Blackberry? Pre? IPhone? nope...Peek

I'm a Peekster! And until 5 days ago I didn't even know it.

You might recall that I was, at one time, the owner of the world's oldest cell phone. After being poked, and prodded, and cajoled and begged and laughed at, I finally got a new phone that FLIPS OPEN. I felt so 2000.

I had also recently upgraded to High Speed Internet. And then I installed a wireless router; and before you know it, I was some sort of techno junkie, checkin' my email on my (giant and very heavy and also beautifully purple) laptop by the pool. I could almost, almost understand my friends' lust for "apps" and "features" and "upgrades" and other (she casually bats the word around) tekkie stuff.

But the thought of pushing all those little buttons. And reading all the manuals to determine which buttons to push...well, I've had a migraine for a few days. I thought it might have been MSG in some Chinese food I ate, until just this minute. Now I'm not so sure.

Because the App Seed was planted. I don't need a phone to make videos, or map me a route to the vet or surf the web. I can't even read the text on my 17" laptop. I would have to enlarge it to one letter at a time on an IPhone. Don't need it to sing to me, or find Chinese restaurants. (Unless it could find the ones that don't use MSG...)

But, well, checking my email without powering up the aubergine (and fairly temperamental) laptop. Now, that would be an App! And as this silliness was running through my crowded head, I heard our Atlanta Consumer Guru, Clark Howard, explain something called "Peek". It looks like a Blackberry, so people think you are hip and cool and LinkedIn. But it just gets your email! No confusing cameras, or web-surfing, or Chinese Restaurant coordinates!

I was smitten. Went on the website, http://www.getpeek.com and it was so freakin' cute that I got a cherry red one. It arrived today.

Clark Howard said it took his 9-year-old 2 minutes to have it operational. Guess it's hard to teach us old dogs new tricks...it took at least 3 minutes for me to get it up and running.

It is charging now, on the kitchen counter. It works great. I am already in love. Just one little problem - when it gets an email it kinda, um, hiccups. Foster the Kitty views it as electronic prey; and I am pretty sure it will be "retrieved" and delivered to me during the night.

If it makes it through to morning, I'll shoot you an email.