Baltimore Diary

World Wide Cobweb

Nikolai 'Kolya' Rodchenko: I see. You and your wife, you work in the theater. And you live here...in Siberia.
Raymond Greenwood: It's just temporary.
Rodchenko: [dryly] Of course. Nobody is here permanently.

—White Nights (1985)

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I mentioned awhile back that the Morrell Park Community Association had decided that they didn't want me to do their newsletter anymore. I wasn't getting any feedback with relation to their website, so I put up a "Goodbye" page letting people know that the site was going to go dark sometime shortly after Christmas.

Well, that's when heads started to explode. The phone calls and emails started, people asking me what was going on, please don't do this, and so on and so forth. The VP of the Association came up with the hosting fee and the renewal and told me that they wanted the website to go on. So I put up a new home page with a new design, and solicited updated information. And I waited for the information.

And waited.

And waited.

And waited. I got information from one person and I put that up, but otherwise nothing came to me.

And the stuff that was on the homepage started to age out, so I took it down, piece by piece. At this point, all that's left is the meeting dates, some recycling information and some contact information for the Association. I'm not going to make stuff up for them, right?

A few weeks ago (April 7) an email came to me from the Association's VP. It read, in part:

Good things are happening back here in Morrell Park.  Next Pancake Breakfast, 8th year for Mayors Clean Up, Big CERT expansion Meeting, Next GED Sessions both day and evening , Little League 28th Parade, updates/plans on MP New Rec Center, Dunkin Donut expansion, and new homes being built to name a few. Also, many Business and Builders want to advertise and our web site update is desperately needed. Good people have offered to help make this happen 
XX and XY son B offered to place MP updates on the web. <snipped> [B] would like to become more involved offering his experience with computers to update MPCA web site.  However, he needs www.morrellpark.net user ID and password.    Could you please forward that information forward so this process and progress can begin ?

I guess that's their way of saying they don't want me to do this anymore either. So I sent a reply telling them it wasn't quite as simple as handing over an ID and a password, and I'd get in touch with B directly.

A few days later, on the following Sunday, I sent B a detailed email telling him how to FTP information to the website: where the hosting is located, etc. He didn't reply, nor has the website been updated since then.

So let me be the first to congratulate the officers of the Morrell Park Community Association on their fine selection of a new webmaster. You've done a fantastic job, so far. And the best part is that I'll be billing the MPCA for hosting a webpage that hasn't been updated in a couple of months.

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Confidential to SH: I admit it in this space; you were right. 'nuff said.

Gone With The Schwinn

C.J. Cregg: Is there anything I can say other than the President rode his bicycle into a tree?
Leo McGarry: He hopes never to do it again.
C.J. Cregg: Seriously, they're laughing pretty hard.
Leo McGarry: He rode his bicycle into a tree, C.J., what do you want me—"The President, while riding his bicycle on his vacation in Jackson Hole, came to a sudden arboreal stop."—What do you want from me?

—The West Wing, "Pilot" (9/22/99)

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So a few weeks ago I sought out some advice from friends, neighbors and This Guy, and began the shopping process for a bicycle. I looked at a few websites, I stopped in at a few stores, I taked to a couple of salespeople, and about a week or so ago I decided on the bike I wanted:

Unfortunately, this one wasn't available. Plus, the last one sold for something like $17,000 on eBay, so it was a wee bit out of my range.

I went back to the shops and, specifically, stopped into a place called Performance Bike, on East Joppa Road. I chit-chatted with a sales person, found a bike to my liking that also happened to be on sale, and left, letting him know that I'd be back when my Economic Stimulus arrived from the good folks at the IRS.

As it happened, the day I returned (about a week ago) I went through much the same sort of thing I tend to experience at Petco. However, the place was very busy that day so they get a bye from me on that one. I went back today and it was a good news/bad news kind of thing. The bad news was that the bike I'd wanted was no longer on sale. The good news was that there was a sale on last year's model. The even better news was that after a test ride, I actually liked the older model better. So say hello to my new bicycle: the 2007 model Schwinn Voyageur.

The last bike I had was a ten-speed, with side-pull caliper brakes, a couple of levers on the center post and the kind of handlebars that curved down and then back. I put in thousands of miles on that thing, and even survived a head-on collision with a car while riding it (and this was back when NOBODY wore helmets).

