Supergeeks may scoff at brick-and-mortar stores, but these tech meccas were integral to hands-on interaction and discovery It’s official: I’m snarking on the wrong side of the generation gap. It’s undoubtedly the beginning of the end for me — going through puberty in the tech industry is akin to hitting 65 in government service. While others may shrug at the news of RadioShack and Staples downsizing, I’m feeling the loss of one of my greatest pleasures: the brick-and-mortar geek browsing experience. The current generation doesn’t understand it at all. Ask my niece if she wants to go shopping for a new notebook, and she’ll roll over in her Red Bull-stained PJs and say, “Geez, Uncle Bob, you know you can order it online, right?” Sometimes I think she’d be better off growing up to be a Somali pirate. At least she’d get out of the house. Retail electronics browsing is akin to wandering through a bookstore looking at random titles and covers — which will never be supplanted by Amazon’s soulless “customers who bought this book also bought random crap” engine. With RadioShack moving online, all that’s left for serious geek browsing is the glorious and much larger Fry’s, but that’s only on the West Coast — like there aren’t any serious nerds in New York — and who knows how long it’ll last. The retail roundabout Sure, there’s OfficeMax, but 100 square feet of last quarter’s laptops is nowhere in the same league as the ‘Shack. Plus, if Staples is shuttering stores, OfficeMax can’t be far behind. Eventually, Best Buy will end up as the only real geek store on the East Coast, and ever since the Geek Squad stopped driving around in VW Bugs, I don’t like them as much. You can point to the ubiquitous mall tenant, the Apple Store, but there’s a heavy home bias, and the term “Apple Genius” makes me want to commit arson. Even though the me-too Microsoft Store has expanded from its initial four nationwide locations, no matter which mall I go to, the only people I see in those places are the Microsoft Not-So-Genius salespeople. You can forget about browsing in Wal-Mart — its geek section is almost as small as OfficeMax’s, and once you’re inside, all you can think about is getting out again, which is harder than escaping a Las Vegas casino. No, it’s taking some time, but ever since the death of CompUSA, retail geek stores have been inexorably sliding into extinction. What’s left? A slew of online retailers, e-tailers, and completely mystifying startups that make it seem like the venture capitalists of today learned absolutely nothing from the implosion of the last dot-com bubble. Shopper’s remorse galore Without the ability to physically browse products, I’ll wind up neck deep in impulse buys I grabbed based on tech news reports, which have a habit of fixating on the weirdest offerings around, like the bacon-scented alarm clock. In a store, I’d examine the thing, giggle, and put it back on the shelf. But if it’s the only online toy I bump into on a retail-therapy day, it could easily wind up on my nightstand. Or I may be tempted by products like PikMoments, a camera designed to do away with the annoying pic-limiting factor known as human will. PikMoments sits on a table or mounts on a wall and detects anytime you smile or laugh. Then it snaps a pic and steals a little more Web bandwidth from the rest of us by autosending it to your phone. It’s not enough that petabytes of digital photos are choking any number of social networking news feeds because people believe we’re all fascinated by the 45 pictures of last week’s backyard BBQ or the ultra-high-rez snap of last night’s glistening dinner. We’re now turning the decision of what is and what isn’t a photo-worthy moment over to SkyNet. Speaking of social networking, I could soon be among the subjects of a site that’s adopted the unusual strategy of catering to dead people. Passing Lives lets users pen obituaries for lost loved ones. The site then publishes the memorial, complete with a portal and a search engine. I don’t think death and grief are funny, but you have to admit, adding a famous people-only tab as well as “popular” and “random” categories seems a little strange. A corner store of one’s own Yes, I’m wandering all over the place with this one, but that’s the point. On my side of the generation gap, we liked some general focus even when we’re browsing, like Borders for books or RadioShack for wires. The random-but-related factor is part of the fun. Without it, I’m stuck with the umpteen tech headline sites decided was interesting that day. Or pumping a term like “motherboards” into Amazon’s search engine and seeing a long list of thumbnails for just motherboards followed by the rubber love toys Bezos claims previous buyers also purchased. That’s not nearly as fun as wandering away from Fry’s motherboard section and bumping into a remote-controlled Angry Birds bath toy. It’s like someone is trying to curate my ADD. It’s a gray-haired perspective, and it makes me feel old. Pretty soon my only criteria for a successful relationship will be how well the woman can drive at night. I’m going to miss electronics retail and grouse about it while sitting on the porch drinking Metamucil. When the last RadioShack closes forever, maybe I’ll write a high-click obituary on Passing Lives. Technology Industry