My curiosity got the better of me today, and having nothing else to distract myself with I opened the box. The subject of this mystery lay inside recyclable cardboard supports--a matte black monolith of fastener-free plastic. It looked peaceful, almost as if it was sleeping. Not a brand name interrupts the smooth, rubberized surface. What am I supposed to do with it? It is a computer, so I open the lid and press the recognized button for "power".

A single text bar on the screen. I enter my credentials: the signatories for an empty email account, which I've already checked today and is bereft of hope. Instantly the machine is on, and I am confronted with: a browser window. The Chrome browser, familiar to me. Everything appears congruent to other instances. Tabs, synced bookmarks appear, my usual time-saving and time-wasting extensions. What is new is what is missing--there is no familiar X. This window will not close. There is no desktop, and upon checking, no visible file system! Only a keyboard or a mouse plugged into the single USB port will create a "computer-like" response. What is this thing I have been given? I put it down and close it. I cover it with some other papers in irritation.

Day Three

I used the new "hardware browser" (as I call it, for it hardly seems a computer) all day. For email, Twitter, to write, to read. Even for phone calls. Everything that I do is now online, connected to the Internet. A man, networked in full, going nowhere. The machine is indifferent to my plight. It is lighter than my other laptop, the battery lasts longer, and it opens from sleep mode almost instantaneously. These are the only reasons I've been using it. I still go back to the other machine for media files, to download and run programs, and to sync with my non-cloud storage drives.

I note, however, that I have put this journal "into the cloud". I have uploaded these daily scribbles from my laptop to my Google Docs account. I admit being pleasantly surprised at the utility of it. I open this new machine almost as if opening a paper notebook to a fresh page, and I immediately begin typing right where I left off. The word processor in full-screen mode immediately takes my keystrokes, almost, it seems, sucking from from my finger tips. The single window still doesn't compare to the wide-screen and multiple, cascading documents of my old computer for editing and long-form paragraph shuffling, as if I even did that, these days. But with the 3G connection, this little machine is always there, ready to accept my thoughts, like a conscience on my shoulder. But in my lap. Ingenious, I must admit.

Still no word from the manufacturer about what I should be doing with this thing, as regards "testing". In the meantime though, it's a welcome oddity into the world of my gadgets.

Day Four

Smart phone is acting up, again. It deleted all of my music files with a software upgrade. Little pissant of a machine, as if it wants to upset me. Not like you, Cr-48. It makes me laugh to refer to this new, strange little computer by it's odd designation. As if it were a quirky friend. If I gave pet names to my gadgets, this would deserve such an unlikely one. It suits its character. Teased by the other members of the class, shunned at the lunch table, a Frankenstein of data devices.... Where would this fit in the hierarchy of electronics? I have an old, crotchety smart phone, and Cr-48 is not like it. My full-featured computer is even older, but it's wide range of functions places it in a class of appliances. If I could afford a tablet, that would be different again. You have a much better browser, and yet that is all you have. You're light and quick, and yet you have a keyboard, but no touch screen. You overlap the features of other gadgets, but you creates no real plateau of its own. I wonder if you will, for me, become my... I'm not sure what to call it. I've had so many gadgets in my life. They cycle through, and cycle out again as they are outdated and replaced. Will you be my primary, Cr-48? My love of the moment? Is it odd to love a machine, when it is so helpful, so ubiquitous? You allow me to express myself. I'm online more than ever. With a lift of your chin, and a look at your face. My fingers drift lazily along your pristine, luxurious keyboard, and not even the smallest fingerprint marrs your rubberized surface. In you I find myself, Cr-48. As if I was already there within you, just waiting for my login.