Gotta love the cyborg name decoder. I’d have never suspected myself as a cylon.

Get Your Cyborg Name

Yesterday was my 30th birthday. And to celebrate my headlong jaunt into obsolescence, my family got me a brand spankin’ new Amazon Kindle 2. This thing is really cool. For those of you not among the digerati, the Kindle is Amazon’s e-book reader. It’s basically an electronic book. Using an e-ink screen that simulates text on paper, the Kindle can download books from Amazon.com over the air with its free built-in cellular connection and store 1,000 of them internally. I have a subscription to USA Today and wake up every morning to the daily edition waiting for me on my Kindle… automagically!

I’ve read several short stories on it so far, Stephen King’s Ur and Cory Doctorow’s Overclocked stories and on Wednesday will begin my first full-length novel via Kindle. The only caveat is I can’t decide what to read first. I’m leaning toward Cormac McCarthy’s The Road, but I love the idea behind Max Brooks’ World War Z. Of course I was recently reminded that I’ve never read either of the cyberpunk staples Cryptonomicon or Neuromancer. Also, I’d love to finally get through Deception Point. Ooh, and the rest of the Dark Tower series, and all of the Southern Vampire Mysteries. And some Tom Clancy, and Michael Crichton, and….

Why is it I feel my literary budget is about to increase drastically?

I mean, I read now: emails, menus, traffic signs, technical manuals. But I used to read. When I was younger I kept up with Steven King, John Grisham, Michael Crichton and many others. I loved to read. In fact, I still do. I burned through Dan Brown’s first few books right after the wife and I got married, but by the time I got to page 50 of Deception Point I was a few months into my current career, my first child was on the way, and the stress of life began. I’m looking at my bookshelf right now, 5 years later, and I can still see the bookmark, still at page 50, sticking out of the top of Deception Point.

I want to read. There are so many new books that have dropped lately that I’m extremely excited about. But the harrowing ordeal of personal and professional life always seems to get in the way, not to mention graduate school. Reading a book doesn’t come as easy as it used to. What I need is a tool; something like a book, but not really a book, that can help get me reading again. I need an easy-to-carry, easy-to-use reader that can keep track of what I’m reading and where in the book I am. And it needs to make getting books simple, too. There aren’t any good bookstores within 30 miles of home, unless you count Wal-Mart, and often the stuff I’m wanting to read isn’t exactly on a shelf with toilet paper and tackleboxes. So I need a gadget. (I do love gadgets.) What I need is a Kindle!

If only I didn’t have a second child on the way for which I’m already purchasing cribs and bedding and clothes and diapers and everything else you have to buy when your first child is a boy and your second is a girl! So what I really need is a free Kindle. Thank goodness for people like Julie Stratford. Julie’s website, juliestratford.com (link) is giving away a free Kindle at random. While I obviously think she should give it away to the most deserving individual rather than at random (I mean after all, who’s more deserving than an expecting father?), I’ll take random chance over no chance at all. So thanks for the chance Julie.

And I’ll make you a deal. If I win the free Kindle, I promise to read Curious George and The Cat in the Hat and countless other tales to my new daughter from my free Kindle. And if I win, I’ll even name my precious newborn daughter after you. (In the interest of full disclosure, my wife very much wants to name our daughter Juliette. I’ve been more in favor of a few other names. But if I win, will give up my struggle and, in effect, name the child after you.) So you get the full joy of knowing you aided a young(-ish) father in his quest to raise literary children in a Nintendo world and were granted a legacy as a result. Wow. I mean wow. I’d call that a good day. Plus, my 30th birthday is next month and I really want a new Kindle.