For such a simple machine, the bicycle has gone through a few changes. My new bike has disc brakes, twenty-four gears and a relatively straight handlebar. Disc brakes! I have to admit I like them better, but I'm a little worried about maintaining them. I wasn't even that great at adjusting the side-pull calipers (I tended to screw them up and I'd get one brake shoe dragging a lot). But the typical brakes are so much harsher than the discs. With the usual brakes, there's always this fear that you'll be moving very fast with, and then all of a sudden without, your bike. The twenty-four gears feels to me a little more like "Feature Creep".

My worry at this point is that somehow I'm going to get it into my head that I'm half as old as I am, and try to take the bicycle to get somewhere impossibly far away before I'm in good enough shape to do that. As it is right now, right after I answer the phone I have to stop and catch my breath. Small steps, small steps.

Although, I think my boss would agree that I get plenty of exercise just by pushing my luck, running down the folks at North Avenue and flying off the handle.

Unfortunate Events

Sideshow Bob: [Bob is calling into a radio show] I am presently incarcerated, imprisoned for a crime I did not even commit. "Attempted murder," now honestly, did they ever give anyone a Nobel prize for "attempted chemistry?"

—The Simpsons, "Sideshow Bob Roberts" (10/9/94)

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By now almost everyone's heard about the latest in a series of stories involving violence in Baltimore City schools. This past Sunday, a pair of 13-year-old boys broke into Calverton Elementary/Middle School, ransacked several rooms and tried to sexually assault one of the assistant principals.

There's not a lot to say about this, really. The public response from the school, Central Office, the Union and the Mayor's Office has run anywhere between tepid and the usual hand-wringing, but in the end I doubt that much is going to happen.

Union President Marietta English has advised teachers not to put themselves in a position to leave the building after dark. Nice advice, Mari. Did you see the part of the story where this took place at 3:30 PM?

Mayor Dixon's representative was quoted in the Sun as saying that there are limitations to what the city can do: "We can't say, 'Here's the new policy.' We can't say, 'Here is the new deployment policy for police in the schools.' ... What we can do is work with the school system and offer any assistance that they are asking for." I hope that's not the same sort of assistance you're giving the Arabbers, and way to screw THEM over, by the way, Ms. Mayor.

The thing that disturbs me is that the teachers knew there was a break-in—and really, how could they not, given the state of the rooms and offices that were affected?—but until Tuesday afternoon, nobody among school staff knew that a staff member had been assaulted. Until it broke on the news, practically no parents were aware that anything had happened.

For the most part, Calverton Elementary/Middle School has been the "innocent bystander" in this neighborhood. It basically marks the line between the Bloods and the Crips, and consequently is the heart of a turf war. When the lockdowns took place there a few weeks ago, it was because of activity OUTSIDE the school that didn't necessarily involve students. Now the violence is starting to move inside.

The school called a staff meeting at the end of the day today, and people were advised to keep the rumors to a minimum. Marjorie Miles, the principal, advised people to leave the school in groups. I guess if you're in the middle of a group, you're only one of several potential targets. I'm not sure what the logic entails there. But the fact is that nobody in the building feels safe anymore, and they don't feel as though anyone really wants to help. You can still see broken glass on the floor inside the office where the students broke in, and there's still fingerprint dust all over the room, because the custodians haven't bothered to clean any of it up. This despite several requests by the person who occupies the office.

Something I don't get is the rather poor response on the part of the parents. Why aren't more of them angry? Why aren't more of them banging on the doors at North Avenue, demanding answers or, at the very least, transfers? Their children's lives are in danger! Here's a quick idea: why not get the preschool programs and the elementary-level kids OFF THE FIRST FLOOR OF THE BUILDING?

And why aren't more teachers furious about the situation they've been thrust into? Their lives are hanging in the balance! Why are they taking it like sheep?

There was a time, in the days of the Roman Empire, when a citizen could walk throughout the known world without fear of being accosted simply because they carried the designation: Civis Romanus; "I am a Roman Citizen". It was universally understood that retribution would be swift and certain. Why haven't the police moved into this neighborhood like the Wrath of God Himself and rendered it untenable for these gangs? Doesn't discouraging this sort of activity do anything toward making the neighborhood a better place?

I honest to god don't get it anymore.

Help Wanted

Fellow blogger and special educator Courtney is once again participating in the AIDS Walk up in Boston on June 1, and she'd like us all to come watch. Or, failing that, to at least support the cause.

