Last week, I found myself shivering with cold sweats. It had been ages since I had spent a ridiculous amount of money on a marginally useful gadget. So, despite the fact that I already have a Palm Tungsten T5, I picked up the nearly identical Palm TX.

Here are my thoughts:

Build

The first thing I did when I opened the Palm TX was grope at it like a 13-year-old boy feeling up his first boob.

No, really. It was just like that. I had to struggle with the packaging, find the secret catch in the back, fumble it open, and slip a hand underneath it just to squeeze the thing a bit.

It looks almost like metal – has this oddish black chrome coating like gun bluing. And it feels almost like metal, but get this… when you bite it, it’s plastic. Go on; try it. Come to think on it, I wonder if biting it ruins the warranty?

Anyway…

Just like the almost-looks-like- and almost-feels-like-metal body, the TX comes complete with an almost-looks-like- and almost-feels-like-suede cover. This almost-looks-like an attractive PDA.

But… and this is the really important part, and I’m sure the part you guys were all actually curious about…

the stylus is real metal.

That’s right. Pure, 100% real … i don’t know… steel or something. The only bit of material in the whole damn thing that seems to be completely what it looks and feels like. We’re talking $0.03 of quality Chinese steel; now that’s quality.

Still, the thing fits perfectly in your hand (unless you’re Gary Colema) and makes you look all serious and businesslike, even when you’re carrying your hippie messenger bag and doing nothing more businesslike than doodling breasts or writing “my boss is a poop” over and over again, so I guess the build is okay.

Palm OS & Software

Yep, pretty much the same as the Tungsten T5 I bought during my last gadget DTs. Palm always has pretty good software; the PIM (Prophylactic/IUD Management) apps work pretty well, and don’t cause the PDA-throwing seizures the Outlook-ish apps found on Windows CE devices do.

I’d put more time into reviewing these, but that’s boring, and let’s face it, it’s not what you buy a PDA for. You buy a PDA for…

Porn

Despite my repeated letters to Palm on the subject, the Palm TX still does not come with any preloaded porn. It comes with some pictures (a couple of Mac-ish desktop patterns, some random palm tree), and about the gayest* music video I’ve ever seen.

But no porn.

I don’t understand this. Porn is the reason to buy a media-rich PDA. If I didn’t want it for porn, I’d buy a Zire or one of those $35 Sharp dealies I keep tripping over in the WalMart electronics section.

Sit on any given metro train in downtown Manhattan, and you’ll see 3.27 men in ill-fitting suits staring at a PDA screen. What do you think they’re looking at? Their schedules? No… they’re watching “hott young blond” doing “XXXXX”. That’s what 4″ video technology was invented for – so that men could watch porn in a wider range of situations and not be arrested.

Instead, I’m looking at a palm tree and a butterfly, because I can’t figure out how to get Star Whores Episode II – Attack of the Bones to convert to the proper video codec. Lame.

WiFi

Now to the reason I bought a TX even though I had a T5… WiFi. If I can’t have my porn preloaded, I’ll download it, damnit.

Email works. I checked my email like 20x from the TX while sitting right next to my computer. Good to know that when I’m in a jam and can’t get to my computer, I can still get my Cialis and natural breast enhancement ads from any WiFi location.

The browser’s okay. You’re not exactly gonna want to browse eBay for quilts or Conan sword replicas on it, but you can read my blog from it, and that’s all you really care about. And, it can be used in a pinch to access porn in an emergency situation. Like your bus trip to work. Or a slow day at the office. Or a board meeting.

Other Functions

Since you’re only gonna use the calendar and todo list for like a week before the frustration of writing the letter G seventeen times in a row before it registers gets the better of you, it’s good to know that the Palm TX can be used for a number of other functions:

1. Door stop
2. Hockey (not street hockey; this will void the warranty) puck
3. Bookmark
4. Ninja star (may void warranty)

Quirks

After a few days, I began to notice a few quirks that should make any potential buyer wary.

First of all, the Palm TX drinks. Like, a lot. I had almost a full bottle of Crown Royal on the table, and I set the Palm next to it. I had a couple of sips now and again, sure, but the Palm TX drained the bottle when I wasn’t looking.

