Why are you so terribly disappointing?
By Mark Morford, SF Gate Columnist
Wednesday, January 27, 2010
What the hell is wrong with you? Are you really going to wear that? Why aren't you right now cooking me a nice meal and wearing those hot boy shorts you know I love and saying those words you know I want to hear at exactly the moment I like to hear them, to make me feel better about everything, even though I probably won't?

What happened to my bonus? What happened to my job? What happened to my country? Why can't it all go the way it's supposed to go? You mean having a kid won't solve my marriage problems? Why don't these drugs make me feel better? Where's that goddamn waiter with my salad? Have you seen the stupid weather today? Is this really all there is?

These are, from what I can glean, the most important questions of the day, of the month, of modern life itself. Hell, what with the economy and job situation, the housing market and the overall feel and texture of the nation right now, it's no wonder Americans are, by and large, a goddamn miserable bunch. We don't like anything right now. No politician, no decision, no situation, no inhale, no exhale. We are sick to death of all of it, including ourselves.

Can you blame us? Have you seen how many things there to be disappointed about these days? Love. Sex. Marriage. Stock market. God. Gas mileage. Death. Air travel. 5/9ths of the Supreme Court. It's all just a big goddamn letdown. The list is endless. And getting endlesser.

The evidence is everywhere. I calculate it took about seven minutes, give or take, after Steve Jobs finished introducing the shinypretty iPad before the whiny attacks on the wondergizmo began flooding in, how it didn't have this or that expected feature, how it can't do live video chat, doesn't have Flash, the bezel is too big and it won't double as a meat thermometer, how it doesn't really revolutionize much of anything despite how it's, you know, this gorgeous 1.5-inch slab of aluminum and glass that works flawlessly and can perform roughly one thousand tasks in a more fluid and astonishing way than any device of its kind in history.

Big f--ing deal. We just do not care. It's all a big disappointment. Hey, I was expecting to be blown away. I was expecting miracles and transformations and multiple twitching orgasms on sight. Do not come at me with tantalizing promises only to reveal that you can fulfill most of them to a fairly good degree, and not far exceed all of them in every imaginable way. We're Americans, goddammit. Ye shall know us by the tang of our bitter and untenable jadedness.

whyPad?

On a totally nonserious note, I’ve been reading all the stories about the iPad and sort of wishing I could find some reason to get one. But I can’t come up with a justification.

Right now, I carry a dumb phone — GSM, so it works all over the world and in parts of New Jersey; a Lenovo X61 (with an aircard, so that New Jersey Transit is my mobile office); and a Kindle 2. I lug all of them almost everywhere, so I’m kind of a beast of burden.

If the iPad were an adequate substitute for the notebook, it would let me lighten that load. But from what I’m seeing, it isn’t: I need lots of files available, number-crunching capacity, basically the ability to do whatever I would do sitting at my regular desk.

So I’m still stuck with my backpack-sized briefcase.

My two year old Sony Ericcson smart phone is far more useful, though with a smaller screen.