I’ve been using my brand spankin’ new Kindle for a little over a week now, so I figure it’s time to share my thoughts on it.
Why I didn’t (and then did) want an ebook reader
The whole concept of ebooks made me nervous. Since before I can remember, I’ve always loved books and I was an avid reader in my youth, so the idea that physical books could go away was scary, not to mention that it was also scary to see that Amazon can remove books from users’ Kindles (although I appreciated the irony that they were erasing copies of 1984 and Animal Farm). The technology also felt too new to be proven out and I didn’t want to get stuck with the latest incarnation of the Betamax or laser disc player.
Unfortunately, my body didn’t really care about any of the issues I had with ebook readers. Reading very long books like Jonathan Strange & Mr. Norrell became both difficult and painful because it hurt my hands and wrists to hold the book open. Not only that, but sometimes even reading books with small type would become a chore because it would hurt my eyes to read for longer than half an hour or so. There had to be a better way or I was going to have to switch to audiobooks or give up reading for good.
Which ebook reader to get?
In November I finally came around to the idea of buying an ebook reader since I’d rather be able to read easily than wait for the technology to prove out. But with a host of options available, how’s a person to choose?
I approached one of my awesome cousins who has a Kobo to see what she thinks of it and she pointed me in the direction of this article. That narrowed it down to four choices:
1. iPad
The iPad is great for many reasons, and when it comes to ebook reading there are some great options. You can download the Kindle app to read ebooks that you can buy through Amazon.com or you can read EPUB files that you can borrow for free from the public library or buy from any number of sites that sells them. I immediately crossed the iPad off my list, however, for three reasons: it’s much more expensive than any other ebook reader, it’s backlit so it won’t help with preventing eyestrain on marathon reading sessions, and I wouldn’t want to get an iPad until at least the second generation (we all know there will be some pretty amazing bells and whistles on the next one since it’s only out in its first generation right now).
2. Sony Reader PRS-650
Redditors seemed to like this one better than the Kobo, but with its $250 pricetag, I didn’t look too much into this one (although it does look pretty and if someone were to give me one, I’d probably use it).
3. Kobo
This is the ebook reader that Chapters sells here in Canada. It also supports EPUB files and it comes in at a much more reasonably priced $149. Some people on reddit advised that it’s not the best ereader if usability matters to you, so between that and the fact that I haven’t been a library patron since I was in gradeschool, this didn’t make the cut for me. I will say, however, that it was a close second.
4. Amazon Kindle
I ultimately opted for the 6″ wifi Amazon Kindle. After doing lots of reading on reddit and elsewhere, I saw that it’s the most usable, the fastest, and the most fun to use out of the dedicted ebook readers. The big strike against it was the lack of EPUB support (motivated by Amazon’s clear interest in users buying from them, not borrowing from libraries or buying from other sellers), but because I don’t go to the library and buy around 85% of my books from Amazon anyway, it was a no-brainer for me. Despite the occasional cock-up like the Orwell issue or the recent Macmillan fiasco, I’m loyal to the Amazon brand because I’ve always had excellent customer service from them.
That said, I’ve been recommending Kobos to other people if I think it fits their needs better than the Kindle.
The verdict
I love my Kindle. It’s very easy to use and reading on it feels surprisingly natural. I’m finding myself reading for a few hours at a time, which is something I haven’t done for ages. It’s also great for reading a few minutes at a time, and because it’s small and light, it’s very easy to take anywhere with me.
The other thing I’ve seen in the time since I’ve had it is that ebook reading doesn’t need to be an all or nothing thing. Having a reader doesn’t mean I’m done with physical books. There are some books I’ll be buying twice because I’ll want a copy to loan out, and if I find a beautiful rare book that I both want and can afford, I’ll be buying that too. The Kindle just happens to be my reading device of choice at the moment, and I’m excited to see what the next step in technology will bring.
Do you have any thoughts on ebook readers? Let me know in the comments because I’m dying to discuss.
Every year my family watches movies on Christmas Day. This year, we decided to cue up something that brought together a little of India and a little of Canada: Cooking with Stella. It was well pared with our Indo-Canadian Christmas dinner (cauliflower soup and homemade rolls with lentils and roti as our main dish).
