the Dalaverse

I hope everybody had a lovely day yesterday! I spent it at my grandmother's as per tradition. Also as per tradition, there were far too many people crammed into my grandmother's little rowhouse (though not as many small children as usual). Prior to that we opened gifts and made the big Christmas breakfast - eggs, bacon, biscuits, sausage gravy (sadly the kind out of the package, because Dad can't actually have bacon AND sausage). Only my mother couldn't eat any of it...because she was hungover. She and my aunt really got into the wine on Christmas Eve. It was rather amusing at first, but she was really sick all day long, too sick to go to Grandma's, and that's less funny. She's managed to keep some tea down, at least.

This year Santa brought me a Kindle, which I have named Threepio - fitting given its function, I thought, and also my laptop is named Artoo. It is so much more awesome than I imagined. GUYS NO ONE TOLD ME YOU CAN PUT AUDIOBOOKS ON IT TOO. I don't think I'll add music because that's what my iPod is for, but I appreciate the option. I might be tempted to use the text-to-speech function at work if I can get over the voice. It's not as bad as, like, the old Mavis Beacon ones, but it still sounds mildly computerized in an Uncanny Valley way. Biggest flaw is that it doesn't understand the grammatical function of the en dash.

I love the random author and art images that come up when it's on hold - clearly there just to show off the quality of the e-ink presentation (it really is amazing. I suspect the next generation will have added color like the Nook). It has an experimental web browser, which is difficult to navigate but again, probably something Amazon will fine-tune in later models. Mostly I am excited by how easy it is to convert all sorts of formats into Kindle format. I read fic yesterday! In the car! I mean I put real books on it too, but still. I also got a beautiful red leather case with a built-in light. I looooove it.

Brb reading the rest of space_wrapped on the Kindle JUST BECAUSE I CAN.