• Mike turns 40.
• Inception - It’s a good movie, but might give you a headache.
• Matt Smith may be leaving Doctor Who.
• Mike takes a turn pronouncing a word wrong (continuity)
• Jason derails us into an Apple rant – the iphone 4 bar issue.
• Doz wants an ipad.
• The android based tablet from Velocity Micro.
• Jason’s pipe dream open source world.
• Digital watermarks.
• A month at the museum (it’s too late to sign up – sorry it took so long to get this out).
• Sharktopus reference.
• Porn in 3D?
• Keeping the internet clean is a dirty job.
• The porn intersect.
• Chuck and Eureka are both picked up for another season.
• Inception equals mindfuck – a concise review from Jason’s boss.
• Digital drugs.
• Netflix - streaming versus mailed DVD’s. Which is cheaper?
• Carl recommends the movie, Ink.
• It’s not Mrs. Butterworth, it’s Frangelico.
• Doz wants people to download movies, but he can’t flush a toilet.
• Difficulties with horseshoe-shaped toilet seats.

My life is slowly getting back to normal.  I got the cast off my foot a week ago, and while I still need a walking boot and crutches or a cane to get around, I’m at least a bit more mobile than I was.  It is still tiring, especially in the heat, and now that I’m trying to put some weight on it, there is a fair amount of pain by the end of the day.   Things are improving though, and I hope to be walking unaided by the end of the month; middle of September at the latest.

Despite what happened to get me into this mess, I’ve decided that I still want to keep on riding motorcycles.  I’ve gone back and forth a little on this, but I think I always knew that I wasn’t going to give it up.  I almost bought a bike a friend had for sale, then decided it was too soon and that I should wait.  My resolve lasted a couple of weeks, when I fell in love with the Triumph Rocket III.

Previously I have been riding a Suzuki Boulevard M90 (1500cc), and I really thought the only thing I would like more was a bigger Boulevard.  The M109 (1800cc) is a pretty cool looking cruiser and I was toying with the idea of waiting for the 2011 models to arrive and get one.  On a whim though I decided to check out the local Triumph dealer, and found a new 2008 Triumph Rocket III they still had in stock (this link goes to the 2010 model, but it is very similar).  It has to be one of the most audacious bikes I’ve seen, a 2300cc three cylinder beast with a very unique look.  At first I was worried that it would be too big for me, I mean it has a bigger engine than my car (literally). After checking the specs I found that it weighs 20lbs less than did my Suzuki, and had a seat that was less than an inch higher.  I read a ton of reviews where everyone marveled at how well such a monstrous bike handled.  And to be honest, I’m kind of an Anglophile (don’t tell my friends down at the Irish Pub). So, I decided to take the plunge and am in the process of buying this thing.  The dealer is going to hold it for a month for me, by which time I hope to be able to ride again.

I’m hoping to still be able to enjoy the fall riding season, and not be killed or maimed in a crash.

So, wish me luck, I’ll likely need it.

Luckily, I still have 20/20 vision, so I can read a relatively small text size comfortably on the screen.  If I needed to use larger text, I would be flipping the pages at an annoying pace, but as it is, it isn’t too bad.  The text size is of course adjustable, so most people should be able to find a comfortable setting.  You can also change the color scheme to be black text on white background, a sepia toned display with brown on tan, or white text on black.  Combine that with easily accessible brightness controls and the display is quite readable under most conditions.

When I first checked this out, B&N had not yet released their Android version of nook yet, though they had support for the iPhone and iPad.  They eventually got around to it and released an app, but it initially lacked the display options the Kindle had.  A recent update added several features and it is now on a par with the competition.  Of course, the recent announcement that B&N has put itself up for sell puts the future of the nook in question and pushes me a bit towards Amazon as my eBook store of choice.

Either way, my cell phone will likely be my reader of choice for the foreseeable future.  While I still like the larger eInk display on the nook and Kindle better, I don’t like it enough to deal with the hassle of hauling around another bulky piece of technology that I have to worry about damaging and remember to keep charged all the time.  I have to carry my cell phone, and it’s easy to keep charged at work, at home, or in the car, so unless I’m out camping or something, I rarely run out of juice.  It can also be read in the dark, and is much lighter to hold up while reading in bed.

I’m guessing that the eReaders marketed by these companies were not meant to be major sources of profits, but were intended to increase the market for eBooks.  If that is the case the companies have not hurt themselves terribly by competing with their own products.  Anybody with an Android Phone or iPhone should really check out these Apps, they are free and both bookstores have a large library of free eBooks to choose from.

