Happy B’day in advance !

My birthday is coming up in a couple of days. I don’t know if its my advanced state of pregnancy or enforced house arrest but apparently my family feels sorry enough to shower me with gifts ! We were thinking about getting a 40’’ LCD T.V. for the bedroom but it was stretching our budget a bit.  As Vishal and I are both sitcom junkies and  I am going to be watching a lot of T.V. in the next couple of months, it was a good idea. However, we balked at the price and didn’t feel like settling for either a smaller size or a Plasma screen instead and decided to postpone the purchase by a few months. My other options were to change my phone or get a new camera. All gift ideas are electronic heavy due  to my distorted physical state. I am due a major shopping blowout once I can bear to look at myself in the mirror again, having survived the last six months in three pairs of XL Fab India kurtas and a bunch of T – shirts Rahul left behind. Talk about maternity fashion.

The phone was of course being pushed by Vishal in a big way. You’d think he was on Nokias  payroll, the rate at which he tries to convince people to change phones. I decided against getting a new phone on two counts. First, my current phone is perfectly adequate for texting and making calls ( that is what phones are for, people ) I considered upgrading to a phone with a good camera as I have to carry a digital camera now for taking photos and video clips in the opd. However, I am still not really convinced that the clarity of the pictures taken on any phone equals that of the camera.( I was considering the newly launched Nokia N8 with a 12 MP camera, I currently use a 7.2 MP Sony Cybershot) But again the  Rs 25,000 price tag proved an effective deterrent. How hard is it to lug around a digital camera anyway ? Also, as I am going to be at home for the next three months, there doesn’t seem to be much point in changing my phone now.

The camera idea came up because I know the kid is going to wind up getting photographed  to within an inch of its life in the first few months. Oh look, he/she is blinking ! Let us document it for posterity ! Click, click ! We were planning to get it in January as a birthday gift for my father-in-law but in view of the imminent arrival of the photo-subject decided to prepone the purchase. After much googling and multiple consultations, we bought the Nikon D3100, an entry level SLR camera with HD video capability as well. Those are all the specs  you get from me, what is this, a tech blog ?

We took the camera out for a trial run to Lodi Gardens today and I am rather pleased with the results. The weather was lovely and I got my daily recommended dose of Vitamin D.

38  weeks today

Now coming to my actual B’day gift. Vishal ordered me a Kindle 3 from Amazon which arrived yesterday ! He has a pretty bad track record with gifts, ranging from the banal to the truly bizarre. Case in point- this wooden snake which he picked up in Kodaikanal.

But the Kindle, that is a stroke of genius ! I have obviously kept an eye on Kindle since it was launched but was never too enthusiastic because of the cost of purchasing e- books on Amazon.( This entire entry seems to be a dirge on the cost of this and that, just reflects on the poverty of my soul )They cost about 10$ each, at which price I can buy a paperback. Also, I don’t like reading books on my laptop so I was not too sure about an e-book reader.

Anyway, to come back to the Kindle, I just finished reading Andre Agassi’s autobiography “Open” on it and I have to declare it an unqualified success. It is really light and portable , does not feel too delicate, the absence of backlighting ensures almost zero strain on the eyes and you can read on the loo. You can also read in any position like a paperback, holding it in either hand as the buttons for clicking back and forth are available on both the left and right edge. Mine is the basic Wi-Fi model sans 3G. The only drawback I can see till now is that it requires a case to transport it around. The original Kindle cases cost almost half as much as the device and cheaper versions don’t seem to be  available in Delhi. e-bay.in is selling one but doesn’t have a photo available. I may buy that or ask Rahul to pick one up in Hong Kong.

As should be obvious, I wouldn’t be this thrilled with it if I hadn’t solved the problem of getting cheap e-books. In the interest of not getting jailed for piracy, I refuse to elaborate further but Torrent Zindabad !