Mops, Socks, and Chardonnay: March 2009 Archives
Ok, so I downloaded the Kindle software for my iPod Touch and bought a book on Amazon for it and tried it out. And it's not bad. Not bad at all. I really wouldn't like to spend all my time reading on something with that small a screen but I've found it's nice when you have like five minutes or so while you're standing in line at Panera waiting for the woman ahead of you to work her way through every sandwich on the menu because she doesn't like mustard and you can't trust the list of ingredients because they sometimes sneak it in without saying anything. And you want to grab her by the shoulders and pick her up and swing her out of the way so you can order your sandwich because you just love mustard and you wish they put it on every sandwich, even the peanut butter and jelly. Especially the peanut butter and jelly. But that's impolite - picking people up, and it can, on occasion result in a dose of pepper spray, so it's really better to pull out the iPod Touch and pop up a book to read instead, though letting loose with a heavy sigh every once in a while also helps. So it's good in situations like that.
I'm thumbs up then, on the iPhone Kindle mash up. I'm not yet sold on the Kindle 2 for reasons I'll go into at a later time.
Okay, now they're just rubbing salt in the wounds. Amazon announced they were releasing a free app to permit iPhone and iPod Touch users to read Kindle books. Evil, evil, evil and really, really devilishly clever. I'm downloading it now. I'm pretty sure I don't want to use the iPod Touch as my primary reading device all the time (battery life would be the sticky wicket there) but for a quick browse while standing in line or whatever it's really compelling. And the ability to sync with a Kindle so that it updates my place in a book regardless of device - as my British friends (all right friend, singular) would say - bloody brilliant!
Back, rather belatedly I'll admit, to the Sunday regional breakfast vacations posts. I accuse actual honest-to-god travel as the culprit for the delay. This week's version was prompted by the purchase of some frozen salmon from Costco a few weeks ago. Normally, I wouldn't bother with frozen salmon though there's nothing inherently wrong with it. I just find that occasionally it's a bit mushy when thawed but there's nothing wrong with the flavor. Besides, the salmon was
I've discovered that I have a superpower. It's almost infallible and has never let me down. Whenever there is an opportunity to buy some new technological toy, I can, with only the slightest furrowing of my magnificent brow, select the one that will inevitably be consigned to the ash heaps of history. This came to mind when I decided I ought to write a post about the Kindle 2.
Once again, my own special superpower has left me holding a piece of technology that is sure to be another obscure footnote in some History of Technology course a decade or two from now. And that soon to scrapped piece of technological wizardry is the Sony E-book reader. Sure it's esthetically more pleasing and cheaper and a delight to use. But it's obvious now that the Kindle is going to eat Sony for lunch and probably not going to even leave a few crumbs behind. This is just the latest in a long line of bad bets I've made on electronic devices over the years.
I love Costco. I mean, I love Costco like I love bacon. And I really love bacon. Not as much as I love my wife but right up there, you know? Well, maybe not. No, I suspect that placing Mary on the same plane with bacon would not go over well. I think I'll just move on.
I may have mentioned a few times how much we like the meat at Costco, so much so that we no longer buy beef, for instance, at the local Safeway. Costco beef is normally a higher grade and cheaper on that basis. We've also bought vegetables at Costco in the past but they were really sops to our conscience. I mean, I'm loading up the cart with blocks of cheese that could be the annual output of a small family dairy in
This summer's dalliance with the CSA (Community Supported Agriculture) meant we ate a lot more veggies than normally. And we kind of got in the habit, so once the fall ended and the deliveries stopped we were jonesing bad for a veggie fix. And we noticed that Costco has some really good looking vegetables. A bag with a quartet of artichokes for goes for like 4-5 dollars which is the same price the local grocery charges for a single one. Green beans, really gorgeous thin haricots vert for well, a pittance really. On a per bean basis anyhow.
The drawback of course is that you have to buy like three pounds of green beans or a flat of blueberries big enough to make pancakes for the entire Tenth Mountain Division. Even we, lovers of all things green, find it difficult to eat green beans with every dinner for a week and a half. But with enough different recipes we manage. And that's why I love Costco. Just not as much as my wife.
