Digital Picture Keychain

I want one!

Saturn's radio emissions

Nope, not the car.
Have a listen, its pretty eerie!

"Saturn's radio emissions".

Hooked on Ebooks

I love ebooks. I always liked them but got really hooked on them when Ridley was a baby.
Ridley was born premature at 32 weeks so of course I hovered over her...lots.
She wouldn't sleep if I was holding her and she wouldn't sleep with me so I would sit by her crib and read an ebook on my palm pilot. Try reading in the dark with a paperback! Later on, she would decide that she didn't want to be lonely at night which meant I couldn't have the light on to read before bed. By then I had my nifty cool pocket pc, problem solved. Happy mommy and baby. I love the convenience and instant gratification of logging onto amazon.com at 3am, purchasing and downloading a new book to read. If it isn't available to buy, I can find it elsewhere.

The Harry Potter folks decided not to release any electronic versions of Harry Potter. I don't think that was a wise decision. Within 11 hours, the new Harry Potter book was available for download at your local neighbourhood newsgroup. (who couldn't have predicted that???) I'm curious how many ebooks would have been sold at midnight if they'd had the foresight to make it available.

I may be in the minority as far as ebook readers go, but I will be buying the new book once it becomes available in the gift edition. (October) I have all 5 of the previous books in the gift edition put aside for Ridley already. I can't wait until she can read them. Although I have a feeling that by that time, she'll be hiding under the covers with an ebook instead of a flashlight.

My favourite ebook reader for pocket pc is uBook
It doesn't support copy protected ebooks so unfortunately, I have to use Microsoft reader for any books that I buy.
I read on an Axim x3i which has a jog dial. (makes for easier "page turning")


Project Gutenberg has tons of free ebooks available for download.


And if you get hooked on ebooks and don't know what to do with your paper books, maybe you could "release them into the wild".

Red robin building a nest outside my window this morning.

Movies aren't in theaters long enough?

For this procrastinator.

Star Wars is no longer playing in theaters here.
I really did mean to go. I guess I didn't want to see it that badly.
Ah well.
I did the same thing with the Bridget Jones sequel. Of course that was out on dvd something like a week later anyway. ;)

We'll be heading to the drive in to see Willy Wonka next weekend. Really, truly...
Ridley really wants to see that or the Herbie flick and honestly, I'll take Willy Wonka over Herbie any day.

I transferred all the hi 8 video tapes to the computer finally. SOMEONE decided to screw with the aspect ratio when taping which meant I couldn't just do a straight capture. I had to sit and watch 12+ hrs of tape and split it into chunks. (insert various inappropriate curse words here)
But its finally done! I am officially a sap. Watching those old home movies makes me cry.

The new camcorder is great and Ridley can't wait to do a movie in the backyard with her ponies. I imagine good dolly (her beloved doll) will have a starring role. Poor good dolly. She is so "loved" that the last time I washed her, it was in a lingerie bag and all of her stuffing came out through the rather large hole in her head. She was velour but the nap has worn off and shes some weird looking mesh now! I may strongly suggest that Ridley use "backup dolly" (yes thats her name, shes just like good dolly but shes like new).

Someone please send some cooler weather this way?? The only good thing about it? Cool thunderstorms. Horizontal rain is ummm interesting...

A little bit of gadget goodness. Minidv camcorder.

I worked out a trade for a minidv camcorder so I'm picking it up this week! Its a Canon ZR80.
Its low end but I don't exactly need a pro camera. :)
I will be able to transfer my old hi 8 tapes to the minidv and then straight to the computer via firewire. I had been looking at getting a video capture card but this turns out to be a much better solution for me.

I'll have to add a firewire card to my notebook to accomodate the camcorder. Side benefit is that
I will be able to hook it (notebook via firewire) up to the DVR and grab tv shows for Ridley to watch on my pocket pc. (car trips) I'm finally fairly proficient with reencoding video so it sounds like more of a hassle than it actually is.

A nice little gadget rush just in time for the weekend!