The Kindle

So, the original Kindle ebook reader is now selling below $200. The newest version, the Kindle 2, is selling for $299 which is down from $359 a month or so ago. I think when the original Kindle can be had, easily, for about $100, the age of the ebook will truly be upon us. FYI, Fictionwise, a Barnes & Noble company, now sells ebooks in a format readable by the Kindle. The time is getting closer for the true rise of the ebook as a major distribution channel. And, when that time truly arrives, the publishing industry had best have re-invented its business model.

Furniture update

So, as I noted in the previous post, yesterday we did some shopping. The place we got the sectional from specializes in clearance items. One of their terms is that all purchases must be picked up within 48 hours. Well, I wasn't planning to try to stuff the sectional into the Outback, even at one piece at a time, so we went with the delivery option which added another $95 to the price. Knowing that the piece would be arriving within a day or two, we stopped off at city hall to get "bulk item" stickers so the old pieces could be hauled away.

Shortly after we arrived home, the store called to tell us that our purchase would be delivered some time between 8:30am and 11:30am the following morning. This moved Judy to insist that the old set be removed from the living room so she could clean and make ready for the new. So, at about 5:30pm we hauled the old sofa and love seat out to the curb. Now, virtually all the cushions had splits in the fabric covering. The springs on the couch were so shot that, when one sat on it one's knees were at about one's eye level. And yet, within 1 1/2 hours, they were gone. History. Not destined for the landfill quite yet.

I was a little nervous wondering what would happen if the delivery truck was in an accident or something else weird happened. But nothing did. Our new centerpiece for the living room arrived and was set up without problem. And here is the lovely Judy showing off her new baby...

Thirty years and counting

Yesterday, my life partner and I celebrated 30 years of wedded...mostly bliss...some rough spots, but mostly good days, weeks, months and years. So, today, to honor those thirty years, we went out and spent about $100 per year. We are doing our part to keep the American economy recovering by purchasing durable goods. We bought 2 refrigerators, a washer/dryer set and a sectional for the living room. The refrigerators replace two that are vintage 1980's. The washer/dryer replaces the pair we purchased when we moved into this house 10 years ago, and the sectional replaces the sofa/loveseat we bought from a discount furniture place in 1996. As you can see, we believe in squeezing every last minute of life out of our purchases. We still have the sunroom addition in the line queue, and after that we need to reconfigure the sleeping arrangements in this house. (That means we get a king and our queen goes to the guestroom. My kids and their husbands/significant others will appreciate that.)

All of the above is our anniversary present to each other. We are going to have to decorate and furnish the new 4-season sunroom when that gets added (which I hope will actually begin in the next week or so) And then we have our one-room-per-year renovation which we have been trying to adhere to over the past couple of years. If we are able to do that, I am pushing to do the living room this fall. New wall treatment (paper or paint...decisions, decisions, decisions) and a new carpet on the floor. The goal for 2010 will be to do the dining room--same work plus lighting (chandelier and wall sconces). My goal is to have the entire house redone (with an added basement entertainment center) by the time we seriously think about selling it (call it 8 to 10 years). Actually, our son will get first dibs and, depending upon how things work, that could happen sooner rather than later. I'd give my daughters a shot at the homestead, but neither of them would be caught dead living in Joisey.

And with this spurt of spending, there are only two things that I really need now: I need a stereo which can run speakers in either/and the basement workshop or out on the new sunroom, and I need a new desktop computer. The primary Dell machine is now 5 years old, and the backup Quantex is like 12 years old. It makes grinding noises when it is running. The hard drive is about to die...Oh, and I need a new wireless router...one that provides a little more coverage than the Netgear 805.11g model I have now...If I can add those three things to my immediate spending priority list, I'll be good for the next couple of months. (OK, sooner or later we need to replace our cell phones, and new MP3 players are always in my "gotta have" list.)

PS.

Oops, I forgot one more thing that needs to be done this summer. The new sunroom is going where our current patio is. When they come in to put the sunroom up, the first thing they are going to do is move all my lovely flagstones from the patio to over by the pool machinery. So, when that happens, I need to have somebody come in and remove 8-10 inches of dirt and replace that with 6-8 inches of gravel and sand. Then, upon that base using my existing flagstone, build a new patio next to the pool. I figure that is going to cost me about $1500 for labor plus the cost of gravel and sand. *sigh* It is not easy supporting the economy all by myself...

Common Sense: an oxymoron

Yep, oxymoron...at least as far as Glenn Beck is concerned. I was at work today (another rant entirely) and, as it was painfully slow, I picked up Beck's book Common Sense to see why it was selling so well. Unfortunately, I have to report that I was appalled at what I read. If my fellow citizens think this man has any answers, we are in more trouble than I thought we were in. I have to report that I only read about 25 pages, scattered around the book, and they were all uniformly egregiously bad.

However, I think a paragraph on Page 5 pretty much sums up the basic, underlying rot that infects Beck and his writing. On Page 5 he states,

"You don't hate people who are different than you, but you've stopped expressing opinions on sensitive issues a long time ago because you don't want to be called a racist, bigot or homophobe if you stand by your values and principles."

Now, correct me if I'm wrong, but the only way you could be called those things is if you made derogatory comments about blacks, Jews/Ethnics or Gays. If your "values and principles" leave you open to the epithets listed above, then I would submit that your "values and principles" leave a great deal to be desired. Even more to the point, the fact that Beck obviously does not see a problem with this leaves pretty much his whole book without a firm moral foundation.

I need to find a way to access this book without contributing to Beck's fiscal wellbeing. If I could come up with a copy which was not paid for, I'd do a page by page rebuttal a la Fred Clark and his demolition of the Left Behind books. I do have a library card (which I haven't used in years) so I could go get myself put on the waiting list for the book down at our local library, but that would mean that I would have to scan it into my computer so I would be able to quote accurately. Oh well, maybe I will think of something less labor intensive as the writing part is going to be labor enough. Until I do find a freebie copy that did not contribute monetarily to Beck, let me urge you not to buy this book.