Most normal people aren’t particularly attenuated to the comings and goings of fancy new electronic devices. By now you’ve certainly realized that at least in this category, I’m not like most people. What can I say, I’ve got a thing for well-designed bundles of chips, plastic, aluminum, and glass.

I keep telling myself that I’m only taking a look at things for “informational purposes” only. My iPad 2, at a year old, is still pretty much a marvel of modern technology. It runs like a top and has more storage than I can ever reasonably expect to use in a tablet. Really, it’s every bit as good a device today as it was the day I unboxed it last March. Sure, the new one will have a touch more processing power, a higher resolution screen, and a few other bits that make it just a little more polished than the one I have now, but is that enough to justify the inevitable standing in line or waiting around the house all day for the UPS guy to show up? The logical, well-reasoned answer, of course, is no, no it isn’t.

For better or worse, I’ve drunk the Kool Aid. Normal standards of logic, need, or justification really don’t apply. I guess as far as addictions go, things could be worse. At least I only have to go out looking for my fix a couple of times a year. Unfortunately, like any other self-respecting addict, once I’ve gotten a whiff of there being a new and more potent fix on the market, I’m pretty much helpless in the face of my own excitement to get a taste of it. Just like every year around this time I am officially waiting to see the technical specifications before making a decision. In the less affected part of my head I’m even thinking that this might be the year to ride it out and wait to see what iPad 4 has under the hood. If I were a betting man, though, I wouldn’t wager against seeing an iPad 2 posted for sale here on these very pages in the not too distant future.