If I start running, can I have his apartment?

As much as I like to think of myself as a back-to-the-earth kind of gal, I have to admit I have a huge fascination (almost an obsession, really) with gadgets. I'm looking forward to setting up a few playlists on the iPod to listen to in the Prius (augh! all these brand names!) on our road trip next week, and I'm still all aflutter over my new computer at work. Cell phones, stereos, these super cool bike pedals I just ordered from England ... if it's small and sleek and new and expensive, I'm interested. All the better if it also has tiny little colored lights.

So my latest obsession is these shoes, which, according to the press release, can actually talk to iPod nano (they don't call it "the iPod" – it's just "iPod") while you're running, and tell you all kinds of information about what you're doing. Oh, blah – don't bother to read the press release – watch the movie!

I guess that's what I really respond to with this stuff, more than even the stuff itself: it's the marketing I love. The truth is I get more pleasure out of watching this little movie of a beautiful man with a beautiful apartment running around a beautiful city than I would out of actually buying any of those products (or even living in that apartment, come to think of it – look at that giant van parked right outside his window!).

Sometimes having a new possession really IS all it's cracked up to be. It took me more than two years to find the right bike, and even then I came within inches of buying the wrong one – but now that I have it, I fall in love with it again every single day. The new car is cool, but I don't think of it as mine. It's more like a really expensive tool that Mr. A needs for his work. When we got new cell phones last year I at first succumbed to the super-fancy Motorola that had all the gadgets and blinky lights I love, but within a week I had a bad case of feature overload and exchanged it for another low-end Nokia. My stereo is eight years old and since the remote (which I would need to set the time display) is still hidden away in one of my boxes in the garage I can't even have it plugged in unless I'm actually listening to it, or the flashing "12:00" will keep me awake all night.

So maybe I'm not all that obsessed with owning the latest technology. But I do love watching the commercials.