Gadgets That Have Changed My Life

In order of appearance, here are a few gadgets that have changed my life:

1. The Barbie Dream House: For so long I'd been playing with The Heart Family dolls, the least popular, now discontinued, toy for young girls and confused boys. The Heart Family was designed to teach kids the importance of family and the answer to why Barbie can't have kids: because she's not married. You can't have kids outside of marriage, you know? One Christmas, my younger sister got the Dream House, complete with elevator, squealing tea kettle and "working" faucet. My dad set it up in our garage; we played for hours, inhaling gas fumes all the while.

2. Talkboy: Again, a gift for my sister that changed my life. It was mostly for my love of Home Alone 2, although I recorded myself singing a song about "losing my shoe" that my sister later discovered on the tape. She said, "That's really good! I don't remember singing that, but I sound good!" With arms crossed, I smiled smugly whilst dreaming of my recording contract with Frankie Sharp of Sharp Records.

Fast forward many years, ok maybe 1 or 2 ...

3. iPod and all its various accoutrement: This may seem obvious, but for many years I had a Dell DJ - again, the less popular of what was available. I got it for Christmas because my mom saw it was one of Oprah's Favorite Things, which I'm very grateful for, but it became unusable when I bought my beautiful Mac computer. Dell didn't make software to upload songs from a Mac (and their customer service rep basically said, "duh" when I asked if they did), so I had to make the switch last year. Now, I listen to it all day at work, I have a speaker dock for my room, one of those obnoxious arm bands for outdoor runs and a chord in my car.

4. Bluetooth Headsets: It's only changed my life in that now I know what unbridled hatred for an inanimate object feels like.

And, finally, the newest addition to gadgets which have changed my life. This little guy:

5. An (illegal at work) space heater for my office: My friend - some may say best, now - is loaning it to me until her side of the office feels like the tundra mine does. I can't even tell you how warm my legs are right now.