moronic airport security.

So far it has been checked for traces of explosive chemicals four times this year alone and I've had to boot it up to prove to security that if it IS a bomb, its also a working laptop an equal number of times now.

I have yet to fly with my Blackberry but the documentation says that it never really shuts down. What I have to do is to do a software "disabling" of the antenna while in flight.

Very curious.


Bad things are good
in Bizzaro World