Andy Ihnatko is one of my favourite tech writers, and this Chicago Sun-Times piece is a doozy. It’s about tablets, and hype, and fun.

I like Apple for any number of reasons but at the top of the list is the fact that they’re capable of raising people’s expectations and restoring a sense of joy and delight in technology. Good technology is a creative expression that inspires excitement and awe. It’s no different from the movie trailer that burns the release date in your memory for months, or the song you hear played by a guest on a late-night talk show that makes you pull your notebook into the bed and start buying music downloads before the show even goes into commercial.

This, on the other hand… WARNING! SCOBLE!

Ahh, it seems so long ago when my son and I waited in line to fork over more than $600 each to buy an iPhone. The image above is from the front page of the San Jose Mercury News (I was cheering to many thousands of people who were waiting to get into the store to buy their iPhones and who had waited for up to 38 hours to do so — my son and I were first in line, which was a lot of fun).

I will do it again for WHATEVER Steve Jobs introduces on Wednesday.

Yes, I am a fanboi.