Year: 2008

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Kin and Kindle

Once upon a time, Robin Williams said, “Cocaine is God’s way of telling you that you have too much money.” This week I bought a Kindle. It costs $399 (but I had $150 in gift-credit, so I pretended it only cost $250), can download books wirelessly from Amazon, is perfectly readable in daylight, can take a 2gb SD card to store a couple bazillion books, has some neat internet functions, is a butt-ugly monstrosity of design, and is almost certainly God’s way of telling me that I’m earning too much.

(And it’s proof that I’m a tremendous geek, but it’s not like we needed more of that.)

Click on the image for pictures from the unboxening:

That’s an excerpt from Chelsea Handler’s new book, Are You There, Vodka? It’s Me, Chelsea. She is an awfully funny writer.

Anyway, I’ll play around with this thing for a while and report back. If it manages to become a book-version of the iPod, I’ll be a happy man. This will be predicated on how comfortable I get with reading off an e-ink screen like this, and how insecure I get at not having “the actual book” in my hands.

(Man, it sure is an awful piece of design. Makes you realize how amazing Apple is with this sorta thing.)

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What it is: 4/28/2008

What I’m reading: Just finished The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao. I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one to notice both the characters and the structure of the book owe a lot to the work of Los Bros. Hernandez. (Not in a rip-off way, necessarily, and I’m happy to see their work cross-pollinating like this.) Also, Willie & Joe, a phenomenal collection of World War II comics by Bill Mauldin. (Courtesy of one of my best pals.)

What I’m listening to: Angel Milk, by Telepopmusik.

What I’m watching: Ratatouille, which was nice, and gorgeous to look at, but nowhere near the level of The Incredibles.

Where I’m going: Atlantic City, for a clinical supplies conference that may spawn some good topics for my magazine. Unfortunately, this means 3+ hours of driving each way today, but I decided I wasn’t in the mood to drive down the night before and stay in an AC hotel, and I can’t miss 2 days from the office.

What I’m drinking: Dead Guy Ale from Rogue

What I’m happy about: That Rufus had a great time meeting a bunch of his fellow greyhounds at an adoption event on Saturday (thanks, Greyhound Friends of NJ!).

What I’m sad about: That Rufus is going through a “phase,” in which he turns around during our walks and tries to head back home. Oh, and which he escalated on Saturday night by getting up, running downstairs, and peeing on the carpet, without giving any signs that he needed to go outside. I take these things personally, as you can tell.

What I’m pondering: Why I thought it was a good idea to drive down to AC and back in one day. I really should’ve taken the bus down with the old ladies. Then I’d get $15 in quarters, too!

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Grand

Mom headed home to St. Louis yesterday, but before her departure, she posed for a couple of pix with her four-legged grandchild. Enjoy!

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It’s yo’ Erf’ Day

Happy Earth Day, everybody! To celebrate, my mom is going to fly home to St. Louis on a half-empty jet, Amy’s going to cook only with endangered species, and I’m going to run the air conditioning with the windows open!

Okay, only one of those is true, but I needed a lead in for the item that Amazon just added to my list of ironic recommendations: Fossil Fuel, by XTC. (And it’s an import!)

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What It Is: 4/21/08

What I’m reading: The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, by Junot Diaz, as suggested by David Gates (not the guy from Bread).

What I’m watching: NBA Playoffs, except for most of the Nuggets-Lakers game.

What I’m listening to: not much. I haven’t played a lot of music lately, partly because I can’t (work-)write when there’s music on, and partly because my mom is visiting for a week and it’d be rude to play my music as loud as I like to. But I did just fall in love with Academia, off the new album by Sia.

What I’m drinking: G&Ts with G’Vine, a fancy French gin that my associate editor bought me for the holidays.

What I’m happy about: That Rufus was impossibly well-behaved (well, sleepy) during our Seder on Saturday night, despite the presence of 5 people he’d never seen before.

What I’m sad about: All the games we could’ve played. (oh, and these, too)

What I’m pondering: Going back to Montaigne and writing more of those Monday Morning Montaigne pieces that you hated.

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Papal Bull

I am so pissed off right now.

Yesterday’s kickoff of the NBA Playoffs featured a great game in the Suns-Spurs double-OT tilt. Nuggets-Lakers looked like the best game on tap for today, with the possibility that Kobe would go for 70 against the no-defense Nugs. So 3:00pm rolls around, and I click over to ABC, only to see:

The pope’s mass at Yankee Stadium. And guess what? It’s being carried on SIX local networks, plus uncountable religious and Hispanic channels! And the DirecTV guide says this mass runs from 2 to 6pm!

ABC’s corporate bitch, ESPN, is meanwhile carrying the “Mexico 200,” a NASCAR event in which drivers do their best to get across the border and back to civilization.

Now, I’m not biased against Catholics, but I’m going to compare this BS to the 1994 Ford Bronco run that pre-empted the fifth game of the Knicks-Rockets NBA finals.

You heard me: I’m comparing the pope to O.J. Simpson.