I think that I'm probably one of the oldest bloggers in town, thus I have a memory of a time when AIDS was a rare anomaly, something that didn't happen to just anybody. I was in college when the word started to spread that something weird was going on. As it happened, I was working in the school's radio station, so I'd see stories coming off of the newswires about this strange new disease that, at the time, appeared to affect only homosexuals, prostitutes and people of Haitian descent. The death of Rock Hudson was the thing that brought it to the forefront, but it was still quite a while before AIDS was considered to be anything other than a "gay" disease. When I was in school, condoms were used to prevent pregnancy and avoid having to go to the clinic to get penicillin.

I remember many years ago, in the late 80s, I think, there was a "Doonesbury" strip that involved elderly Lacey Davenport considering returning to the dating scene. She hadn't dated in something like fifty years. She told a friend, "I understand things have changed quite a bit since then." Her friend replied, "Yes, but then they changed back."

At any rate, we've certainly lost enough good people to this disease and I'm hoping I'll see a return to a day when having sex that isn't really kinky isn't something that will kill you. So take a little time to support Courtney on her walk.

Click here to donate.

Inevitable Decline

Niles: Marrying money can have its perils. Ten or fifteen years down the line, after you've adapted to a lifestyle now totally beyond your means, you can find yourself cast aside, a hollow husk, penniless and crushed.
Frasier: Niles, Big Willy's eighty five; he's on his third pacemaker.
Niles: Ah! Mazel tov.

—Frasier, "Where There's Smoke, There's Fired" (4/30/96)

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It's been a hell of a week around my abode. I got a call on Tuesday afternoon from GF that her grandmother had had a fall, and that she was going over to St. Agnes Hospital to get checked out. This meant that I had to pick up Wee One from the neighbors' place and it might be necessary for me to calm her down a little. Wee One was doing OK, although she wondered when her mother was going to get home. As it happened, she didn't get home until sometime after midnight; I'd already fallen asleep.

During the next couple of days, some other details emerged: She'd fallen at about 9:30 AM, but nobody at the congregate facility she lives at found her until around 5:00, when she failed to show up for dinner. By Thursday night they'd determined that the cause of the original fall was a heart attack, and that she needed a pacemaker because her heart rate was so slow.

On Friday they put the pacemaker in—did you know they could do it that fast? Because I didn't. They had to use something other than general anesthesia because there's a very real danger of advancing dementia when you put someone out as deeply as that. Did you know that? I certainly suspected it after my grandfather's surgery, but now they have some hard numbers.

So the bottom line, at this point, is that Granny (what everyone calls her) is still in the hospital because there are other tests they'd like to do. She's also on heparin now, which means that she can't return to the congregate housing. If she were to fall and nobody knew about it, she could bleed out, so as nice as the apartment is—and it is a nice little place—it's no longer a viable option for her. GF and her mother have started the search for a setting with greater supervision (which probably means nursing home). GF's father is predictably dysfunctional (this is his mother, after all), and her brother is...invisible. I had a harsher word there but that one will do.

Me? I've been holding down the fort, keeping an eye on Wee One and offering whatever support I can. Before much longer it will be my grandmother going through this, and my turn. My grandmother lives with my mom in Florida, and my brother lives nearby, so I'm not close to the action as such, but I do try to participate in some of the decision-making process.

When they let me.

Invisible in Petco

Alex Forrest: Well, what am I supposed to do? You won't answer my calls, you change your number. I mean, I'm not gonna be ignored, Dan!

—Fatal Attraction (1987)

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(Warning: this one is kind of long.)

At six-foot-one and over 250 pounds, I may not look like much, but I'm wiry.

OK, let's face it. I'm not exactly tough to spot. So I don't really get it when I'm in a store where helping the customer is not only desired (which would be all of them), but in some cases absolutely necessary. Specifically, I'm talking about the Petco store on Route 40, just outside the Beltway near the Golden Ring area.

As some of you may recall, I have a fish tank that I got shortly after moving to Parkville. These things aren't exactly plug & play; you have to take care of the stuff INSIDE the tank after it's set up. So a few weeks ago, just before Spring Break, I went to this particular Petco to pick up some supplies (vacation feeders, extra dog food for the people watching Keiko, etc). I also still have a problem with the snails, so I was hoping to get some advice there.

Into the store I go, and I'm hovering over the fish food shelves first. I locate what I want, but now I have to find out about the snails. I look around...nobody. I decide to wait a couple of minutes. Nothing.

As it happens, there's a button on a post nearby that you can push if you need assistance. I push it, to no apparent effect.

