[Strangler Lewis]

Seriously. Not the kind you swallow. Not the Moses kind.

I-Pads and the like. My fifth grade son wants one for Christmas. He's very talented, so he may have creative plans for it, or he may just want to fit in. We haven't cross-examined him extensively, but we've decided to go with it.

Perhaps because we've ignored this trend, the few articles I've tried to read so far are simply comparisons between models. They all seem to assume the reader knows the basic what and why, much like the reader of a year-end car magazine would: get in car, make go, get out somewhere else. I don't.

So . . . what's a tablet? And why?

In answering, you may assume I do know PCs, laptops, cameras, telephones and what sex feels like to the extent any or all of these are involved in the tablet.