Starring the beautiful Indo-Canadian actress Lisa Ray and directed by the brilliant Deepa Mehta’s
brother Dilip Mehta, Cooking with Stella has all the right ingredients for a great Bollywood/Hollywood movie. The movie is about a young Canadian diplomatic family that moves to New Delhi for a term and is greeted by a small mafia of larcenous house help led by the scheming, ring-leader slash cook, Stella (a great performance by Seema Biswas). She’s been serving on the high commission’s compound for 30 years and has made a business of pilfering, overcharging and selling stolen items. Meanwhile Michael (Don McKellar), the “diplomatic housewife,” asks Stella to be his guru and to teach him how to cook flavourful South Indian fare.
Think Julie & Julia in India: scenes of mouth-watering fish curry, dosas and steaming basmati rice. Think Slumdog Millionaire without the slums: memorable shots of India’s bustling streets. Think Cairo Time: innocent Canadians abroad seduced by wily locals. While Cooking with Stella draws on aspects of all of these great movies, it doesn’t measure up to any of them. The moral of the story is that there are no morals for the poor in India and it almost goes so far as to champion deceit, thievery and manipulation. Maybe I’m addicted to movies that teach “good” values, but I couldn’t digest the lessons in this movie.
I can’t lie though, it’s not like the movie’s unrealistic or un-entertaining. My sister, mother and I laughed as we remembered all the things that went “missing” when we visited our family in India. Earrings, walkmans, jeans, perfume. The colourful scenes of busy food markets and freshly cooked curries put a faint smile on my mom’s face as she remembered growing up in New Delhi. And the humour was distinctly Canadian and Indian, so there were many laugh-out-loud moments. But if I weren’t Indian and I didn’t have a personal connection to India, Cooking with Stella would have just been a strange blend of genres (comedy, drama and foreign) that left me feeling not so good about being Canadian, Indian or a Canadian in India.
Today’s post was written by Sona Khosla. While Sona cares about a lot of things like brand integrity, George Michael and a good BBC costume drama, it’s her desire to find meaning and live intentionally that inspires me. You can catch her blogging regularly at www.sonakhosla.com.
It’s been a weird holiday season for Neil and I, and until yesterday the only Christmassy thing we had done so far was go to my workplace’s Christmas party.
Okay, okay, that’s a bit of an exaggeration. In August we paid for flights to visit my family in Ontario, and then last month I ordered most of the gifts for our families off of Amazon.ca or Amazon.com. We also picked up our own gifts early (we have a system: rather than each of us try to guess what the other wants, we set a dollar amount and then just get ourselves whatever we want).
But we didn’t listen to Christmas music and, because we weren’t going to be in town for Christmas and because I was afraid our two little dogs would knock it over, we didn’t put up our tree. My parents’ home is always decorated enough for two houses anyway, so being with them for the days leading up to Christmas would help us get in the holiday mood.
You can’t plan for everything
It was a good plan, but it all got derailed this week when Neil got sick. Our flights were set to leave at 7:00 am on Monday, but Neil got really sick on Sunday. As if the vomiting and headache weren’t bad enough, he ended up with a fever that was so bad I started to get afraid. He was in no shape to travel and I didn’t feel comfortable leaving him. It was hard at the time because I didn’t know what would be the right thing to do. If it was a 24-hour bug he would probably be okay to fly–do I cancel or not? The customer service agent I spoke with from Air Canada advised deciding in the morning, but I spoke with Neil’s mum who wisely said that if I was pretty sure he wouldn’t be able to travel, I should just go ahead and cancel and get a good night’s sleep.
She was right. I got my sleep and in the morning Neil’s fever was gone, but he was still in no condition to travel. I was relieved that I had made the right decision and that I had my family and godson’s gifts delivered to my parents’ house so everyone would still have their gifts for Christmas morning. So I took a few hours, mourned the loss of my trip and time with my family, and moved on. Neil and I would still have 12 days off in a row together, and there’s no reason why we couldn’t enjoy them.
Neil remained sick for another 4 days or so, which meant two things: I made a big batch of purple soup (I really should have peeled the purple off the carrots before throwing them in the pot with the rest of the ingredients!) and we watched a whole lot of Netflix. I left the house once to go to Planet Organic, but other than that we didn’t go anywhere until yesterday when we came to Neil’s parents’ place.
