The Tablet Is Coming Along For The Ride

I am no longer conflicted.

I have decided to bring along the Tablet PC to the U.S. Go Congress.  But the main reason I am doing so is because of the horribly long eleven hour journey to Portland with the stopover in Phoenix.   I am downloading episodes of Photoshop User TV to watch in the airports and on the flights.  Books and magazines just won't be enough to keep me happy for that long eleven painful hours.

Whether or not I lug the tablet to the playing area each day remains to be seen.

Conflicted About Whether To Drag Tablet To The Congress

With five days left before departure for the U.S. Go Congress I have yet to decide if I am going to take my Tablet PC with me.  For every tournament and Congress in the past couple of years I have used my Tablet PC to record games.  It's always been a hit, and to some extent an interesting distraction to my opponents, which may or may not offer me an advantage across the board.  But mostly, for the past four years, my tablet has just been a very important part of who I am as a go player.  I'm the middle aged gray haired woman with the incredibly cool contraption that people just can't keep their eyes off.

Recently, however, with my new found addiction to everything Mac,  I have lost patience with this aging technology.  Compared to my iMac my tablet is slow, and the only thing it has going for it anymore is that I can place it flat on the table between myself and the go board.  There is no doubt at all that it still carries an amazing coolness factor for that alone, but I am not sure if it worth lugging around for 11 hours from Philadelphia to Phoenix and on to Portland.  Of course there is something to be said for the entertainment value of having the tablet with me during those long waits in the airport and the flights.

I'll have my Palm to record games if I want.  I'm still conflicted.  

Next year I will probably have a nice new Mac Book Pro to take along once the tablet dies and I wean myself away from my PC hardware altogether.

When I come back from the Congress one of the first things I will be doing is installing VMWare Fusion on the iMac so I can run SmartGo.

Look For Me At The Congress

I don't look much like my picture here on my blog, nor that on Go Discussions.  I don't much resemble the highly stylized image that functions as my KGS identity either.  On KGS I am buzzsaw.   I should be easy to find at the U.S. Go Congress this year, however, since I will be sporting the cool name tag pictured above, which I have slipped into the highly functional tag holder provided at the 2007 Congress.

I hope to meet many new go players this year and visit with old friends.