Happy Birthday

Happy Birthday Ma!

Nook

I've written about e-readers, specifically Amazon's Kindle on previously here at the Fortress so its only fair that I make a mention of Nook, Barnes and Nobles new e-reader. I haven't actually gotten my hands on a Nook yet so I can only really go on online reviews and non-active demo versions I've seen on display in Barnes and Noble but so far it looks pretty good.

The main pluses for Nook are the color display, virtual keyboard, SD Memory Slot, 3G/Wifi, native PDF support and the streamlined iPhone look. The main minus (and this is true for all e-book readers) is that it is just an e-reader and not a true tablet computer. For anyone looking just to read books, this device looks like it could give the Kindle a run for its money, especially since Barnes and Noble can easily market and sell this in-store, which gives customers a chance to actually hold and see the device. In comparison the Kindle is mail-order only which gives it a disadvantage in a competition w/ Barnes and Noble.

Right now though the major problem for both the Kindle and Nook is price point; you could just as easily get a netbook or a iTouch for a couple dollars more and they provide much more than just the ability to read e-books. 260 dollars is still way too expensive for e-readers and they won't hit the real mainstream (i.e. be as common as iPods and iPhones are today) until they come down in price. For a 100 or 150 bucks I'd probably get myself a Nook; for 260 plus tax it can wait. And in that case it might get wiped out by the promised Apple Tablet...

Blogging and the FTC

This popped up and was big on in the blogosphere a while ago but I wanted to throw my two cents in too. Here's the gist of matter: "The Federal Trade Commission will require bloggers to clearly disclose any freebies or payments they get from companies for reviewing their products." (Link) Now, I have never received any freebies or payments from anyone for anything connected to this blog. And it looks like I never will either... :-) But I do happen to review books and movies and such here at the Fortress so I wanted to make this point absolutely clear in the highly unusual and unlikely event that the FTC ever decided that I was worthy of notice. Unless otherwise noted, all reviews of anything are of things I have directly purchased and are my pure, unadulterated personal opinion of said products.

*Sigh*... You know there was a time when people trusted their judgment and relied on common sense when doing anything, including reading a highly opinionated review of anything. Instead nowadays everyone has to be a goddamn lawyer and the government has to stick a finger in everything. Its the iron rule of bureaucracy; unless kept in check by a vigilant and free citizenry, the damn thing just keeps on growing and growing until it looks like a cross between the DMV and the Post Office. You could power a small city with the amount of spinning James Madison and Thomas Jefferson are doing in their graves.

Simchat Torah 2009

Here's a link to what I wrote about Simchat Torah last year. In that post I mostly describe what the holiday celebrates and generally how much fun it is. Along with Purim and Hanukkah, Simchat Torah has always been my favorite of Jewish holidays.

Its also one of those holidays that anyone who intends to preserve a Jewish identity should make sure to observe regardless of their level of learning and understanding of Hebrew. My speaking Hebrew is atrocious, barely useful and my ability to read Hebrew is pre-school level at best. (I comfort myself with the knowledge that I did learn the alphabet and know how to write in Hebrew. But fluent is not a word I'd use to describe myself.) But there's something about Simchat Torah, about not just the idea but the visable action of having gone through reading the entire Torah over a course of a year, finishing it and then starting over again. Its a connection to the long line of Jewish History, to the countless ancestors who lived and studied the Torah and even died rather than give it up. Thats what you can feel when you celebrate this holiday; the understanding of being a link in a chain stretching back to Sinai. The Torah is a foundation of an identity. It is a more than just law; or even a collection of memories and hopes and promises. It is the story of a family. And by going over it endlessly, we remember where we came from, what we were, what we hope to be, and what we could be if we keep at it. Simchat Torah is where we finish one cycle of remembering, celebrate what we have spent the year doing, and then immediately rededicate ourselves to starting over again but always from a different angle so that we can alwaysfind something new among the completely familiar.

