Tech guy David Pogue recently did a video review of a new eBook reader called the Cool-er. Before watching the video, I had high hopes for it; Pogue mentions that the Cool-er is cheaper than an Amazon Kindle and implies that the Cool-er's eBooks don't have ridiculous copy protection. In the end, though, Pogue pans the device; he digs the idea of the Cool-er, but he complains that the device is just too damn unintuitive - for instance, he learns that it takes something like sixteen button pushes to change the size of the font in books.

Pogue also complains that the device itself feels as if it were cheaply fabricated in some Asian country; as a matter of fact, that's exactly how the Cool-er was made. Which brings me to something I've learned about electronics: if generic Asian companies are trying their hand at a gadget, you know that that gadget has hit the big time.

So like it or not, I think that eBook readers are starting to become a big deal; perhaps they aren't taking off in the same way that the iPod did (and perhaps they'll never quite reach that level of popularity; after all, reading is on the decline in the United States), but they're certainly filling a certain niche. And I've gotta say: I wouldn't mind having something like a Kindle. Here's my problems with eBooks, though - and I'm certain I've talked about this before.

Offender one: copy protection. Basically, there's no point to copy protection beyond inconveniencing good consumers; after all, copy protection has proven to do nothing to stop piracy. The idea of spending money on a book that I can't lend to my friends or read on other (hypothetical) devices bothers me. And offender two: a lack of physicality. I like having real books. They look nice. My dream house has at least one wall of books, if not a secret passageway.

I think these problems can be rectified, though. Offender one is easy: don't put copy protection on eBooks. Simple enough. But problem two is a bit trickier.

Here's my idea: let's say you go to Barnes and Noble and buy a book. Somewhere on the inside of that book, there's a code you can use to register said book online. Once you do that, you can download a free eBook copy of hardcover book that you just purchased. It would be kind of like buying a CD, copying it to your computer, and putting it on your iPod.

Of course, it'd be possible to purchase purely digital eBooks without investing in the remains of a dead tree if one so wishes; however, I think physical books will always have their niche, not unlike vinyl records.

Ladies and gentlemen, allow me to present to you the best romantic advice I have ever read.

Here's something nice to follow my rant regarding creativity: I made me a YouTube video.

Oh, and speaking of The Beatles: here is a game you can play when you listen to the radio. Whenever you hear the word "lovin'" used as a noun in a song, replace it with the word "muffins." "All My Lovin'" becomes all the more awesome when it becomes "all my muffins."

It's been a little while since I've updated. This is fitting, since I've got this weird anxiety - well, maybe "anxiety" is too strong of a word; maybe something like "nagging feeling" would be more apt - that I'm not writing enough. Of course, here one runs into problems. When it comes to on-one's-own-time writing, the definition of "enough" changes from person to person. It's not a strictly quantitative thing. Sure, for some it is - i.e. X amount of words or pages per day or X amount of hours per day - but for others it's a purely subjective thing; as in, "This feels like a good stopping point."

I lean more towards the subjective side. I tend to write solely when inspiration and time cooperates. This is awesome when it works, but when inspiration isn't cooperating, I'm pretty much shit out of luck. Over the past few years I've tried to force myself into a quantitative mode of writing - as in "write 2000 words a day even if you feel like they suck" - but I've never been able to force myself to get into that kind of swing.

It's kind of a vicious cycle. I continue to feel like I'm not writing enough, and this anxiety is fueled by not writing. So basically, I just have to sit my ass down and write - easier said than done, but I guess this is far more pleasant than the alternative.

One
I was taking a walk - like I try to do every day - and saw a man standing by the lake. He was old and thin. He had a very large beard. He stood at the shore of the lake by the rocks with his hands behind his back. He was watching a little orange piece of plastic that looked something like a bobber sans fishing hook and pole.

He somehow sensed that I was walking behind him and he turned around. He smiled and opened his mouth as if to say "hey" but no words came out. He placed his hands together and raised them above his head. I replied with a smile just a little larger than the polite one I typically give passerbys. His beard was even bigger than I had imagined it to be.

With that he turned around and went on watching the orange piece of plastic. I considered turning around and asking him what he was watching, but some things are better left mysteries.

Two
I got a call from one of those telemarketers that explain that they need your credit card number for vague semi-official sounding reasons. I was greeted by the standard prerecorded message and pressed nine to talk to a representative. I wasn't sure what I was going to say to them. All I knew for sure was that it wouldn't be my credit card number.

I once spoke with a so-called representative and managed six words: "Hi. May I ask who's calling?" And they hung up.

I decided this time would be different. I considered giving a fictional name and number - but what if the fictional number I gave happened to belong to an actual credit card carrying person? Then I thought about asking the caller a question of some sort - a genuine question about their lives. Something like, "Do you ever find this job of yours to be terribly demoralizing?" until I realized how snide that could potentially come off as. Then I settled for something else.

"I don't know what things are like for you," I said, "but things are going to get better. I promise."
"Um," they replied.
"Bye," I said.

