I just don’t get them.  I mean I can totally understand wanting to have the Internet on your person at all times, ala the iPhone.  Those things are awesome.  Looking up directions and menus and “who was the guy who was in that movie…” type questions whenever you want cannot be beat.  It is straight out of the future.

"Saaaam! Ziggy says you only have a 50% chance of winning in your Fantasy Football league! He also has movie times and directions for you."

But I don’t really understand the desire to be plugged into your work email all the time.  Unless you are a CEO or some sort of stock trader or something, I just can’t see what is so important that it can’t wait until you get back to work or back to your hotel or something.  I guess Blackberry has done a good job with marketing.  Very clearly iPhones are for hippies and Blackberries are for fancy-pants business people.

One of these guys uses a Blackberry

I guess that is what I don’t like about them; they are so pretentious.  Somehow when I see someone using an iPhone I know he is probably wasting time and I am okay with that.  When I see someone using a Blackberry, he is just wasting time too, but he is *pretending* that he is not.  Oh no, instead he is doing important business things because he is a very important business man, yesh he is!  If you were talking to someone and they got an email on their iPhone, they wouldn’t stop talking to you because of it.  But if they get an email on their Blackberry, then stop everything!  It could be someone demanding a business decision that could make billions of dollars for the company!  But come on, I know some of the people who carry Blackberries…someone probably sent them some lolcatz.

But the worst most pretentious part about them is receiving an email from them.  Down on the bottom it automatically inserts a little thing that says, “Sent via Blackberry”.  Now what is that all about?  It is just another way to let you know that the person with the Blackberry is so very, very important and busy.  They’re responding to you on the go!  They’re probably going from one multi-million dollar deal to the next!

Why would you care where I sent you an email from?  I don’t tell you when I’m emailing from my laptop as opposed to my desktop.  I could see if it was something really cool or important like, “Sent from the back of a Tyrannosaurus Rex” or something, but you know what?  In that case go ahead and include it in the text of the message.

So, that is why I will now be adding to all outgoing emails, “Sent by someone who is very hmm hmm hmm”.  That way I know that you know that I am extremely busy and important and the effort I had to put forth to send you the email was extreme.  I just hope it didn’t cost my company some billion dollar deal just to forward you a chain letter.