I know. I know. This is a gadget site. We’re supposed to be all about the wanting, the salivating, the dreaming…

But I thought it would be fun to step out of fantasy land for a second and consider the top 10 gadgets that I actually use on a daily and/or weekly basis. Maybe this will give you a glimpse into the inner depths of my life…or maybe not.

1. My Old School Nokia Cell Phone

What can I say. I’ve got a RAZR, but that’s mostly for fun. When it comes to the daily grind, I still find myself preferring the simple, big-buttoned, hard to lose, big bodied Nokia from three years ago to the sleek, thin pretty flip-phones of today. Maybe that makes me uncool. But in this post, I’m all about telling it as it is. 4 hours a day with this baby.

2. My 2 Year Old Gateway Laptop

Sure, I can’t play Pirates or Empire Earth 2 on it, but I spend at least six hours a day on this sucker. Type, type, typing away. It does plays Empire Earth 1 though! And it does some mean web browsing, email checking and word processing. Hey, I use it and that’s all that matters in this post.

3. My Old School Nintendo DS

Well, it isn’t really old-old. But it isn’t the new Lite either. Big and bulky, I play Mario Kart or Advanced Wars every night as a bedtime story.

4. The five year old AC in my window

This summer has been hot, and a day doesn’t go by without churning on the ol’ window AC. Hey, my wife wanted “and old house with character” and that’s what we got: a house with lots of demands. Ever wonder why the men always say they want the newer homes on all those home shopping shows on HGTV (look, my wife makes me watch it!)

5. The Good Ol’ Coffee Pot

Eight cups a day for three years and still chugging. Simple yet effective. I just wish they’d make it fool proof for those times when I forget to slide the pot under the filter and the coffee runs all over the counter.

6. The Hyundai Tucson

Sure, I’d love the electric Tesla or a hybrid or a Ford Mustang, but for $17,000 I just bought a brand new Hyundai Tucson that’s actually fun to drive and has plenty of room for hauling. I just wish I could find some places on the East Coast to do some mild off-roading. Every time I get in this sucker I want to drive up on the curbs.

7. The Trusty Toaster Over

Hey, I’m no cook. But I also don’t like my stuff soggy. So instead of the microwave, I usually throw my food into the Toaster Oven to get a quick but golden brown meal. (I like my marshmallows burnt!)

8. My Dell Axim x50

He’s getting old, but when I’m on the road, my Dell Axim gives me the flexibility I need to track down free WiFi…and that’s all that matters, right? It’s like a treasure hunt, and once I’ve found free WiFi, my heart skips a couple beats before I fetch the laptop and hunker down for an internet feast.

9. My 8th grade Texas Instruments TI-81

Want to figure out how old I am? Figure out which year the TI-81 first came out, then figure that I was in 8th grade at the time. You know what. This calculator has balls of endurance. It graphs, it charts, it makes entering calculations a breeze (you can screw up and edit your numbers without having to type everything else in again). Hey, I’m still using it almost everyday, 15 years later with the original batteries (kudos to Duracell too).

10. My $35 DVD player that we bought on a whim for our bedroom

Now that my wife and I do Blockbuster through the mail, we have a steady stream of DVDs flying to our house each week. The DVD player which was sort of bought for “emergency” cases of boredom, has turned into a nightly event. Ali G, Curb Your Enthusiasm, and all the movies you can shake your fist at (though many of them turn out to be duds, like last nights movie…which I hated…Flightplan).

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