Klepzig’s Fortune

What is your favorite classic video arcade game?
Submitted by northerngeek.

Pac Man.  It is very minimalistic, but at the same time, there's just something about the sounds and the music of the intermissions that is mesmerizing.  Maybe it's that constant siren sound...

I know lots of people have reviewed the Kindle, but I don't care.  I'm reviewing it as well.

So, I finally got my new Kindle (2) from Amazon.com on Friday, April 3, after waiting more than a month for shipping (not Amazon's fault).  It's the first Kindle I've used, and, yes, it's the new version 2, which is why I put the 2 in parentheses because if it's new, then it's redundant to say that is version 2, since that's all they're selling these days.  Anyway, I love it!  I can't use the wireless service, but I am able to read the books I bought off Amazon and also any docs, PDFs, etc. I send to my free account.  What happens is, you email your PDF or Word doc to an email address that is designated for you, and they send it back to you to download in Kindle format.  I haven't tried any PDFs but htms work okay.  I tried a Russian language web page, to see what would happen, and, unfortunately, it came out in all gobbledygook, and not standard Cyrillic gobbledygook. (And, yes, that is a real word (in Wiki, at least), although my usage of it is not the standard, precise usage of the word.)

As far as size, it's great.  It's just about the same size as a Moleskine; about the same width, too with the standard cover.  I'll try and post a picture with it compared to a normal book, since it seems like it's not common for such pictures to be in reviews (this one either for now).  For weight, it's probably a bit heavier than a standard paperback book, but not overly so, and maybe not heavier than a hardback book.  It's definitely more wieldy than either.  One of the reasons I bought it is so I can read during lunch--normal paperbacks can't sit flat.  You can one-hand it for awhile, but unless it's resting on something else (e.g., your lap) your wrist will get tired.

So far, I've read two short stories, including Stephen King's UR, and a complete book: The Tourist by Olen Steinhauer (great spy novel) and that was in three days.  I've also been reading The Next 100 Years, A Forecast for the 21st Century by George Friedman, but that's kind of boring, so I read that in between the more fanciful stuff, or when I want to go to sleep. :)  I've also got The Russian Debutante's Handbook by Gary Shteyngart, which I haven't started yet, but thinking about it.  I started The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death by Laurie Notaro, who is hilarious and from Arizona.  I also have Accelerando (in html format), by Charles Stross, which I bought in paperback before I decided to buy a Kindle.  I found out online that he released it for free online!  After that, I'm thinking of reading The Accidental Time Machine by Joe Haldeman.  What's great is that I have all those books (except the last) already on my Kindle, so if I feel like reading a different one at lunch, I can do that.  No more deciding which of the 3 or 4 books I'm reading I'll take with me on vacation.

I haven't really used the text-to-speech feature, but I tried it, and it is surprisingly clear.  I don't know how understandable it is in context, since I haven't really used it, but I think I'll try it on the drive home today.

Stuff I don't like about it:  It has shortcuts to a few key features, but they aren't easy to find in the manual nor in the menus. Somebody borrowed it to look at it, and somehow changed the Home setting to only show my personal documents, of which I didn't have any at the moment.  I had to hit the Back button until the Kindle manual came up and then search for the solution.  Annoying! 
The buttons are mostly good, but when I put it under my arm, it accidentally pushed some of the buttons, which, though annoying, is understandable.
It's a little slow.  If you want to look at the cover, it takes a few clicks (menu, click up or down to "Cover"); if you want to look back at a bookmark, also a few clicks (menu, my notes, click which one): much easier with a real book, if you fold corners for bookmarks.  Some people bemoaned the keyboard, but I like it.  For instance, in the spy novel, they mentioned a name, and I thought, when did that name come up, last?  So I typed the name in, and, whammo, there were the times it was mentioned, and I clicked on it, and I remembered how the name was used in the past.  It's great for that. 
Another thing I don't like is the powering.  If you just leave it be for awhile, then it goes to stand-by, displaying an author's picture or some such.  It would be better if it displayed the cover of the book you're reading.  If you leave it for longer (not sure how much longer), then it will go completely off.  You can also turn it completely off by holding the power button for about 10 seconds.  The horrible part is, sometimes, when you turn it back on, you'll just get the beginning of your book.  If you didn't put a bookmark on your page when you turned it off, you'll have to either remember the location that you were on (these books go by locations, and The Tourist has just over 4000 locations), or go through chapters, or search to a key word that you remember from the passage you're reading. 

As far as a charge goes, I charged it when I got it, and it took about 2.5 hours.  I didn't mess with it much while it was charging.  Since then, after using it for several hours a day for 3 days, it's got about a 60% charge left.  To me, I don't think I'll normally have this much time to read, so a charge should normally last me an estimated 10 days.

All in all, despite the gripes I've listed, the Kindle is the best gadget I've ever bought, so far, and I hope I still feel the same way in six months, and I'm optimistic that I will.

For Valenstine's Day, Natalya, my beautiful and thoughtful wife, bought us tickets to see Maria Mena.  She is from Norway, but is famous for singing "Just Hold Me".  On her newest album, "Cause & Effect" her most played song is "All This Time".  I really like her music.  It was a great gift for the tickets.  The venue was great--the Jahrhunderthalle in Frankfurt, Germany.  We got there just in time for the opening act, Jarle Bernhoft, was awesome!  He had some kind of looping device, and he would do a loop with the guitar, and then add a loop with rhythm by hitting beats on his guitar, and then sing along, and in the middle add loops of background vocals, adding harmony as he went.  It was really cool.