And the next morning, I found it out had peed all over the floor next to the toilet. I mean, c’mon, TX, aim a little. Must have been all that drinking.

I tried to talk to Palm TX about its drinking, but it just sat there and stared at me, stoic and hostile. I guess I just don’t know it well enough yet to hold an intervention.

Conclusion

The Palm TX is a handy little porn player that looks and feels like metal and suede but isn’t. Programs are pretty good, but nobody uses them anyway, except for maybe the Solitaire. Doesn’t come preloaded with porn, but if you can figure out the video conversion, you’re in good shape. Web and email are totally handy in your imagination, even if they don’t really seem to be in reality. Consumers should be aware that the Palm TX may be a borderline alcoholic.

*I mean this in the way we used the word as children.  Actual gay people would have way better taste than this video allows.

When I restarted the iPhone, MobileMe push went back to working fine.  I then reproduced the error and the fix three times, which is scientifically sufficient for a blog nobody reads anyway.

The advantage of this may not be immediately obvious.  It’s not a service that (in my opinion) is meant to replace your browser bookmarks.  I use my browser bookmarks for sites I visit on a regular basis, such as Gmail, my online banking accounts, Facebook, etc.  I use Del.icio.us for pages I wish to remember, and maybe access at some point in the future, but don’t need regularly enough to clutter up my browser with them.

If I find a watch I really like on Amazon and may want to eventually buy, I’ll tag it on Del.icio.us.  If I find a tutorial I need to try the next time I have a free moment, I’ll tag that too.  This way, I access Del.icio.us only for sites that are of some use to me but don’t really belong in my daily workflow.  Then I can store as many as I like without worrying about clutter.  And since Del.icio.us offers searching and nested tagging, it’s easy to find and/or browse these pages later.

Del.icio.us offers a bookmarklet – a quick javascript that is stored as a bookmark in your browser.  When you’re on a page, you click the bookmarklet and your browser will automatically load up a form that lets you quickly post it to your Del.icio.us account with no cutting or pasting of addresses.

Which brings me to the good news – your Del.icio.us bookmarklet works on your iPhone.  The easiest way to get it there is to put the bookmarklet in your Safari bookmarks, which are then synced to your iPhone with MobileMe.

That way, if you’ve found a site on the iPhone you’d like to tag, you just open up your bookmarks and select the bookmarklet.  It’ll let you post that site to your Del.icio.us account (you might want to add “iphone” to the list of tags so you can tell which sites you’ve marked on your phone, especially if it’s an iPhone-formatted site) easily, and you can then access that later on your browser or even from your iPhone (bookmark Del.icio.us as well).

If you want an iPhone in NYC by the way, go to the 5th avenue location around 3:30 am. I only waited about 2 1/2 hours, as opposed to the folks who came around 7 and waited for five hours.

I’m going to be typing this blog entirely on my iPhone to get accustomed to the keyboard.  As a Blackberry user who is skeptical about (but forced to) purchase an iPhone, I’ll sort of document my experiences switching over for current BlackBerry users considering taking the plunge.

Then I had to get a tripod, right? And a bag to carry all the stuff with. Plus the guy at the shop said I needed filters, and a battery grip, and this huge flash for portraits, and a flash bracket, and a stand with a little umbrella thing, and a memory stick or something, and this shade for the screen, and this thing that fits on the flash, and three extra batteries, and a quick charger, and a little lens cap saver thingie, and something called a Gorilla… something, and a new strap (that’s way better than the one it came with, though the one it came with does have NIKON written real big on it, which is totally sweet), plus this Nikon hat, a lens cleaning kit, some tissue, a remote control, another smaller flash, and a big vest to carry everything in.

Plus the guy dropped in some stuff that I don’t even know what it does, but it was like $200 so I must need it. And then I got Adobe Photoshop CS, which was kinda expensive, and a card reader, and Apple Aperture (what is an “aperture, “anyway?).

I feel like a pro, now. In fact, I’m thinking of starting my own photography business, you know, on the side.