I would like to preface this post with this: it is a constant struggle between the mature-tolerant-and-accepting-of-other-people's-cultures part of me and the haha-penis-jokes-are-funny part of me whenever I say/hear/read the name of the restaurant A Dong. I may never outwardly show it, but the struggle exists - its just all inward. (Or so I like to think.)

I say this because one of the people I follow on Twitter recently posted something like "A Dong for dinner!" Inward giggling commenced followed by pangs of self-ashamed guilt.

So last night my dad and I were watching Letterman, which lead to a conversation regarding how Letterman isn't as good as he used to be, which lead to a conversation regarding how Leno is going to have the 9 o'clock slot Monday through Friday, which lead to a conversation regarding how the whole late night talk show thing is getting awfully stale. For years and years it's been the same thing night after night: intro, monologue, sketches at the desk, interview, interview, musical guest (or [rarely] a comedian), goodnight folks, on the program tomorrow is...etc, etc, etc.

Then this lead to a conversation about the future of television. What we agreed on: the internet is the future of television. Regular old TV will continue to exist, albeit in a simpler and more skeletal fashion for the old folks and luddites who don't want to bother with connecting to the goddamn interwebs.

What we disagreed on: how the whole thing's going to work. My argument was that the future of TV will look a lot like Hulu - subscribe to your favorite shows and watch them whenever you want for free, assuming you're willing to sit few a couple of ads. My dad, on the other hand, thought that the future of television rested in a model that combines Hulu with subscription networks like Showtime; that is, viewers would pay for monthly subscriptions to the shows/channels they want to watch, not unlike iTunes' "Season Pass" option.

I had a hard time going along with that theory, though; for one, I'm not too sure I'd be willing to pay subscriptions to individual shows, especially if I'd never seen them before. It also didn't account for shows that viewers watch on an irregular basis; that is, would Joe McTelevisionWatcher be willing to pay for an entire season's worth of Two and a Half Men if he only watched it every other week or so?

Models of distribution and profit aside, there was something fundamental to both of our theories: that the habits of television viewers are only going to become more and more individualized. This wasn't too huge of a prediction for either of us; David Foster Wallace called this years ago in his essay E Pluribus Unum and novel Infinite Jest, not to mention that former viewer extravaganza shows like The Oscars are declining in universal popularity.

And then this raised another question: if viewer habits continue to become even more and more individualized, what does that mean for society? If we're all in our little viewing bubbles, does this mean the death of the watercooler TV talk? I personally don't believe so; the watercooler moment is not dead, it's just experienced a flesh wound. It's not that we as viewers will have a total lack of common ground; it's just that we're going to have less common ground.

I would like to conclude this post with this: this post is just barely more coherent than our discusion last night, which is to say barely so.

I used to have dreams about the future. I mean that in a totally literal sense. As in: when I was younger, I would have dreams regarding the future. And when I say "future" I don't mean a Jetson-y flying cars and gigantic metal bugs future; I mean the mundane day-to-day future that you and I are currently occupying.

In these dreams I would be taller and my voice would be lower. I would drive a car. I would order food in restaurants. I'd read books. Dreams of the latter sort would always be infuriating; since the dreams took place from a first person perspective, four year old me would end up staring at blank hieroglyphs for what seemed like hours.

And during the dreams I would think. I am driving a big car. Why am I ordering soup? I don't like soup. Where are the pictures? You get the idea.

Then something happened. I got older. I stopped having the dreams when I was seven or so, about the age I'd need to be to more or less comprehend everything that was going on in those dreams. Years passed - seventeen years, to be exact. I sort of forgot about the dreams.

So seventeen years have passed. I am twenty four. I am taller and my voice is lower. I drive a car. I order food in restaurants. And I read books. And now I've started hearing voices. No mean sociopath sorts of voices, though. The voice is high pitched and in the back of my mind. It seems to arrive and leave without any sort of warning. It sounds muffled. Of course no one else can hear it.

It sounds like a child. And it says things like, I am driving a big car. Why am I ordering soup? I don't like soup. Where are the pictures?

You get the idea.

Three reasons why there have been few posts lately:

Work: self-explanatory.

Finals: self-explanatory.

SwapTree: Awesome site. Let's say you have stuff you don't need no more you don't want - in my case, the CD The Shephard's Dog by Iron and Wine. I loved his two earlier CDs, but this one didn't do it for me.

Typically my course of action here would be to go to a used CD place and get a couple of bucks out of it. This is where SwapTree comes in. Just enter the ISBN into the website and list some stuff that you actually do want. It just so happened that somebody that wanted that CD had a copy of The Grapes of Wrath. Press a few buttons and you've got that person's address and they have yours. From here you can either purchase a mailing label from the site (for about $2) or get one on your own from the post office (not significantly cheaper, trust me). Then you ship it off.

It's pretty awesome. My stack of books has grown exponentially, not to mention my movies (Triplets of Belleville, Adaptation, The Ten). Highly reccomended.

I promise more posts soon. Play us off, keyboard cat.