The shiny new gadgets — they’re always referred to as shiny — seduce in times of boredom. Not to say that all who love gadgetry are bored or boring people, but, like sports, electronics fill in life’s smaller gaps. Shopping for them as entertainment. I go to the tech section of the newspaper first, after the front page, because its news is so neutral. I always want something, a newer version of what I already have that works just fine. The blogs don’t help matters, and I say “help” because it’s an addiction like any other, concerning myself with tech well out of my needs. A harmless addiction, except when I’m hypomanic, as I’m trending now, and I spend hours on the internet, shopping for gadgets, reading reviews. They’re so full of promises of a more productive, smoother life. They promise an end to boredom, and boredom is the first sign that I’m getting hypomanic. That, and writing too much in my journal. Is 1200 words per day too much? I think so. So I look at the new Mac mouse, and buy it in my imagination over and over again. Juicy rationalizations bounce around my head like electrons circling the nucleus of my rational brain, clouding it, fuzzying the picture of reality. I want, I need.