I got many Merry Christmas greetings this year... via text message on my cell phone. Technology is leaving me behind. For a technology geek, I’m still kind of a Luddite.

What’s a Luddite? Someone who is antitechnology, originally against the industrial revolution. You, see, Ned Ludd’s followers threw their wooden shoes called “sabots” into weaving machines to break them, thus the term “sabotage.” Wow, you learned something! Unless you’ve seen Star Trek VI, in which case you already knew that. Hmmm? Okay, so I’m not going to break any machines. I already threw my laptop down an alley and it just costs way too much. But I’m often guilty of getting comfortable in my existing world and resisting, well, upgrades.

Until this month, I didn’t get the concept of listening to books on tape. Especially self-help and personal betterment books. So you want to be a better person, more effective, etc. But you don’t really feel like reading. You’re too lazy to pick up the book and read it? Someone read me my Tony Robbins enlightenment manifesto because I don’t want to use my own eyes. Well, if you’re hoping to reinvigorate your life, you’re off to a good start. Maybe you can go on a diet and have someone hand-feed you and watch videos of people sweating. That’ll get you to your goal in no time.

Okay, so I was wrong. My first experience was actually not good. My lovely girl brought some books to listen to on the way to Minneapolis for Thanksgiving. It was a terrible, like “The Buttress of Windsor” or something. We quit listening to it and gave up. But later we tried again. She brought home the fifth Harry Potter book to listen to on the way to Milwaukee a week later. About 10 minutes in I was hooked. I believe I listened to the book during every free moment until I finished it. All 17 CDs. That’s over 20 hours. It’s like audio crack. Then I took it to the next level. My drug of choice was, of course, the sixth Harry Pottter. I don't know if they're this good or if this Jim Dale guy is just the best book narrator on Earth. I believe I enjoyed the narrated books as much as the movies. The reason I took it to the next level is because I started listening while I was working. I wondered how much it would cramp my productivity. Can I concentrate? Yes I can! Depending on what I’m doing. I can’t really write while I’m listening, I have to pause the audio, which is only a spacebar away to actively think about stuff.

But there’s a lot of busy work to do where I find it very easy to multitask. Design work seems easy to accomplish while listening to Professor Snape killing ... ah, I won’t give the end of the book away. I’ve done a great deal of the last couple of issues’ layouts while hanging out at Hogwarts or going from “Good to Great.” I think it’s easier to listen to the fiction books while working by the way. In the end, I’ve discovered that I can get twice as much done in half the time. This is great. How did I wait so long for this? By the way, that is pretty much the realization I have each and every time I actually do try something new and better.

So why do I continue to resist? I’m lazy, I guess. But I’ll get there. We’re all getting BlackBerries at the office and I may even finally get me an iPod one of these days. It’s probably sacrilegious for a Mac die-hard like me not to have one.

The Carnegie-Stout Public Library is my dealer. They have a great selection of books to choose from. I’m hoping that telling you that does not make you all go take my books, but maybe the rush would give them cause to get even a greater variety of books on CD. Jean Gullikson from the library now tells me that there are MP3 books available too through the library, but so far she says they are not compatible with her iPod which is disappointing. Hopefully whoever is responsible for that service to the library gets on that soon. God forbid someone would make their service compatible with the single most popular MP3 service in the world. Must be a federal government program.