There's two presents this year that might make the Best Present Ever list. I've had some good runs of Christmas presents in the past; like the time Dad got me a first edition The Ghost and Mrs. Muir, or the boxes of Lovecraft another year, or the Stellarscope that Mom got me that I've still got the box and all the parts for. I mean, like, ten years later, how likely are you to have the actual thing, all it's bits, and keep them in the box? And you've used it hundreds of times?
Well, maybe there's three presents. Gina did crotchet me a sweet hat. I don't think I've ever gotten a real home made present before.
The other two are a Sony PRS-505 with a two gig card and the All About Me book my Mom won in a gift exchange. I mean, that is if she fills it out. If she fills it out it'll be the best present ever.
As for the Sony PRS... If you love books it's like a whole new level of awesome. The battery lasts forever, the screen is so excellent- Kevin and I went to Lenox Mall for his Mother's Christmas present and they've got a Sony Style store which had the PRS on display, and it's screen looked like it was a picture pasted on which made us a little disappointed since we wanted to see it in action... Until the screen changed and we realized the screen looks so good for pictures it might as well be a pasted on image- the screen looks great in every light at every angle. And half the time when I'm looking at it some part of me is screaming "THE FUTURE IS NOW!" and remembering the panel tv screens in 2001: A Space Odyssey.
Granted, the Sony Connect software that comes with it looks like iTunes and acts like it's got all the functionality of a dismembered Barbie head. It just doesn't work. Thankfully there's Calibre which does work. But other than the Connect software it's about a million times more awesome than I dreamed it might be.
I can finally read the unabridged Count of Monte Cristo! Finding an unabridged copy is nigh impossible- I've got one but it was two years looking and it's in a collected edition with some other Dumas books and about the size of all the Harry Potters put together. And the $200 worth of classics Sony gives you includes all of Shakespeare's plays, The Modest Proposal, and a bunch of George MacDonalds I haven't seen since I was in elementary school plus a hundred something other books...
As for the Count... I'm about 700 pages in of 3100 and it's an incredible read. I have this little tiny bible print copy that I nearly finished before deciding if it'd been cut down so much (to about 700 pages) that I really wanted to read the whole thing. I got to the part this afternoon where M. Morrel is nearly ruined and his daughter has to go alone to get the silk bag and I nearly wound up crying for the misery of him and his family and how the Count did him a good turn. And the writing is so old fashioned and yet completely fresh- It's one of best books I've ever read.
The other one I keep looking at, picking up, reading a few pages, and putting back down and going back to the Count (while still casting eyes back at the book) is Crystal Soldier by Sharon Lee and Steve Miller. It's the first space opera type thing I've read in a long time that I've really loved. And Jela is one of those characters who just sticks with you.
Which just goes to show digital books don't replace paper ones.
(I saw The Spirit this afternoon. It was the worst. movie. ever.)
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