At least ten minutes go by and absolutely nobody has acknowledged my presence in the store, never mind offered me assistance. For all they know, I could be buying feeder goldfish; I could be buying one of those hundred-dollar marine fish (god DAMN but I want a salt tank). Or I could be a shoplifter. It would have been easy enough; I was wearing my barn coat from Bean. Look at those big honkin' pockets. I could have walked out with half the store and it woudn't have shown on me. But that's not the way I fly. And I'll tell you what: I had a four-dollar bit of vacation food in my hand, but I usually buy other crap for the tank even though I'm about to go on vacation: plants, extra filter media, whatever. This time, I put the food back and left the store. PetSmart got the sale of the fish food AND the dog food that day. (I was still a little too irritated with Petco to buy the other crap for the tank.)

Shortly after the break, I was back in the Petco because, hey, everyone has an off day. There was a sale on some fish I wanted and I was running low on the fishes' regular food. So this time I'm actually in the market to spend some money, and not just the usual food-plus-an-impulse-purchase. This time around I go to the aquatics department, pick up a canister of food, and walk over to the tanks to see the fish that are on sale, plus whatever else might catch my eye. I'm alone at first, but not for long. An employee comes into the area. She's making notes on a clipboard, she's looking into assorted tanks, she's working over by the sink area, etc. etc. etc., but she's not talking to me. She's not said "hi", not asked if I need anything, not nothing. I'm the ONE person in her immediate area, standing expectantly before the fish tanks, with fish food in one hand. Hmmmmm...what could I possibly be there for? AGAIN a full ten minutes goes by (this time I actually timed it). Again I put the food back and went out empty-handed. Time was short, so I picked up the fish food at the Wal-Mart a couple of hundred yards away.

That's right: I bought pet supplies at Wal-Mart.

Now, if you've been with me awhile you might recall that I had some bad customer experiences with McDonald's, and I chronicled the experience and how they handled it. (If you follow that link, be sure to read the two post that come after that one.) I decided to do the same with Petco. After all, this is two sales they lost because of nonexistent customer service.

I went to Petco's website and found the "contact us" link. From there, there is a "Petco store feedback" link, so I followed that. I filled out my contact information, identified the specific store, and then I got to a space that asked if I'd spoken to a store associate.

Son of a bitch. I clicked "no" and moved into the "comments/questions" section. I had 1500 characters to work with, so here's what I came up with:

My job isn't for me to speak to store associates; THEIR job is to speak to ME. Unfortunately this hasn't been the case for my last two visits.  I have a dog, a cat and some fish, so there are plenty of supplies I can pick up at Petco. However, when I go to the aquatics department it's either unstaffed, or the people who are there don't acknowledge me or offer assistance.
   This is NOT a case of me waiting for thirty seconds. On both occasions I've been there for well over ten minutes without anyone even speaking to me. As a result I've left the store empty-handed and gone elsewhere.
  Coincidentally, the day after my most recent visit I received a 10% coupon in the mail. I have to think long and hard about whether it's worth a small discount to go back to a store where the staff basically ignores me.
  From what I read in the news, this is a rather challenging time to be in the retail business; it's therefore interesting to me that the people in your store are so confident in the economy that they don't feel a need to assist customers.
  Incidentally: I've worked in retail before and I know at least as well as you do how much a simple "Hi, can I help you find anything?" can reduce shrinkage in any given store. I was wearing a barn coat with large pockets and could easily have departed with a lot of merchandise undetected. However, theft wasn't the point of my trip. But neither was it going in, only to leave without purchasing anything.
  Thanks for your attention.

That was on a Friday. On Sunday I got this response:

Dear Claude,

Thank you for contacting PETCO regarding your concern with our store at 8640 Pulaski Highway, Suite 104. We are sorry to hear about your past experiences with not being able to find assistance.

At PETCO, we strive to offer the highest level of service to all our customers. I am very sorry to hear that our associates did not offer you assistance when you were waiting in the aquatics department. I want to ensure that our customers leave our PETCO stores satisfied, and as such, I will be addressing your concern with the General Manager of the store so that next time your experience will be more pleasant and complete.

Please know that we care about our customers and what they think of us. By letting us know when we fall short of your expectations, we have the opportunity to address your concerns and to be better prepared to meet your expectations in the future. If we can be any further assistance, please feel free to reply to this email or call PETCO Customer Relations directly at 1-888-824-7257.