Anyway, that's my view. :-) Have a Happy Simchat Torah!

Its not a Boy! Its not a Girl! Its a... Car!

Last month, I turned 31 years old. I lamented that fact here in case you're curious in rereading that masterpiece... :-) Anyway having aged into the prime of modern adulthood :-p I decided that it was time that I changed some things about the way I live. To be more specific, I decided that I needed to own a moderately sized car. And as of yesterday when I exited the bureaucratic hell that is the DMV (the desk clerk was very pleasant but waiting on line there feels like being in the waiting room of the damned from Beetlejuice), I now own one!

I've had my license since my late teens (pasted the written test on the first try and the driving test on the second) and while I've driven in the intervening years, its mostly been intermittent and on my fathers car which has varied over the years. I didn't much mind this since it was more economical for me to go without a car given that I live in NYC which has subway service covering most areas and traffic that is a living nightmare but the one constant of life is that it never stays the same. And while on the whole saving money on having to pay for gas and insurance did help me a lot in my twenties, its not the type of life I want to live in my thirties. A car is not just a symbol of adulthood but also of independence. While I wouldn't really recommend driving in NYC (and I plan to limit myself on that - Manhattan is a pain to drive around in) just having the option of being able to get into my own vehicle and transport myself where I want to go without having to wait for a train or limit myself to where the trains are available is liberating.

As for which car I got; over the years I've been behind the wheel of mainly two different cars, excluding the one's I drove while taking lessons at driving schools. The first was a 1986 Cadillac DeVille. It was a so-so car; personally I always felt it was a little to close to the ground for my tastes. The other has been a 2002 Ford Crown Victoria, a bright yellow former taxi. (I've also been behind the wheel (once) of a Lincoln Towncar, the old style one that looked like a tank. I've also had some experience with Chevy Impala and an Oldsmobile who's model escapes me but which had windows in the back that were permanently sealed though I was mostly a passenger in those rather than a driver.) Since the car I was getting was largely going to be for myself rather than for transporting large groups of people and because I wanted to sit higher up and save some money on gas, I decided that I would be well off getting myself a small SUV. Originally I was intending to get myself a Honda CRV, given that those are the most economical cars in America. But I also had a limited budget and was not planning to buy a new car. Thirty thousand dollars did not just fall into my lap after all. But finding a used CRV in the NYC area is apparently impossible. The closest I could get was a 1998 version for about seven thousand dollars which is needless to say, not a very good deal. So I went for the next best thing - a Ford Escape. Its true that it doesn't quite give me the same gas mileage as a Honda CRV would but its a small solid car. The one I bought was a 2002 XLT with a V6 engine for a very reasonable price that I won't be posting up here. Lets just say I got a very good deal for my troubles.

Now obviously being a used car I have to put a little money in checking it out and making minor repairs (probably needs an oil change) but largely its a nice car that fits the needs of a single man. Its got a powerful engine, is in good shape, has cargo space, a good amount of passenger space (as long as you aren't sitting behind the driver - me - every car I get into I always have to move the seat all the way back...), and for a car that I'm going to use to reaquaint myself with driving on, its a great deal. Now if I had a wife and kids, it'd been too small - I'd probably have to get myself either a van (something like a Honda Odyssey or a Dodge Caravan) or a large sedan (a Honda Accord or a Ford Taurus or a Nissan Altima). But seeing as that isn't a question right now (hopefully soon! :-) ) I think I made a good purchase for myself.

