Sharing

One of the ways the Innocent Bystander and I keep the homefires burning whilst he is away is through email.  I thought I would share with you one or two of these tender missives.  (And please, be fully aware that part of my job description says I am not allowed to mock the IB's spelling, punctuation or grammar.  I have needs, people.)

Example # 1 (in its entirety):

"My mate was telling me he hopes he dies before his wife does,  and i thought cause maybe he cant bear to be alone or to see his wife die,  but he said cause it cost to much to bury her. isn;t that heart warming?"

Example #2 (in my inbox this morning):

"kunle called and said to send in my passport,  said they was putting in my str visa    so we will see  if its the real deal. did you get your iphone? i was telling some of the guys tomorrow was your birthday, they asked how we was going to celebrate,   they said if we was at the dock we would kill a goat.

is'nt that sweet?"

Don't these little love notes just warm the cockles of your heart?

Now on to the meat of today's matter.  I know I talk about mine here and there, but have you checked out Amazon's Kindle?  

Oh.  Before I begin, I want to make it clear that I am in no way being compensated by anyone (i.e. Amazon, Apple, AT&T or Cingular) for this post or any other in which I mention my Kindle or my IPhone (or the IPhone give away that I'm doing which ends TOMORROW at 5pm CST).  They are not paying me to endorse their products, although I wouldn't turn them away if they wanted to make me an offer.  ^^groucho eyebrows^^

It always amazes me when someone notices mine and after checking it out says that they've never heard of them. Now that I've had it for awhile, I almost feel dirty if I pick up a 'real' book.

One thing I love about it is that you can change the font size to whatever is most comfortable for you.  My eyesight gets worse as the day goes on, so being able to just increase the size of the text with the push of a button beats the hell out of trying to find a pair of reading glasses.  Another advantage is it has a built in dictionary (which, incidentally, you can change if you have one you like better than the default which is provided).  If you come across a word you are unfamiliar with, you scroll your little cursor to that line of text and push down and pick lookup, and it automatically pulls up the definition of every word in that line.  It also has an internet connection called Whispernet available at no extra charge (there is no monthly fee for these things-once you buy the Kindle, you only pay for your titles, which are much less expensive than paper, TREE KILLING books).  This is an awesome feature, in that it allows you to access the Kindle Store so you can purchase books FROM THE KINDLE.  When you purchase one from the device, it is automatically delivered to your Kindle within a minute or two. The Whispernet also allows you to access Wikipedia, which is built in, search both your purchased books and the internet for a particular word or phrase, or access pretty much any text based internet site.  In addition to purchasing books on it, you can also subscribe to certain newspapers, magazines, and even some blogs! It weighs about ten ounces and it only takes about two hours to fully charge it.  If you are not using the Whispernet, a full charge will last about a week.  There are gajillions of titles (out of copyright) available free from www.gutenberg.org, and the books from Amazon range from about a buck each for old titles to $9.99 for NY Times bestsellers.  Here is a list of what I am carrying around with me right now (titles with asterisks are books I am reading now):

1. Say You're One of Them-Uwem Akpan

2. The Holy Bible (KJV)-Anonymous/s (Or God, depending on your beliefs)*

3. Beach Music-Pat Conroy*

4. The Prince of Tides-Pat Conroy

5. The Water is Wide-Pat Conroy

6. The Lords of Discipline-Pat Conroy

7. The Great Santini-Pat Conroy (My all time favorite book)

8. Hurricane Punch-Tim Dorsey

9. Atomic Lobster-Tim Dorsey

10. World Without End-Ken Follett

11. Roots:The Saga of an American Family-Alex Haley

12. The Descendants: A Novel-Kaui Hart Hemmings

13. Dante's Equation-Jane Jensen

14. The Historian-Elizabeth KKostova

15. Bella Tuscany-Frances Mayes*

16. Miracle at St. Anna-James McBride

17. New Moon (The Twilight Saga, Book 2)-Stephenie Meyer

18. Eclipse (The Twilight Saga, Book 3)-Stephenie Meyer

19. Twilight (The Twilight Saga, Book 1)-Stephenie Meyer* (yes, I caved to peer pressure-shuddup!)

20. The Host-Stephenie Meyer

21. Breaking Dawn (The Twilight Saga, Book 4)-Stephenie Meyer

22. Spirit House: A Vincent Calvino Crime Novel-Christopher G. Moore

23. The Color of Magic-Terry Pratchett

24. The Monster of Florence-Douglas Preston

25. Judas Strain-James Rollins

26. The Glass Castle: A Memoir-Jeanette Walls*

27. The Shadow of the Wind-Carlos Ruiz Zafon

I also have about this many titles that I've already read recently that I've taken off my contents list, but I can access those in about a minute with the Whispernet on.  The device will hold around 200 titles at a time.  You can bookmark pages, make notes 'in the margins' and if you want to try a book before you buy it, they will send you the first chapter or so of the book to sample before you make your purchase.  I'm telling you, if this thing had a bullshit detector and a willy...*shakes head* Nah.  But it is my bestest bud other than Nemo and Dar when the Unit The Innocent Bystander is out of the country.