LET'S ALL FIGHT FOR FREEDOM FROM ADDICTIVE BLACKBERRYS.

Byline: MARIEL GARZA

Here's a message to all the CrackBerry addicts: Quit your whining and get over it.

I mean, really.

You'd think the world was in danger of ending, what with all the keening coming from the halls of government and out of the open windows of Lexus SUVs over an obscure patent fight.

For those of you not cool or important enough to have a BlackBerry, these gizmos are both PDAs and phones that have Internet access, instant messaging and e-mail - all rolled into a handy handheld device that you can take anywhere. And people do.

The devices are popular among government types, and you see them everywhere in the hallways of city halls, capitol buildings and, most definitely, Washington, D.C. They are also popular with public safety managers and workers for use out in the field. Los Angeles Police Department brass got them years ago.

But BlackBerrys are also heavily used by private corporations so executives can continue doing business anytime, anywhere, even in the ladies room.

The things are so addictive, particularly for those hyper-connected types, that they have earned the not-really-a-joke nickname of ``CrackBerrys.''

So imagine the anxiety caused among the 3 million BlackBerriants by a legal battle between two companies over who was first to develop the technology. Who wins the fight could determine whether BlackBerrys will still be able to provide their data fixes.

Did West Hollywood Assemblyman Paul Kortez really say that he wonders whether the world will spin off its axis if BlackBerrys go away? Yes, he did. This is evidence of how continued usage of BlackBerrys, like crack cocaine, is connected to the eventual dissociation from reality.

Maybe turning them into glorified calculators wouldn't be such a bad thing.

If you've never spent any time with a person who has BlackBerry or the similar Treo, it's a little like having a conversation with someone with a severe short-term memory loss. Here's a dramatic re-enactment of a possible encounter with a CrackBerry addict:

Me: ... and that's why I woke up singing ``Yo ho, yo ho, a pirate's life for me.''

BlackBerry addict: (checking the text message) Uh-huh. Oh, damn.

Me: What?

BA: Nothing. What about pirates?

Me: They were going to kill me in my dream. Something about bad rum and ...

BA: (Checking Blackberry again) Damn it.

Me: What?!

BA: What what?

Me: Gimme that. (Hurling Blackberry into the middle of the street.)

BA: Nooooooooooo! (Jumping into the middle of the street to retrieve shattered BlackBerry, only to be run over by a taco truck.)

Lawsuit or not, this technology isn't going away. Even a drug war couldn't stop cocaine traffickers from getting their product to the streets. One day, probably not too long from now, most of us will have a Treo or a BlackBerry or a BlueBerry or Kumquat or whatever the next generation of wireless technology is called so we can never, never be free from work. Oh, yay.

I'm just not in a hurry to get there, and if this patent fight will slow it down, then I say, let the BlackBerrys burn.

Mariel Garza

mariel.garza(at)dailynews.com