Sincerely,

Megan K.
Customer Relations Coordinator

In my head this was a pretty standard, canned response. (Look again at how McDonald's responded.) But what the heck, I figured. I'll give them the benefit of the doubt. Megan K's email came to me on April 20. On Wednesday (April 30) I gave it one more shot. This was my follow-up email to Megan this evening:

Dear Megan K,

I'm afraid that your discussion with the General Manager of the store had no effect whatsoever. I returned to the store on April 30, again with the expectation of purchasing fish and some supplies for my tank. Again, despite there being someone in the aquatics department, I was not acknowledged, nor was I offered any assistance. At this point I don't think anyone would have attempted to interact with me unless I took it upon myself to treat the aquatics department as a self-service station and tried to retrieve my own fish.

Let me stress that on none of my visits was the store especially busy. The gentleman in the department did help another customer, but it was only after they went after him to get some help. I'm not the sort of person who has a huge sense of entitlement, but I do want to feel as though the fact that I had a choice, and I chose to go to Petco, means something to them. Obviously this is not the feeling I get when I'm in that store.

Since I don't have a receipt from the store (because again I wound up leaving empty-handed), I'll just mention that by way of demonstrating that I was there, someone may remember finding a container of fish food on an endcap among hamster cages, which is where I left it as I departed. If they check the front door recording, they will see me and an eight-year-old redheaded girl, sometime between 7:30 and 7:45, exiting through the entrance and stopping to wave goodbye to the camera.
Thank you for your earlier reply and your attempts to improve my experience. I'm sorry that they appear not to have been very successful.

Sincerely,

Claude

As with McDonald's, I'm not looking for freebies here (McD's gave me coupons for free meals but they went unused because that wasn't the point) because that's not what I want. What I want is for people to understand that there are folks out there who are going to vote with their feet, and their wallets, when a store's employees aren't doing their jobs, and that this isn't exactly the best economy to screw around with that sort of thing.

I've always said that there's really no such thing as a crappy job. You want to flip burgers? Flip burgers, but strive to be great at flipping burgers. I've paid those dues. I've worked in jobs that some would consider menial or unattractive, and each time I tried to do a decent job of it. This doesn't mean that I didn't put in some time slacking off, but when I was asked to make a Whopper with no mayo and extra tomato, that's exactly what came out. I don't think I ever had to do a re-make when I was at Burger King, and the biggest complaint about my work was that I used too much bleach to clean the shake machine. When I worked as a manager at Record World, I had to reprimand people for not being helpful to customers. Even when the customer doesn't get precisely what they asked for, they knew that the floor staff at least tried. Are people really that honest-to-god comfortable in their jobs nowadays that they don't feel the need for customers in their stores?

If I hear from Megan again I'll share it with you. Stay tuned.

Comma Comma Comma Comma Comma Chameleon

Paul Barringer: Ever tried "punctuation sex", Henrietta? Hyphens are kisses, commas are maybes, and a period is a definite no. And then of course, there's the... limitless realms of semicolons and apostrophes. I shudder to think what an exclamation point might mean.

—Up the Down Staircase (1967)

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Borrowed from  Your Neighborhood Librarian (heh):

You Are a Comma

You are open minded and extremely optimistic. You enjoy almost all facets of life. You can find the good in almost anything. You keep yourself busy with tons of friends, activities, and interests. You find it hard to turn down an opportunity, even if you are pressed for time. Your friends find you fascinating, charming, and easy to talk to. (But with so many competing interests, you friends do feel like you hardly have time for them.) You excel in: Inspiring people You get along best with: The Question Mark

What Punctuation Mark Are You?

That Cat Shaft is a Bad Mother--Shut Your Mouth

Bill Maher: New Rule: Bluetooth headset users have to do something that lets me know you're just on the phone and not a dangerous schizophrenic. Right? We don't know if you're talking to your secretary or the evil leprechaun who lives in your head. You're not the chief communications officer of the Starship Enterprise. You're a shoe salesman asking your mom if you can bring over your laundry. If I wanted to overhear every tedious scrap of brain static rattling around in your head, I'd read your blog.

—Real Time With Bill Maher, (Season 4, 2006)

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A little while ago, inspired by something I saw over at bthesite, I spent some time tonight profile-hopping around MySpace. Some profiles are pretty dull (such as mine), some are all kinds of customized. A bunch have music that automatically plays, often before the page is finished loading. That's a bit of a pain when you're already streaming music, but I'm not going to complain too loudly about it. It's not as though it's made my life a Dickensian nightmare or anything. That's what my job is for.

