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I hate Google. I mean, really, really hate them. They’re effectively big brother bursting off the pages of George Orwell’s 1984 and monitoring everything I say, do and think. Everything. Including what you’re doing right now. (Seriously, this blog is tagged with GA)

I’ve expressed my displeasure for Google on a number of occasions, from my panel at SMX East discussing SiteLinks to my most recent post on SEJ. In short, I don’t trust Google. Particularly now that they’ve become publicly controlled. They’re a necessary evil in our industry, sure.

But evil nonetheless.

A couple weeks ago my temper got the best of me. I tossed my BlackBerry 8700g over my shoulder and into the kitchen with a little more force than I perhaps should have.

Shattered.

The screen on it was in as many pieces as my heart was when my 8th grade girlfriend told me she was dating me because she really liked my brother. I never forgave her for that. Or her. Just as my broken 8700g will never forgive me… from the bottom of a trash heap in some Rhode Island landfill.

I opted to go phoneless for a couple days and it turned out to be a remarkably great. You’d be surprised how little stress and annoyance creeps up on you when you’re isolated from the outside world. I even chose to telecommute one of those days which really killed any social interaction.

When I went into the T-Mobile store a couple days later to get a new phone, I was hoping to find a BlackBerry that would wow me. The Curve is nice, but the trackball was a deal breaker. It always feels flimsy when I use someone else’s and I find I miss the click wheel from my old 8700.

I kept joking about the G1 never thinking I’d buy one. I played with a pre-release of one the week of SMX East when I was hanging out with a Google rep, but never thought much about it until recently. But I did. And I felt giddy about it. Annoyingly so. I know this because more than a few people told me as much.

Fast forward a couple weeks and I’ve found that I actually like the device. And, while it has a couple of quirks, I find myself using it productively. The keyboard slows me down when compared to an 8700 but I’m getting much better with it.

At first I went over to the Android Marketplace and downloaded everything I thought seemed like it’d be fun. Truth is, most of what’s out there is relatively boring or comes with a limited shelf life. Apps that I’ve found particularly useful would include ShopSavvy, Twidroid, The Weather Channel App, Budget Droid and Shazam. Out of the box, it’s an impressive little device.

I also like that it serves as a handy flash drive whenever I need it too. I’ve already played around with a Linux CLI, but so far haven’t been able to get into too much trouble.

So, I’m a G1 owner. And that scares the hell out of me given the fact that I couldn’t even setup the device without an active GMail account. So I’m quite sure that I’ve either begun drinking the Google Kool-Aid or I’m simply the world’s biggest hypocrite.

You decide.

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