Today I flopped down on the futon for a bit and read some more of Warbound
on the iPad, with the iPad's alarm clock set to go off in 45 minutes*. Sure enough, I dozed off at some point and dreamed I was in Sweden, in a ferry terminal that was converted from this huge gymnasium-sized church that had a stained glass ceiling.There were the usual newsstands and gift shoppes lining the walls, and one place that was selling used musical instruments. I lingered over a white violin (haven't played a violin since elementary school.) There was also a string quartet playing "O Store Gud", which was cool, because I could murmur the chorus in Swedish.
It was raining outside, and the runoff was washing ravines in the landscaping, which bore a startling resemblance to the Worgen starting area in World of Warcraft.
*A book with a built-in alarm clock. How SciFi is that?
14 comments:
At leastvyou were home. Imagine the damage if you had been out in the Westfold.
Ulises from CA
"How SciFi is that?"
I have a similar phrase I use with my co-workers. We work at a significant IT company, so it's not like we're not doing our part, but it usually goes like this:
"While we're waiting for the coffee machine to reboot, let me tell you about the trouble I had with my cleaning robot the other day. It works without complaint, twice as week, as scheduled, but yesterday there was a buch of hair wrapped around the beater brush, so when I came home, it was sitting in the middle of the floor. It beeped when it detected me with its laser scanner, and it flashed up on its screen, 'Please help me, my brush is stuck'. So I had to flip it over, pop out the beater brush, pull some long hairs off the bearings, flipped it back over, it re-oriented itself by scanning the closest walls and whooshed away, vacuuming the floor. Ah, the coffee machine is booted up. I wonder who is in charge of picking the background images for this touchscreen? No matter, I'll have coffee, Pike Place blend, hot. I love my sci-fi lifestyle."
I haven't played violin since high school... picked up a used one off Craigslist last week. I've been annoying the cats off and on since.
My old fashioned books my be bulky, and I can't carry as many of them as your iPod can. But at least they are polite enough to recognize when I am too tired to read, and they leave me alone and let me sleep.
"How SciFi is that?"
I think I've found ^H^H^H^H^H stolen my new catchphrase.
The thing that really brings this home for me is the app Shazam. Seriously. I touch an icon on my mini magic elf box, and it tells me what song I'm listening to by listening to the music for just 5-10 seconds.
That used to be a frelling game show. Now I carry a device in my pocket that can do it.
Ummm, yeah. Falling asleep while reading "Warbound" will do that to you. I've been going through it over the past week right before bed and...well, similar results.
Isn't living in the future nifty?
David,
"My old fashioned books ... your iPod..."
Yeah, that was the worst part about installing the Kindle app on my iPad: The team of ninjas that swept into the house and carted off the thousands of paper books and then threatened to cut off my hands if I ever again read or bought one. Then they left and all I got was this stupid "Team eBook" jersey...
Jennifer: Isn't living in the future nifty?
Lets translate this post into 1960's English, when phones had rotatory dials, and telegrams were still cheaper than long distance calls ...
"I was sleepy because air travel that was cheap enough for worker-class store clerks had confused my time sense.
I sat down to read a "book" that had been published electronically, had been transmitted to my electronic reading slate wirelessly via a world encompassing information network, whose use I pay for monthly for the cost of one expensive restaurant meal.
( Said "book" was written by an author who had no real need of a publishing firm, and had gotten into the business by simply advertizing his work on that same network )
I had ordered that slate to wake me up at a reasonable hour, and went to sleep.
I had an odd dream, featuring obscure music from foreign countries that I had learned about by randomly accessing music files on that same network.
The dream landscape resembled one that I had encountered in a reality simulation game, in which I was able to play a character in a fantasy world, and able to fight and die and completely control his actions in that fantasy, while interacting with other players all over the world, who were accessing this fantasy work by that same cheap global information service."
Oooo, I can get a team E-book jersey? Why wasn't I told that before?
Actually I read a lot with the kindle app on my tablet. I just can't resist playing the curmudgeon who refuses to read pixels. I fought it for quite a while until my kids pointed out that if I loaded all the free stuff I downloaded from Project Gutenberg onto my tablet I could read anywhere I wanted to instead of just in front of the computer. (I think they just wanted the extra hard drive space for their homework.)
But if switching will get a team of ninjas to invade my house and try to steal my books, I may just have to give it a try just to see if I can shoot a ninja.
They only have the jerseys in S and 3XL, unfortunately; mine makes me look like a becalmed schooner.
Team eBook has its upsides, I guess. When my squad finished early last weekend, I was able to bust out my phone and pick up where I'd left off on the iPad, which was kinda cool...
The "One-Click" ordering feature should probably have a breathalyzer, though. :/
One click ordering is the work of the devil. I really need a cart to fill, so that I can see the total cost before I submit the purchase, and still have time to take 3/4th of the stuff back out of the cart...
When I first discovered Project Gutenberg, I went insane - downloaded almost a hundred books in a few days. A few years later I am still trying to get through them all because my dear wife won't let me quit working in order to stay home and read.
We're not even going to mention the new stuff that I had to pay for and the archaic paper copies that I still order and read because I just can't shake the desire to occasionally fondle the pages. Besides, I find seeing them on the shelf - comforting.
You are not a becalmed schooner - you are just concealing a full sized 1911.
Jack,
Other than TeslaLED (flashlight app), Shazam is the only app that has been immediately installed and used by everyone I've ever shown it to, without exception.
And of course, I thought Jake, but my fingers typed Jack. I blame tiny screen.
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