Tikkabik

I landed safely in San Francisco yesterday -- I'm here until Friday for the Game Developers Conference (GDC). I'm looking forward to it -- while I've covered GDC remotely for years, this is my first time actually at the event.

Yesterday was a really hectic day -- I had to pop into the office first thing, then I went down to the convention center, finally got around to checking into my hotel, and had dinner with an esteemed developer who I wanted to see. Somewhere I managed to fit in a call to Bonnie and unpacking, too. I had to get a refrigerator delivered to the room to store my Byetta. The hotel had initially told me it would be a $30 charge, but when they found it was for medication, they waived the fee, which I thought was nice.

Bonnie is having massive trouble with her Zodiac, a Palm-based PDA which, after two years of daily use, appears to be on its last legs. It figures that there has to be some major technical snafu when I'm 3000 miles away.

While I'm perfectly content to keep my iPod separate from my BlackBerry, the first time I've ever regularly used iSync has been since I got the BlackBerry. I could just never get the hang of carrying and using a PDA in addition to my phone and iPod.

I asked Bonnie if she wanted a smartphone instead, fully expecting that she'd say yes. I was bracing myself for having to go to Verizon and buy a Treo (she's a much bigger Palm PDA fan than I am). She surprised me by telling me no. Unlike me, she actually wants her devices separate from one another.

So Bonnie appears amenable to a simple, replacement PDA, so I might pick her up a Palm Z22 before I leave the city. It won't have Bluetooth like the Zodiac, but honestly, my experience has been that Palms and Bluetooth are more trouble than they're worth.