A Calgary Christmas
When it became clear that we wouldn’t be heading to Ontario, I said I wanted to stay over with Neil’s parents. We’ve spent the last two Christmases with them and I love waking up at their house and heading down to the main floor in my pyjamas for present opening and bacon rolls. If I couldn’t be with my parents at Christmas, this was the only other place I wanted to be.
The house is beautiful with both trees up, but it still didn’t feel quite like Christmas. We had a lovely dinner together and settled down to watch Whitechapel. It was excellent (review forthcoming), but after watching all three hours of the first season, I don’t think Diana or I were ready to go to bed–I know I was a little afraid of dreaming about serial killers. So the two of us then tucked in on the couches with some duvets, got a whole bunch of chocolate at the ready and set down to watch White Christmas.
The Christmas movie I needed
And that’s what did it. Watching White Christmas finally made it feel like the holidays. It’s long been my favourite Christmas movie, and growing up it was probably one of my top 10 movies. My paternal grandmother got me interested in musicals (I think I was the only six year old in the 80s who demanded to watch Betty Grable movies), and this was one of them, so watching it last night gave me a connection to home that I needed.
It’s hard to predict the way things will go sometimes, which can mean it’s hard to know what will make Christmas feel like Christmas. But sitting back and watching that movie made me feel like a little kid again and reminded me that Christmas is about family, whether near or far, alive or dead. And that means that even if I’m missing Ontario this Christmas, I’m grateful for my Calgary Christmas too.
This post is a departure from what’s usually on this blog, but it’s about a big part of my recent life, so I think it’s important to share.
This summer Neil and I spent a couple of wonderful weeks in the UK. He ate a lot of haggis, I ate a lot of fish and chips, and we both ate a lot of sticky toffee pudding. By the time we got home we were both tired and I wanted to change the way I ate. Even before we went away I got very lazy with my cooking and was making a lot of convenience meals like ichiban, and telling myself that I deserved to regularly have Kit-Kat bars. I knew that while it’s possible to live that way, it’s not possible feel good while doing it.
Lucky for me, one of my coworkers is also a holistic nutritionist, and a fantastic one at that! I approached her about changing the way I ate and she showed me that baby steps are the way to go. Now instead of ichiban I’m having soba noodles and instead of Kit-Kats bars I’m having Coconut Bliss ice cream or raw chocolate nibs with coconut butter and organic granola. And don’t even get me started on how I ditched butter for coconut oil!
Leanne has helped me tackle some of the unhealthy attitudes I’ve had towards eating in addition to helped me see how happy healthful cooking can make me. I’m even looking at new recipes all the time and am seeing ways that I can fine tune them to make them healthier. I’m so happy with how Leanne’s been able to help me that I asked her to write a little something to introduce herself to you guys:
Hi, my name is Leanne. I’m a Holistic Nutritionist, yogi, athlete, and avid recipe creator. I offer one-on-one nutrition support to individuals in Calgary and Airdrie for weight loss, healthy eating, diabetes, children, busy moms, athletes, and much much more.
Having struggled with health issues at a young age, my journey to wellness has been an ever-evolving process. Numerous trips to the hospital and unexplainable symptoms lead me to begin researching ways to improve my health. This eventually led me to alternative approaches to wellness.
After experiencing the benefits of a holistic way of living I embarked on my career as a Holistic Nutritionist so that I could educate others on the importance of balanced living. I am extremely passionate about our connection to food and strive to create awareness within my clients to lead them towards permanently strengthening their immunity and overall well being.
If you’ve been thinking about changing the way you eat or want to eat more healthfully and consciously, contact Leanne today. You won’t be sorry.
P.S. While you’re over at Leanne’s site, check out the chocolate hemp pudding recipe I made.
Watching shows on Netflix falls into a few categories for me. Under the ‘Shows that I enjoyed the trailer for but never summoned enough energy to go see in the theatre or seek out for rental’ category is (500) Days of Summer. This was one that Tara and I watched together. Like most people, I think, Joseph Gordon-Levitt has only really come onto my radar as an actor to watch over the last couple years. I never watched 3rd Rock From the Sun, and enjoyed Brick but not enough so that I remembered it fondly as anything other than the film Tara and I went to on our first non-date. Same goes for Zooey Deschanel to an extent, although I don’t feel the same interest growing in her career that I do for Gordon-Levitt. The last film I remember seeing her in was M. Night’s terrible attempt at a B movie, The Happening.