Maria Mena herself was really great.  Her voice has so much expression and emotion behind it, just like the songs themselves.  She talked some about some of her songs to give some background on them.  That was really cool.  In the middle, she did a duet with Jarle Bernhoft, and I recorded it with my phone, and here it is:

MariaMenaJarleBernhoft

Maria Mena & Jarle Bernhoft

Keep in mind that that was recorded with my phone, but it at least shows the talents of the two performers. 

All in all, it was a great concert!

I joined Twitter.  This is my Twitter link.  It should also be on the left with my other links.  So I heard when you post on Twitter, it's called a tweet.  Is it called Tweeting or Twittering in a different tense?  I'm not good on my tenses.

A different subject:  you ever get spam that is just a bunch of words, and doesn't make any sense?  I have.  It seems like people are doing this on Vox now.  How weird.  I guess they're trying to get you to click on their link and infect you with their virus(es).  I don't know. Here's one such blog, filled with links, that I wouldn't recommend clicking on: fazelvot.  The link I just put on should be safe to click on, but if you're skeptical, just click "Explore Vox" and you'll probably see several of these type blogs on there.

Is the above a good metaphor?  Does the Kindle provide kindling for your brain, setting it afire?  Doesn't really matter...

Yes, I did it.  I bought a Kindle.  They came out with a new version, and I bought it.  It hasn't arrived yet, but it will, and then I will...read!  Ok, sounds a bit boring, and it is.  I am hoping it will increase the volume of my reading, which I think it will.  I'll read more at lunch, at home, on the couch, listen to it read to me on the way to work.  I just read today that Amazon is limiting the Text-to-Speech feature.  That sucks.  That wasn't my main reason for buying it, but it could have been, and maybe still will be, a great feature that I will use very often.  I'm pretty sure it will work for any free stuff I send to my Kindle, so I may have to do that. I could get a book scanner and, after it scans my book in, then transfer the Word document over to the Kindle.  That would be ideal, but book scanners are expensive and time consuming, even with the best system.

Regardless, I'm still anxiously awaiting my Kindle.

Another thing I'm trying to do is to learn to type using the Dvorak keyboard layout.  It is very difficult to learn when you regularly type use the QWERTY layout, and you learned using that layout.  Funny, I saw a comment by someone that referred to it as the "Querty" layout, twice! He obviously didn't realize why it was called that!

Yet another thing:  I want to try my hand at writing again, like I did when I was in middle school and a little bit in high school.  I was good at writing stories in middle school, for a middle schooler, but didn't want to fail at writing seriously, so never really tried.  Who knows if I get around to it.  If I do, I'll let you know and even provide some of my writing here, for sampling.

Klepzig family photo

Here's a picture of the somewhat extended family.  From left to right, in the back, there's Dixie, my mom, Stacie, my brother's wife, then Mark, my brother, then Natalya, my wife, then myself, then Bob, my dad; and then in the front row is Maddie (also known as "Madeline"), and Timothy, who just had his birthday on the 18th of January.  He is 8 years old now.

We went to Louisiana for the last two weeks of the year, and it was great!  It was warm most of the time.  The video was taken at Cafe Du Monde in New Orleans, which we had the pleasure to visit for a couple of days.  It was nice and warm, as you can tell by people's clothing in the video.

It's not that the Klepzig's haven't done anything lately.  It's not that I haven't had time to write.  It's not that I don't have pictures, or videos.  It's not that everything that I have is inappropriate for putting on my blog.

It IS that I've been lazy. 

Halloween was great, Freiburg was fun, Rock Band & Guitar Hero: World Tour are fun, movies I've watched have been interesting, books I've read were thought provoking, work has been busy and not-so-busy, Facebook showed old friends popping their heads up, and Natalya has been there the whole way.

So, I'll write some more later.

Facebook.  Apparently, lots of people use it on a regular basis.  I don't.  Yeah, I have an account, but I hardly ever log in.  Also, my email address that is connected to Facebook was a stand-along jobbie that I seldom checked.  Now, I'm going to forward that email to my office email (which is authorized and encouraged) so I get all my email.

Anyway, as I was checking this neglected email account, I noticed that I had Facebook friend requests from 12 people!  Some of them were current friends, but some of them were people I hadn't heard from since High School!  I can't wait to log on and see what they are up to now!

If you're one of those people, don't think I don't remember you or that I don't want to get in touch, at least not yet. J I will write you soon and at least add you as a friend on my Facebook!  I say that because my Facebook profile does list this as my blog.  So, "Hiya peeps!"

The quote the subject refers to is:

The face is the mirror of the mind, and eyes without speaking confess the secrets of the heart.

Saint Jerome (374 AD - 419 AD)

We finished!  I'm so glad to be done moving.  Last night I went up to the old neighbors' apartment and climbed through their attic window and took down my satellite dish.  That was the last thing at the old apartment.  The new place is nearly set up, with pictures on the wall, even!  Saturday we're having a party, even!

I said I'd have pictures, and I will...just not yet.