In poking around for new, mildly interesting shows to watch and/or leave on in the background, I came across Gadget Man. I was immediately interested for two major reasons — it didn’t require an attention span, and it’s hosted by (depending on the season) Stephen Fry and Richard Aoyade. All things I quite like.

The fact that it’s basically a giant series of advertisements didn’t concern me. It’s British, the gadgets are British, half of them are never going to show up here anyway.

I think it’s an interesting show. Mostly because the hosting is so well-done, but also because technology is fascinating. Anything that advances modern living is great, and the thought that goes into making it is great at making me feel stupid. I know just enough to understand and be interested in how the Oculus Rift works, for example. (Certainly not enough to work on it, though.)

But I’m very far away from being a Gadget Man — or Gadget Girl, as it were. There’s two reasons for this. One, I’m broke; gathering a collection of funky gadgets is pretty hard when you can’t afford most of them.

Two, I’m overly practical. Part of being a Gadget Person is exploring technology that doesn’t really have a point. It exists because it’s cool, or because it’s over-the-top, or because someone with more money than sense had a lame complaint. The future isn’t always necessary.

I tend to make do pretty easily. I know there’s a bunch of things I do all the time for which there’s a purpose-built gadget somewhere out there. It’s probably on sale at Brookstone. But I don’t feel myself needing it. It might be nice to have, but I don’t feel inconvenienced without it. Only when technology gets in my way — like a dying laptop preventing me from moving it around — do I feel a need to upgrade. (Hell, I’m still on a second-gen iPod Touch. It’s slow, but it plays music.)

When I was at TechFestNW, surrounded by people carrying Nexus tablets and Macbook Airs, my hesitations with technology started to feel like a handicap. People weren’t just playing with the latest and greatest, they were making practical use of them. I worried a bit about what I was missing out on by being satisfied with what I had. I was jealous, covetous.

Certainly not being a good Bunny Buddhist.

So why get the Kindle? Why spend money on something I don’t need, hardly really want, and isn’t even necessarily high-tech? I suppose it seemed, in some way, to be my best attempt at being that gadgeteer type of person. Someone with a collection of high-tech, single-purpose, interesting technology. Someone with a Pebble and a Makerbot and all that. Someone who could do more.

But considering how much money I (don’t) have, and how functional and useful technology has to be for me to want it, a Kindle is about the only thing I could convince myself to buy. It does something I should want a gadget to do, it’s cheap enough, and occasionally I’ll remember to take it when I go on the MAX and actually get some use out of it.

…I still don’t want Google Glass, though. Not for me.

And now, a moment of zen:

“We are stuck with technology when what we really want is just stuff that works.”

— Douglas Adams