There’s something to (500) Days of Summer that had us talking about it for a few days after. As the narrator explains, this is a story about love but not a love story. And it’s a very important distinction to make. What this movie turns out to be is a solid criticism of the overly manufactured romantic imagery we’ve experienced from a very young age. Our ideas about love versus the mechanics of genuine romantic human interaction. So much of this movie is about perception, and how the idea of being in love and what that should look like blinds a person to what is going on around them and messes with their sense of expectations.
There’s a great scene towards the latter half of the movie where Gordon-Levitt’s character is going to meet Deschanel’s character for a party that she invited him to and the screen splits in two. On one side is what he imagines this meeting will mean and what it will bring for him. He’s constructed this elaborate fantasy that will become immediately familiar for an audience member who has witnessed many such stories. On the other side of the screen we get what actually happens. It’s a great scene because it manages to communicate an experience I can relate to. That creation of the event before we walk into it. Imagining what sort of day we’ll have at work, imagining how a date will go, an exam, an anything. The fiction that is created that either calms us down or freaks us out, and how that’s never the way it happens.
(500) Days of Summer has some interesting things to say and it works hard to say those things. Check it out if you’re able.
Calgary author William Neil Scott is married to Tara and will be blogging about the shows and movies he’s watching on Netflix during the free trial month. You can also catch him blogging at www.williamneilscott.com.
Today’s post was written by Sona Khosla. While Sona cares about a lot of things like brand integrity, George Michael and a good BBC costume drama, it’s her desire to find meaning and live intentionally that inspires me. You can catch her blogging regularly at www.sonakhosla.com, where this post originally appeared.
Anyone who knows me, knows I’ve always had a funny thing about kids. I love ‘em, but I don’t want ‘em. If I’m totally honest, freaked is the most accurate way of describing my personal feeling about having a baby.
But somehow when a few pregnant friends recently suggested we watch a documentary called Babies that had no dialogue, I was intrigued. “I’m in,” I said, which is the most affirmative statement I’ve made about children in my life thus far. My husband looked at me with a scowly face. He did not want to watch the babies, but the tape was already rolling.
80 minutes of Babies An 80-minute documentary about four infants raised in four different parts of the world, Babies by French director Thomas Balmès, is a pure joy to watch (especially with pregnant women). You will laugh, you will be horrified, you will be surprised, you will be confused, you will coo, you will say “ew.”
Who’s really rich? My personal experience of watching Babies There’s a lot of amazing scenes in the movie, but what struck me most was how rich Baby Africa’s first year of life was in contrast to Baby North America, whose life was surrounded by wealth. Baby Africa was left to experience the natural world herself with support from the community of children and women around her. She was never alone, but she independently explored the natural world around her. There was always someone there to gently guide her from poking at other children’s private parts, eating dirt and yanking the dog’s jowls. Her mother was present to nurse her and love her. She learned by experience with an intimate connection to nature and family.*
My pregnant friend at one point said “I feel so sorry for my kid” because it was so obvious at how contrived, controlled, simulated and over-stimulated Baby North America’s upbringing was. You see Mom reading a book called “How to Become the Parent You’ve Always Wanted to Be” (or some such title), baby is constantly being occupied so Mom can get her housework done, and baby is doing most of her learning from books and classes.
African rearing in a Canadian household I started to wonder how you could have a child in this culture, watch this movie and not feel guilty for the sterile, unnatural and overwhelming world you are bringing a baby into. Then, I visited my friend across Canada and watched her play with her children.
She held her five-month-old in a Snugit close to her chest so the little baby could hear her heartbeat and rest peacefully while she was present with her two-year-old as they played with wooden blocks for hours on the living room floor. She let her two-year-old daughter roam, touch, experience and even use a pizza cutter on the wall while gently guiding her away from more dangerous situations and kitchen utensils. She was raising her children just the way I saw the African mother in Babies just weeks earlier. Present, loving, connected. And no, she didn’t learn it from the movie. This gave me hope (and relief).