Now as for anyone I know who needs a lift, I'm always willing to help out a friend but its going to have to wait a while in this case - mostly because its been a while since I've really been behind the wheel of a car that its almost like starting from scratch! :-) I kinda feel like I'm 16 again and sitting down to drive for the first time. Its gonna take a while (at least a month or two of practice) before I'm really ready to say that I'm confident about being on the road. After that... well, I'm thinking about a road trip, maybe out to Vegas... :-)

Confidence is 9/10ths of Everything

I'm gonna put this up here without any commentary beyond the fact that it really gave me a sort of flashback to my teen/early 20s... If I had only known then what I know now... *sigh*... :-)

A Reflection on 31

Today is my 31st birthday; I'm not really a fan of birthdays in general unless they include large amounts of food, drink, and friends/family. Sometimes they seem more like markers that remind you that you now have less time on this planet than you did last year. Other times they seem like a reminder that you are now a little bit smarter and a little bit more distinguish, a little more experienced than you were the year before. I suppose I'm suddenly so reflective because its 31; when I turned 30, it was a momentous jump into an entirely new age of life. But it was still close enough to my 20s that I didn't really think about it. 31 on the other hand means that I'm past 30. I'm not a man who stepped out of my 20s into a brave new decade; I'm a man who's now on the countdown to 40... understandably that can be a little depressing.

But I should tell you, my dear single reader who is mostly a figment of my imagination - I resolve not to be brought down my useless angst! I resolve that this year I will live life more fully than I have in the previous years; and if I don't happen to take that train ride across America or see Mount Rushmore, or make the Pilgrimage to Las Vegas or ride in a hot air balloon or so on and so forth, I will still not let the time pass me by! I resolve to improve myself so that when I am truly old (you know fift... hey, I'm kidding, I'm kidding :-) ) I will be able to look back at my life and say that my regrets never ever outnumbered my dreams.

I now return you to your regularly scheduled programming, already in progress...

iPod Video Recording

Its been almost a month but the biggest update from Apple on its iPod line has been releasing an iPod Nano with a video camera built in. I haven't said anything about this earlier because I didn't want to comment on it until I had actually tried one out for myself to see how it works. This weekend I finally got a chance and overall let me say that it has its ups and downs.

The up of course is that there is now an iPod with video recording capability. This is a fantastic development; of course the most recent version of the iPhone got this feature as well and has had the ability to take still pictures for a while but buying an iPhone is quite a financial investment, not to mention a two year contract committment to AT&T. Thats something that I'm not really interested in entering into right now. Now that an iPod had video recording capability, you don't need to have a separate video camera on you in case you see something you want to record. Its a fantastic feature to add and expands the iPod beyond simply being a music player, something that most cell phones are capable of doing these days as well.

The down side though is where the video lens was placed on the Nano. Instead of putting it at the top with the screen, its at the bottom opposite the controls. That makes it very awkward to hold the device, manipulate the controls and not block the video. I hope that future versions of the device will relocate the video lense to make use slightly easier. I also hope that soon the iTouch, which is the phone-less version of the iPhone (essentially its a mini-computer) will be getting a camera soon; thats pretty much most of what is keeping me from purchasing one for myself. (I have a netbook but it can be a hassle to carry around sometimes; an iTouch can slip into my pocket in place of the iPod I currently use today.)

Moses as... Indiana Jones!

This was a fun video to watch; its a reimagining of Raiders of the Lost Ark if it had been done in 1951 and had starred Charlton Heston. There are other videos in this series including a 1954 version of Ghostbusters starring Bob Hope and a 1946 version of Forrest Gump starring Jimmy Stewart.

Hag Sameach! 5770!

This weekend is Rosh Hashanna, the Jewish New Year. I'd like to wish everyone a very sweet, happy, and healthy new year! Remember a person can change the direction of his life in a moment if he only has the will to do so. If you've felt that this past year wasn't what you had wanted it to be, if you haven't achieved what you wanted, found what you were searching for, if you let the drudgery of life distract you from really living the life you want, just remember that it is never too late to change, to strike off on a new path and in a new direction. Though Rosh Hashanna is a religious holiday, it is also an opportunity to make a fresh start. If you need to and if you want to, seize that opportunity.

Shana Tova! Happy Rosh Hashana! Happy 5770!