Monday, March 30, 2009

Kindle: Dangerous Sickbed Companion

So there you are sick. Really sick. Cough-up-your-lung, can't-get-out-of-bed, kill-me-now sick.

What do you do?

Well, sleep if you can, but there is only so much sleeping a person can do. If you are awake and too sick to make yourself do anything, what do you do? You could get an old favorite book off the bookshelf, or you could turn on the television. Of course it would be nice to get a new book, but that would mean going to bookstore or the library and you can't get out of bed, right?

Enter the Kindle.

You don't have to go the store. You don't even have to drag your sorry, sick tush to the computer. All you have to do is click "Shop in Kindle Store." In a minute your Kindle will offer a variety of books it thinks you will enjoy. There's an interesting-looking light mystery. How about that? It is just $6.50. Sure. Just click the button, stumble to the bathroom, come back, blow your nose, and there it is.

So you read, and doze, and then read again. When you finish the book you find yourself looking at the Kindle store again. That book you read is the beginning of a series. The next one is only $6 too.

And so it goes. If you are really sick and spend four or five days in bed, you may be very, very glad you had the Kindle. Everyone should have one. You had an unending supply of books to keep you distracted, and you never even had to leave the bed.

And then of course you get a little better and go over the finances.

"I spent $70 in four days!"

Um....yeah. Kindles are dangerous things.

Wonderful, dangerous things.

4 comments:

  1. I'm that way with audio books. I have a 35 mile commute one way, so I am HUGE audio book consumer. I have listened to Martian child like 6 times...and am listening to it again. :)

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  2. So this is the wrong time to ask if you've read Lindsay Davis' Marcus Didius Falco Mysteries series? Doesn't look like they're available on Kindle yet, so I suppose it is. They're about a Roman gumsandal, good mysteries and very funny. My favorite in the series is Last Act in Palmyra, in which Falco and his wife Helena go undercover in a traveling theater company. Falco signs on as a playwright, but the play he's working on - a tragic story called "The Spook Who Spoke" about a dispossessed prince who sees his father's ghost in the first act, kills his uncle (his father's murderer and the usurper to his father's wife and throne) in the last act, and spends the intervening acts basically dithering and trying to make up his mind - is considered by everybody who reads it to be the stupidest and worst play ever written.

    I was in stitches. When you're ready for paperbacks again, pick some of hers up on the used market. Very funny stuff, and good mysteries besides.

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  3. Well, since you never spend money on anything, you'll just have to dig down into your unspent allowance to pay the bill.

    But really, maybe having something to spend your money on is a good thing. That way, you won't be tempted to use your allowance when an "emergency" happens. I know that's what often happens to my allowance.

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  4. We have found Yondalla's financial kyrptonite! Books are glorius, so I have a hard time condemning you, 'specially cause you are sick!

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