So curious My husband and I have talked for weeks now about the things that struck us about this movie. From the emphasis on survival vs. success, learning in life or learning from books, from being alone to being together, from present mothers to absent fathers. There’s just so much jam packed in this short documentary. So, I’m curious. What struck you?
*I’m trying not to get overly romantic about this simple way of life, but as you’ll learn in an upcoming blog, I’m increasingly drawn to a more natural and connected life. So I want to point out that I know I sound like I am idealizing it, but trust me, it’s hard not to the more you see people truly living it.
Chronologically speaking, I probably should have started watching the James Bond movies here rather than with Casino Royale and then carried through and watched Casino Royale in its proper place. Then I could have talked about how it fit with the rest of the movies that had been created by that point and how it played off of them, but I didn’t. I still think I made the right decision by getting the silliness out of the way so I could have a consistent run with the canonical series (although I’ll still watch the Lazenby film in its proper place).
Dr. No is a standard Sean Connery James Bond movie. That’s an obvious statement, but I was surprised by how much it felt like the rest of the Connery run because the first time I saw Dr. No, which was several years ago, I was bored to tears. I didn’t think it was as fun as Goldfinger or Thunderball, despite having most of the same elements.
In Dr. No, James Bond is sent to Jamaica to investigate the death of a local British Intelligence agent. Sleeping with women along the way, his investigations eventually lead him to Dr. No, Chinese-German scientist and SPECTRE agent (clearly played by a white guy) who has a radioactive mine and plans to disrupt an American space launch with an atomic-powered radio beam.
Because it’s a James Bond movie, you already know how it will end, but the journey is fun. It has Ursula Andress’s iconic moment when she comes out of the water in a white bikini and some hilariously 60′s moments like Bond looking at his watch to make sure he has enough time for sex (twice!). It also has some uncomfortable issues around race portrayal like Miss Taro, the Chinese woman he sleeps with who is very obviously played by a white woman with extra dark eyeliner to make her look exotic, or Quarrel, the Caymanian black man who is afraid of the VERY REAL “dragon” (aka, tank with a flamethrower), is lazy and likes to get drunk. Dr. No was released a year after Breakfast at Tiffany’s, which had similar race portrayal issues with Mickey Rooney playing a Japanese man, so it makes sense but still made me uncomfortable in parts.
All in all, it’s a fun movie, but I’m happy to move on to the next. I’d recommend checking it out if you want to see all of Bond flicks or if you’re looking for all of the references that ended up in the Austin Powers movies, but maybe skip it otherwise.
1979’s The Warriors feels like a movie I should have watched and fallen in love with as a child. I noticed it a few days prior to watching it on Netflix, and whenever I mentioned that I was thinking of seeing it to a friend at work, a childish grin would crack out on their face. Come out and play, indeed.
The Warriors is a great deal of fun. It was made in that time when you could portray gang members as ludicrous groups regimented tightly around their uniform or costume and not worry about making it realistic. Every gang has a get-up. Every gang has a gimmick. It’s a simple story and it’s told cleanly.
And what’s the story? A gathering of the gangs in New York ends in chaos when the leader in line to unite the gangs is murdered. One gang from Coney Island, The Warriors, is falsely accused of killing the leader and must make their way back home through the various hostile gang territories. Great story. A lot of fun, and a surprisingly poignant moment five minutes before the end. Can’t recommend this movie enough.
Calgary author William Neil Scott is married to Tara and will be blogging about the shows and movies he’s watching on Netflix during the free trial month. You can also catch him blogging at www.williamneilscott.com.
After reading the LA Times’ interview with Gary Kurtz this summer, it wasn’t too surprising to hear Harrison Ford say that Han Solo should have been killed off. I did, however, find it a little surprising that he to hear him say he doesn’t think Han Solo is very interesting.
If you haven’t read any of Sona’s post, I highly recommend you check them out at www.sonakhosla.com. Sona’s all about living intentionally and looking for enlightenment and meaning. You can learn a lot from her.
And if you’re thinking of buying a Honda, you should get it from Crowfoot Village Honda. They’ll do right by you.
*That’s right–I got an additional subscriber since I started blogging again! Hello new subscriber! I’m sure you’re attractive and funny and smell really nice.
