Brian Yu.com

One Month with the Amazon Kindle 2

I've had my Kindle 2 for about a month now, and I've read 3 full books while sampling about 50 others. While it's an expensive device at $359 + $29 for the cover, I've started carrying it along with me everywhere and I can't get enough of it.

Likes

• The e-ink screen is crisp and perfect for reading. It's like nothing most people have seen. When I show it to others, I've yet to find anyone who disagrees.
• Maintaining a steady, natural reading position is really an underrated feature. You can read anywhere and not feel weird about holding up something heavy.
• It brings back a regular reading habit. I love reading in general and I have to say I waste a lot of time surfing the Internet looking for stuff to read. The problem is that reading on a screen is tiring and I do it all day at work. It's great to be able to switch reading devices. I'd like to do all my reading this way. I definitely pay attention a lot more.
• Finding out of print books on Kindle. I had a few on my wish list that went out of print, but I found them on Kindle store.
• Somehow, I feel more balanced when I read. Weird but something I've noticed over the past 4 weeks.
• Kindle for iPhone! Having the ability to read a book, leave off on a certain page and pick up that page on my iPhone later is a tremendous luxury that will be very hard to give up if I ever switch readers. I always manage to in a few pages here and there while waiting in lines for food or checkouts.

Dislikes

• The click feel of the Next Page button on the right. It feels different than the Previous Page and Next Page buttons on the left side. It seemed like this on my co-worker's Kindle as well.
• No Wish List access on the Kindle? It sucks having to cross reference my Amazon wish list with the kindle store. I have to use a combination of downloading samples and the "Save for Later" feature in the Kindle store to keep track of books I want. It would also be nice to set an e-mail notification if a certain book or publisher starts releasing content on the Kindle store.
• No MS Press books. I was really hoping to carry a lot of the technical books that I read along with me.
• No Anthony Bourdain books. More content please!
• Confusion about the syncing. At what point does it sync? Sometimes when I turn off the wireless, the next time I open my book it's on a different page. I should research this some more.

 

I never thought I would jump onto the e-book reader wagon, but if Amazon and other companies can continue to improve on devices like the Kindle and continue to get content I'm anxious to see what comes down the pipeline.

What to do now

So the stock market and everyone's 401k are in the crapper. Maybe it's time I finally learn what all this mess is about. For the most part I have never been one to pay deep attention to financials, but with such a giant tectonic shift I get a big wake up call.

On the shuttle back from my trip to China I met a guy who was the managing director for his company's Asia division. He mentioned the ability to learn Chinese as a "lottery ticket". Maybe it's a slight exaggeration, but clearly it's a valuable skill to have in the foreseeable future.

So...time to hit the books.

Test blog from my iphone 3g

The typepad iPhone website really kicks ass.

WoW Wrath of the Lich King: Just when I thought I was out...

So now that Blizzard has shaken up the WoW scene with a bunch of interesting news about Wrath of the Lich King I feel like Michael Corleone in Godfather III.  Just when I thought was out....they pull me back in.

http://www.massively.com/2008/05/09/player-vs-everything-analyzing-the-wrath-of-the-lich-king-news/

http://www.massively.com/2008/05/09/blizzard-unleashes-a-storm-of-lich-king-information/

The two things that might make me re-activate my subscription:

1. Allowing players to make a Death Knight starting at level 55 as long as they have a character on that server at level 55.  I hope they expand this to other classes.  I'll probably play a Death Knight just to check it out, but for me this solves the problem of having to start from level 1.  I don't have the juice to grind from 1-70 anymore, even with the 30% increased leveling.

2. All raid content is now accessible to 10 mans.  If I was really crazy, I'd bring my mage back to start raiding again.  I would love to see all the raid content in the game, the scripted encounters are what makes the experiences so great.

There are a bunch of other things that I haven't read yet, but I'm dreading the time sink I might get sucked back into.  What a mixed batch of emotions :P

GTA IV : The Most Culturally Relevant Game Ever

Now that GTA IV has been tearing up the charts for a week (and I have my XBOX 360 again) I spent a few hours with the game.

I've been ignoring all the reviews of the game on purpose, so I could just dive into the game without any outside influences and write my own thoughts.  The game is sicker than a Chris Paul to Tyson Chandler alley oop.  Rockstar has done a phenomenal job at modernizing the game so you feel as if you are living person in Liberty City.

I say it's the most culturally relevant game ever because Rockstar has woven in a lot of social fabric that makes up our every day lives:

- Making friends and trying to impress them.

- The importance of fashion.

- Cell phones as our lifeblood to anything social.

- Dating/Relationships.

- General hangout activities (bowling, shooting pool, playing darts, going to bars, and cruising the city)

It's amazing how many everyday social thoughts come out while playing this game.  Instead of thinking things like:

"How do I light this torch on fire to open the door?"

"I wonder where that key is"

"How much longer until the boss fight?"

I think about things like:

"Hopefully I can find a few more jobs to make money so I can move out of this dump"

"I need to buy some decent clothes"

"Is it better to lose or win at bowling on my date?"

It's a whole different mind set for just 4 hours of gameplay so far.  I look forward to finishing this one.

A version of Hey Jude that will melt you

 

A short video that will most definitely cheer you up.  Found by my sister.

Devil May Cry 4 Demo: I have really been missing out

So I downloaded the Devil May Cry 4 Demo on Xbox Live and played it for 10 minutes.  It really is "stylish action" as they intended and it looks like I'll be picking this up the day it comes out. 

 

Capcom has a certain fun formula that they seem to use to brew all their games.  They bring shooting, hacking, and slashing to a whole new level without ruining anything.  I'm pretty disappointed that I missed out on the first 3 DMCs because I didn't have a Playstation but having this on the 360 definitely helps.

Taiwan Pictures

Ok after recovering my flickr account information on my old desktop I was able to post my pictures.  Here's a few of my favorites:

 

 

326 more where that came from

Thanks Yahoo. I'm locked out of my Flickr account

So I guess I entered some bogus information when I signed up for my yahoo account.  You know, the one I was forced to sign up for when Yahoo bought Flickr and consolidated their login system.

Apparently, providing my alternate e-mail address is not enough to recover the password on my old account.  They also want my birthday, zip code, and resident country.  When I sign up for junk accounts because I'm forced to, I usually just stick crap data in these fields so I can get the account.

Now what?  I think I'm screwed.  I have a year's worth of Flickr that I can't get to.  I like the service but I'm not sure I want to deal with this crap again.

Ugh. 

Things I wish I could do, Volume 1

Um, Hello World?  I got super behind on updating this again.

 

I often forget how insanely good professional athletes are.  I get reminded every once in a while with a crazy SportsCenter highlight or watching all the NBA players hit their jumpers during pre-game warmups.  Then there's this clip of Mike Conley warming up.  I think I could do this after 1,000,000 hours of practice.