How do you make this thing zoom? There’s no, like, slider or anything. And why can’t I get the screen to come on? I have to take pictures of the cat right now, and I can’t figure out how to get the screen on. Do I have to look through the little glass thing? Three thousand bucks and I have to squint through the little eyehole thinger? You’d think for three thousand bucks they could make the screen come on. But that must be because I’m a pro now, and I don’t use the screen anymore.

Smile, honey. No, don’t… I want to…. smile. Smile. SMILE!

Did it go off? My old camera made the little bell sound. All I heard was a click. Is that okay? Oh, look honey, you look so pret… hey, where’d it go? How do I get the picture back?

I caught her gorgeous black eye out of the corner of mine. She was staring at me, openly and boldly, as if daring me to make a move.

I knew I shouldn’t. I was committed already, to one who had always been true to me, always there for me, and who was possessed of a certain sexy quality as well. It would be madness of me to risk what I already had.

But I couldn’t help myself.

It was the way she looked. All curves and a polished sexiness that would make a grown man cry.

The affair was brief, but intense. It was the way she responded to my touch, I think, that first started the obsession. I was awkward. Fumbling. But with an almost professional ease she took my nervous hands and made them work wonders.

I could feel her trembling lightly under my fingertips as my hands worked their way across her, touching here, and there… stroking her gently or pressing my fingers hungrily against her firm body. To this day, I don’t know what that trembling meant. Was it that I touched the right places? Or the wrong ones? It is a question that haunts me, one that nearly drives me to see her again, just to know, for certain, if I handled her right.

But alas, that time has passed. I have no business putting my hands on her. I decided after that first time that it would not work between us. I’m used to comfort, to ease – I know how to take care of the one I’ve got. This one… she was high-maintenance. All flash, and no substance.  Sure, she could do things that made me gasp, and she would make the kind of trophy that made other men drool.  And sure, she knew how to turn a great trick here and there, but when it came down to it, I just didn’t understand her.  And she didn’t understand me.  She couldn’t give me what I needed.

And so, even though I still close my eyes and see my hands on her – even though I dream of the feel of my skin against her body, I know that we are simply incompatible.

At least until she gets support for 3rd party apps or some form of Skype that doesn’t run through the Safari browser.

For those of you who don’t remember, the Power Glove was released as a peripheral to the Nintendo Entertainment System in 1989. That is also, coincidentally, when it entered my heart.

The Power Glove itself, on the other hand, didn’t actually work that way. Using it was more like sign language for NES. After about two hours of flexing my index finger and yelling “Jump. JUMP!” at the screen in a panic, I gave up and learned to operate the wrist-mounted control pad with my left hand.

Take it off? What’re you, nuts? No, no, perhaps you don’t understand. This was a Power Glove. You don’t just take a Power Glove off. So it makes gameplay a little harder, instead of easier as advertised. That’s an acceptible sacrifice.

Update: Looks like they finally got it right.

So.. Apple iPhone. Pretty. And LG’s newly-announced KE850. Also pretty. Yes, they look similar. No, it doesn’t mean shit.

Freaking tech blogs are filling up with comments about how similar they look. Did LG rip off Apple? Did Apple rip off LG? Does LG really make the Apple iPhone? Will it have similar features? Is there a lawsuit brewing?

Newsflash: THE PHONES ARE 90% FUCKING SCREEN.

Not a lot of design variants when your phone is nothing but a big honking screen. It’s pretty much screen and a couple of buttons. Beyond that, the only thing that’s similar about the phones is that they’re both black.

“Look, they both use plastic for their screens. And both of their screens are… er… black when they’re turned off. Conspiracy! OMG! LOLZ!”

Please shut up.

Different operating systems. Different feature sets. Different price tags. Different internal memory. Different GUIs. Different… well, everything else.

I know, I know. The iPhone is pretty, you had a little geekgasm, and then you found out it’s only Cingular and it’s not out until June. So in lieu of actually having an iPhone – or, y’know, a girlfriend – you prowl the tech chats and yatter about it.

But seriously, leave it be. There’s nothing there. And you’re wasting perfectly good porn-surfing time.