I've had my iPad for over a week now. It hasn't changed my life nearly as much as the iPhone, but I'm not sure how I ever managed to live without it. It's certainly preferable to my laptop for "light" computing, such as reading research papers and blogs, or browsing the iTunes Store.

(Some people have complained to me about the lack of PDF annotation tools. One can't, for instance, highlight a sentence in a PDF document on the iPad. I'm of the opinion that highlighters serve no purpose, so I can't say I really mind.)

But there is one feature of the iPad I could live without: the attention it gives me. While many people don't give me a second glance when I'm sitting in a corner reading Les Echos on my iPad, many other people have what seems an uncontrollable urge to exclaim, "Is that an iPad?" and ask me for a demonstration. Admittedly, if I'm not doing anything particularly important, it doesn't bother me all that much to pause and show off the pinch-to-zoom features in the Photos application. And, given I'm on a college campus, it's not as if I don't know most of these people anyway. Still, there are occasions when I just want to sit and read my economics journal without any disturbance.

I really hope everyone on my flight to Portland this Saturday has an iPad. People have shown no hesitation in inquiring about my Kindle, and I doubt they'll attempt to contain their curiosity any more when it comes to a product as "hot" as the iPad. And, unlike encounters on the street or in the grocery store, it's not as if I have a credible excuse (or even the possibility) of walking away to avoid answering a litany of basic questions about the device's specifications one could easily find on Apple's website.

Should be fun.