Post-Valentine's Day Monday

I've got to love my Beloved. She is probably one of the few women in this world who would see a trip to Five Guys and Barnes & Nobles as a good date. I guess it does take someone special to love and marry geeks.

Alas, one does what one can.

Anyways, the biggest thing for geeks that travelled across my awareness this past week were the movie trailers. First up was the new The Last Airbender trailer which is totally and utterly awesome. Then there is a new red-band Kick-Ass International trailer that is hard to find working links for. Those two are kind of my two "must-see" movies for this year.

Of other news is the fact that Barnes & Nobles has placed Nook units for display purposes in every brick-and-mortar store. The UI is interesting, and I would still like a uni-tasker in this case. Having my phone hold books works for a lot of things but reading does eat up a decent amount of battery life, and then having a dedicated device for books would just be nice.

The sad thing is that most of the devices out at the moment cripple the books in their associated stores with device-locking DRM.

Well, it's not really the devices as those selling the files to place on the devices. For example, the Nook and the Cool-ER readers both support the ePUB format (which does not require DRM) but the stores associated with both devices sell files that are crippled with the stuff. Which means if I purchase a book from them, then I would not be able to read it on my phone.

Currently, the only option that I know of to purchase eBooks (fiction ones that is, the o'Reily series of technical books for computers are DRM free) that I can use effectively anywhere are from Baen's WebScription.Net. Every other eBook provider makes it easier to pirate a book than to get one to read upon my phone and whatever future device I may desire.

And since Speculative Fiction is about looking forward, the future I see from this kind of scares me…

Rambling Monday Edition for 02/08/2010

Well, it just hit me that we've hit the second major milestone on the Arthur C. Clarke universe. Luckily, Hal still doesn't exist... unless you count the small device my beloved keeps in her purse.

All that aside, I had a busy weekend. So busy in fact that I did not get to watch any anime, nor read any manga. The only geek activity I did find a bit of time to engage in was further playing of Left 4 Dead 2. The reasons for this were an influx of party-like activities which my family was involved in. Friday night saw a party which my elder son was invited, Saturday saw a party which my younger son was invited, and Sunday was a party which my beloved was invited to.

But lo, and behold, there is ever geek news that comes across my desk and RSS Feeds.

The least of which is the latest FotJ information published today no less, about the cover to the sixth book in that series, Troy Denning's Vortex. Sadly, it involves Han, who is supposed to be an accomplished marksman, holding a gun at that insane gangsta angle.

Basically, showing that the artist has never fired a gun, and that most of the gun activity said artist has witnessed has come from Hollywood.

Poor Han. First Lucas messes with your character arc by making you shoot second, and now you're just a two-bit thug on the covers...


But, I do think I need to backtrack, as I've realized that I have been doing something geek related, but that it's such a fundamental aspect of my being that I hadn't even realized that I was doing it.

Of course, I'm talking about reading. I've finished (re)reading There Shall Be Dragons, and 2 B R 0 2 B and have begun (re)reading A Matter of Oaths and Fallen Angels.

I must say, I'm enjoying carrying around a micro-library in my pocket. Now, if only more places carried the consumer-friendly, DRM free ePub formats, I'd be happy to spend my a significant portion of my book money on eBooks.

Additionally, tangentially related to that last thought, everyone needs to read this.

Well, that's all for this week...

Monday Morning Playground!

I've gotta say that I love my new phone. It has games, and the internet, and it yells "Droid" at me at more or less random times. This is all good, but especially on Friday when I was home sick. I spent most of the day in bed, and during those times when I was actually awake, I COULD have held a laptop on my lap to check emails and surf and what-not, just holding my phone was so much easier.

Of course, this weekend was not all sunshine and roses: it was also my eldest boy's birthday. My newly minted seven year old had a birthday party on Saturday, and got quite the haul of Star Wars goodies among other things.

And then in a fit of true brotherly love, he proceeded to torture the 3 year old by not actually opening every package. Sure, everything was unwrapped, but he left a couple toys still in their boxes. I was amused at the sheer perversity in the thought, and less than amused by the constant begging for access to the new toys from the younger offspring.

Yet, my son was not the only child with a birthday this weekend. An additional two friends had parties (and one had a birthday, but is having a party later this week), and one of them is of Japanese descent. Which is awesome, because now we have some Japanese candies at the house from the goody bags. The second friend with a party this weekend was the son of one of the Mandos, and both boys got to spend a good hour and an half at Chuck-E-Cheese.

Which, I must also point out that it was my youngest son who had to be literally stripped off of the Chuck E Cheese costumer's leg, so said costumer could do his job.


Now, I must get off to work, and maybe play with foursquare and see how well that works.