Delightful, delicious, delovely

CameraMan and I are self-admitted gadget geeks. We are laden down with laptops, DSLR cameras, iPods, Kindles, and iPhones wherever we go. We ARE Steve Jobs's target market—if he thinks it up, we will buy it. (We don't have iPads yet, but that's mostly because we're waiting for the 2nd generation to come out. Maybe by that time we'll have figured out what they're for. And in the meantime we're petting them whenever we get the chance.) We have our fingers on the pulse of Mac rumors and new product announcements. We TiVo, we Netflix, we Wii.

So it should come as no surprise that we have managed to geekify further, even as we purge all our worldly possessions (including far too many of the items listed above). Introducing... Delicious Library, the tool that will make packing everything you own into boxes almost FUN! Basically, it's a catalog of all your books, music, movies, and anything else you want to add. I'm using it to inventory what is in each box that goes into storage (5 book boxes packed so far!), so we remember what we own and can find it if we need to. The best part of the program is that it used the built-in iSight camera on your computer to scan the bar codes of your stuff. Holding up a book in front of your laptop, hearing the bing of recognition, and watching the image appear on your virtual bookshelf is highly satisfying.

This program is the software equivalent of a sexy librarian, all pencil skirt and wire-rimmed glasses and hair in a tight bun that can be shaken out with the removal of one strategically placed bobby pin. You know what I'm talking about.

And it's so shiny and sexy and new that it's almost distracting me from the growing pile of books that I'm NOT cataloging, the ones that didn't make the cut. I've amassed a huge number of books in my life, and as I lugged them from place to place I comforted myself with the picture of the big house full of books I would live in someday. I've always dreamed of a bookshelf-lined library, complete with leather armchairs and a fireplace, and while it's a lovely idea, I think it's time for that dream to move aside to make room for others. So the books have got to go, with the exception of the reference books we need and the life-changing books we don't want to forget.

And if I get too sad about it, I'll just open up my new library software and let it work its sexy magic.