Toys and Gadgets and Things....Oh My!.......

I really shouldn't be talking about my new gadget yet, because I'm still not extremely well versed in how it operates. I am diligently reading through the user's manual, but it's all a little overwhelming.

This may look like a calendar or an address book, and it's about that size. You probably can't read the tiny words down in the lower right hand corner.

It's an Amazon Kindle.

It will hold about 1500 books.

I've wanted one since they first came out several years ago, but I could never justify the expense.

Then I decided that one of the benefits of being an adult and working a job and a half is that you don't have to justify anything if you don't want to.

So I bought it for myself. Call it a late birthday present.

I wanted it to take on our trip this weekend, so I also paid for next-day shipping. And while I was at it, I bought the cover to put on it.


This was one of the three books that I downloaded right after I got the Kindle out of the box. Maeve Binchy is one of my favorite authors, and she has a new book out.

I acknowledge that I have a tendency to exaggerate, but the following is NOT an exaggeration.

The Kindle came already linked to my Amazon account, which is both very handy and very dangerous. Amazon knows my credit card number. When I took the Kindle out of the box, it had my name on the screen.

I plugged the device up in the kitchen then went to my laptop in the living room. I went to Amazon and chose three books to download that I knew were available for Kindle, and I clicked on them.

By the time I walked back to the kitchen, they were on the Kindle.

I apologize for the scary looking image of Oscar Wilde. Every time the Kindle goes to sleep, it displays a different writer.

It uses a new technology that makes the words on the screen actually look like print on paper. So it's possible to use it even in bright sunlight. I may have to test that out on the beaches of Punta Cana next week.

The Kindle will read a book aloud if you so choose. And you can choose either a male or a female reader. It's a LITTLE canned sounding, but it's not bad. And it hasn't told me "recalculating" one single time, which is more than I can say for my GPS. You can make the voice faster or slower. That ought to be comical after a few margaritas.

You can change the size of the font.

It also remembers where I left off reading.

I can't wait to get started. Right now I have a dilemma because I've started reading John Grisham's new book that's NOT available for the Kindle. And I can't read two books at once.

Goodbye. I have some reading to do.