Most MySpace pages have at least a little bit of the self-expression thing going on besides the usual likes and dislikes. And nearly all of the profiles that I saw tonight were pretty positive in their outlook and in the comments that appeared at the bottom: look at this, isn't it cool, glad to hook up with you again, LOL/ROFL, I had fun last night,etc.

So it stood out when I spotted a profile that wasn't quite so positive. There were some generic comments about "people who lie and cheat" and "people who go on about how great they are when they're not" and how they promise to name names. And, oddly enough, they do name names. There were specific comments about a particular female being a slut, about her being ugly, about her being fat (which is kind of amusing, coming from someone whose pictures have her sporting a double chin). Stuff of this nature, aimed at this specific person, appeared in assorted places all over this particular profile.

It was truly unique in its mean-spiritedness. And I couldn't help but think that this is a person who is spending a lot of their energy on someone whom they say isn't worth that much attention. There's a little bit of irony for you.

For what it's worth, this one person wasn't the only recipient of this person's little brickbats of bitterness, but she certainly received the lion's share. It really took me back to the days when I was in high school, back when American History textbooks could be printed on a single sheet of paper. My high school definitely had its share of cliques, and the cutting comments were fast and thick and merciless when a person didn't belong. This MySpace profile reminded me of that.

Only, it wasn't a high schooler's profile. It was that of an adult around my age. Go figure.

Fan Club!

Monica: [reading Joey's letter from his stalker] Wait a minute; this wasn't mailed to "Days of Our Lives". It wasn't even mailed. Joey, this woman was in our building; she knows where you live.
Joey: All right! I got my own stalker!
Chandler: You're so lucky; I have to share my stalker with five other guys at work.

—Friends, "The One After the Superbowl, Part I" (1/28/96)

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Last night, after I posted the Kindle thing, I checked the stat chart that Typepad offers. I didn't expect to see a lot of hits because, for whatever reason, the stat count begins around 7pm each day. Maybe they're Jewish and start at sundown? I don't know.

(More likely guess? 7pm Eastern = midnight GMT. Anyway.)

As I've said before, I don't get a huge number of hits per day. It's gone up slowly, from maybe 20 a year ago to around 40 now. So when I tune in only a few hours into the official day and see 44 hits, I have to say "Yow!".

Typepad also gives me the ability to see what pages are being accessed and at about what time, and based on that I could tell that someone was reading the site more or less sequentially, going all the way back to the start and working their way up till now.

That was interesting enough that I went to Statcounter to see what else I could find out. This person did all that reading using a Baltimore County Public Library dialup account. Too bad for you and me both, my new friend, that you won't have that account much longer. Don't feel obligated to wait another 2-1/2 years to come back.

And, as usual, feel free to comment.

Yet Another Click on the Nerd Meter

Sally Rogers: My Aunt Agnes was right. You know what she said when she saw Randy at the bowling alley? She said, "Sally, you can't tell a book if the title's covered."

—The Dick Van Dyke Show, "The Twizzle" (2/28/62)

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It took a few months, but I finally got enough money together to buy this:

This is the Amazon Kindle. The one you see here isn't vibrating or startled; I think it's a demonstration of the fact that it has a wireless connection, so those would be radio waves.

This is probably the coolest e-book I've seen. It's about the size of a paperback novel, but you don't have to deal with text getting all curvy as it dips into the center margin. The text is crisp and clear and adjustable in size. The unit, out of the box, can hold about 200  books, but there's a space for a standard SD card of up to 4 gigabytes, which is a BOATLOAD of books.

You can also subscribe to several magazines and newspapers, and a few blogs as well (such as Reality Blurred or BoingBoing). The subscription price is a little cheaper than the newsstand, and you're not getting any ads. Unfortunately neither are you getting comics or classified ads from the newspapers yet, but perhaps that'll come in the future.

The books' format is proprietary to the Kindle, which means that for best-sellers and such you have to order from Amazon. The good news is that the Kindle edition is usually $9.99, which means that even though the Kindle itself is nearly four hundred dollars, the savings over even Amazon's price means that (in my case, anyway) it will pretty much pay for itself before long. The Kindle can also handle plain text files (such as books from Project Gutenberg), and you can use it to read Microsoft Word files and PDF files, among a few other formats. You could also, if you're so inclined, store MP3 files on it and listen to music as you read.

OK, I've gushed enough, and the last time I was nearly done with this post my browser crashed and I lost the whole thing. So let me say that if you're as big a reader as I am, this is one gizmo worth checking out.