What better time to get random and loopy than now, right?  Let’s start with a song:

Blog abandonment – or how Nat didn’t get her groove back after all.
A few weeks ago I wrote a long detailed entry about how spectacularly shitty this year has been and how my only hope is that the world might come to an end next year, but who wants to read that shit, right?  So this is what you get instead.  To be honest, the state of affairs on my side of the world has made writing in general a particularly difficult task.  There, that’s why this blog has been abandoned lately.  But enough excuses.  Let us move on to —

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The Kindle Touch is class!
I’ve named my Kindle Touch Kenzi.  I have a pathological need to give all my gadgets a name.  Might be why I form emotional attachments to them, or maybe, as Madonna put it best in song, “you know that we are living in a material world and I am a material girl.”  But I digress…

The biggest advantage of the Kindle Touch over the Kindle 3 is the internet navigation; moving the cursor with the arrows on the Kindle 3 was a serious pain.  With the Touch you just double tap to zoom in, single tap to open a link and off you go.

The text-to-speech thingy is very nice, now with options for male and female voice, though the male option gives more clarity.  It also provides the much needed voice speed control the Kindle 3 lacked.

The home menu navigation is a bit hard to get used to but within texts it responds quickly and highlighting passages is a breeze.

The only problem with this beautiful little machine is its lack of landscape mode, which is particularly useful for pdf reading.  I also miss the speakers, though I rarely used them, but using headphones works fine. I bought the model with special offers, which I was fully expecting to be terribly annoying, but the adverts have turned out to be well designed, non-disruptive, and relevant.

On a more selfish note, I’m glad that my How To Convert Text-Based Pdf Screenplays To Kindle 3 tutorial works well on the Kindle Touch.

I recommend the Kindle Touch with the utmost confidence that you’ll enjoy the hell out of it.

All I need now is a DodoCase.  It hasn’t been released yet, unfortunately.

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Art imitating life…

Have you ever found yourself watching or listening to something that reflects you as a person, your current situation, or serves as a response to what you’re feeling at the moment?

This has happened to me three times this week.  Just last night, after having a particularly crappy day at work, I turned on the radio and after a few wonderful classic new wave songs, INXS’ What You Need came on and listening to those lyrics  was like getting bitch slapped.

But more unsettling was the proper metaphorical bitch slap I got from the great nation of Canada via Being Erica, a show about Erica Strange, a thirty something year old hot mess who gets the chance to relive and change her biggest regrets through therapy.

As I watched the season finale of Being Erica, a few quotes – about the end of dreams (actual dreams, not wishes), painting, and finding your way back – from the end of the episode hit home.  Then I decided to watch the pilot (I’ve only watched this show from the second season), and I was horrified to watch a pretty accurate reflection of my current state of affairs.  I am the bloody raven haired, hispanic version of Erica Strange.  As much as I love the show, I couldn’t help but wonder: It’s not like being like someone else is desirable, but given the case, wouldn’t it be better to be the reflection of someone who actually has her shit together?

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TV scorecard
Writing Pilot Watch for the main site was great fun.  Back when I wrote about new shows on this blog, I ranked them at the end of the season.  This would be inappropriate for the main site since there would be no possible objectivity.  But I can freely rank them here.  After all, this blog is home to my stupid opinions.  Here we go –

Favorite new shows:
Homeland reigns in this category and it is the best new show of the season.

Hell on Wheels is my second favorite new show.  It’s improved with every episode and has found its footing with the latest.  I’m appalled by the criticism the show has got.  Are my TV tastes incredibly out of touch with the general audience or are people completely incapable of getting over Deadwood?  Hell On Wheels is not and it’s not trying to be like Deadwood.  Uh…  Also, this show’s theme song has so much awesome in it.  That Gustavo Santaolalla is a hell of a composer.

I’ve found a special place in my cold, cold heart for Enlightened.  I’m glad it was picked up for a second season.

The other good new shows added to the regular watch list:
Revenge, Grimm, American Horror Story, A Gifted Man, New Girl, Hart of Dixie.

The “Endless Source of Happiness’ award:
Call Me Fitz, Community, Wilfred.

Special “I can’t believe I watch this” award:
Gossip Girl, Once Upon a Time.

The older shows I’m sticking with till the very end:
Fringe, House, Burn Notice, Primeval.

The returning shows that I still love:
The Vampire Diaries, True Blood, The Walking Dead, Being Erica, The Soup.

Semi-campy good times:
Nikita, Lost Girl.

The shows I’m eagerly waiting for:
Californication, Game of Thrones, The Killing (yes, even if that finale SUCKED), Shameless.

The cancelled shows I’m still grieving:
Caprica, Stargate Universe.

The “why the hell haven’t I caught up with these shows” award:
Justified, Breaking Bad, Boardwalk Empire, Supernatural.

The most welcome rerun of the year:
HBO’s Autopsy.  Best documentary series ever.  I’ll fight anyone who says otherwise.

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Facebook vs. Twitter – Which one do you prefer?
There are so many social media sites out there at the moment.  I couldn’t deal with Myspace crap.  I still don’t get Lockerz.  Linkedin has a noble purpose but it has a pretty damn ugly interface.  Google+ is just there.  Friendster is Friendster, and that’s not necessarily good.  And the rest are the rest.

I was reluctant to join Facebook for a long time.  Once I joined, I fell in love…for a short time.  I became somewhat addicted to playing poker on Facebook, I even created a profile for my cat (yeah, yeah… I know), and It allowed me to find and keep tabs on people I haven’t seen in years.  But now, were it not for those people I follow, I would have quit Facebook long ago.

I’ve never been so reluctant to join anything as with Twitter.  My reluctance came from reading about people tweeting every single moment of their daily life.  That level of openness is pretty disturbing.  But Twitter can be used in other ways and that quickly made me love it.  It’s like communicating in surgical strikes.  And the quick access to interesting articles is its biggest asset.

So yeah, I prefer Twitter.  How about you?

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And that’s all for now.

Merry Christmas and Happy New Year!

Enjoy it, for it might be our last… If you’re into that apocalyptic crap.

You can follow me on Twitter here.  You didn’t think I’d write about Twitter without pushing my own account, did you?