• Mike sees Star Wars in Concert in Minnesota
• Khaaaan! the Musical at the Kansas City Fringe Festival
• The Guild Season 4 Trailer
• Age of Conan
• Not so fond Memories of Everquest (Sony Hates You)
• Blizzard RealID Debacle
• Kij Johnson on Escape Pod – Spar
• Kindle app for Android rocks – Where is Barnes & Noble’s?
• Paizo gets electronic books right, digital watermarks – Pathfinder
• Chris McKitterick – Getting Published – Transcendence

• Jason is recovering from the wreck.
• Denver has more medical marijuana shops than Starbucks.
• Mike’s Can’t Stop the Serenity event was a Success – Browncoats:Redemption gets mixed response.
• Vatican endorses the Blues Brothers Movie.
• Penn and Teller won’t call Bullshit on Islam or Scientology.
• Peter Jackson back on board for the Hobbit.
• Pakistan orders death of Mark Zuckerberg.
• Washed up senators propose Internet Kill Switch.  Install it next to the “Button” and the Bat Phone on Obama’s desk.
• Soundcloud and TheSixtyOne, new ways to share music.
• Zombie Cow Studios takes sex ed to a new weird level with Privates.
• Tron Evolution coming to theaters and computer games.  It’s all rad and stuff, with parkour and leetness.
• Microsoft unveils Kinect and Sony displays Move in desperate attempts to be as cool as Nintendo.
• Listen to people more important than you play D&D, an activity sadder than anything I can think of, besides listening to this podcast.
• Or watch people more attractive than you play D&D.
• Long rambling discussion of the merits of different games systems and versions of D&D.
• Being good lends you strength, being bad gives you more.

A few posts (and many months ago) I wrote about getting a motorcycle and rediscovering my love of riding.  Since then, I actually bought a new motorcycle, a shiny blue 2009 Suzuki Boulevard M90, and I have been loving the hell out of riding all over the place.

On Tuesday June 1^st, I was on my way into to work on I-435 in KS.  It was a nice morning, a little on the warm side, but I decided at highway speeds it would be cool enough to warrant wearing my leather jacket.  A few miles after I set out someone a couple of cars ahead of me made an aggressive lane change to get out behind a trash truck.  This caused a chain reaction of people slamming on breaks, myself included.    The car behind me however, was not paying enough attention and did not slow down.  I caught just a glimpse of it in my side mirror before the impact.  I’m not completely sure what happened, but I know I flew through the air a ways then rolled down the highway a bit.   I looked up to see a car almost on top of me, but the lady driving it managed to swerve around me, as did the next car behind her.   I was in pain, panicked, and disoriented, but I manage to drag myself off the pavement onto the side of the road.

I pulled my helmet off and started to look around.  There were cars stopped everywhere, but I didn’t take in too many details.  My right ankle was twisted at an unnatural angle, and everything hurt.  I made sure I could move everything but my right foot, and was a bit relieved that I could.  Several people were already running to check on me, including one that was a retired Oklahoma Sheriff.   He made me lay on my back and held my head and neck still in case there were any spinal injuries.

I asked someone to get my phone from my saddlebag, and I called my wife to let her know that I had been in an accident and didn’t seem to be in danger of imminent death.   The ambulance arrived and took me to the hospital which was quite an experience in itself.  It started with a nurse in the ER telling me I should have told her that I had been in a bicycle wreck instead of a motorcycle accident since motorcycle riders deserved what they got.  Either the pain and trauma from the accident, or the painkillers they gave me made me very sick, and I guess my heart rate dropped dangerously low while they were resetting my ankle.  I remember screaming during that, but not much else.

I had to have surgery to put a screw in my ankle.  I continued to have nausea and vomiting from the pain meds, so it was a pretty miserable couple of days in the hospital.  It wasn’t helped by the fact I was sharing the room with a young, good-looking guy who happened to be in the half of the room closest to the door.   While I could hear the female nurses talking to him at length, they didn’t make it past the curtain to see me very often.   In fact, by the time I went home Wednesday evening, they still hadn’t even bothered to clean the road rash on my arm and hand.

So now I’m home with my screwed up ankle, and bruised and battered body.  My shiny new bike with about $1000 worth of aftermarket accessories is trashed.  I’m waiting to hear back from the insurance company as to what payment I will get on all of that.  The big challenge ahead is maintaining the positive momentum I’ve had going for awhile.  I had been dieting and working out over the last few months.  I had lost 30 lbs and was up to running a couple of miles, which was quite an accomplishment for me.  I had some big plans for road trips other activities this year, and now all of that is put on hold for 3-4 months, at least.

My normal workouts are out of the question, and I can do no weight bearing on the ankle for 2-3 months, then I will be in a walking cast for awhile.  Of course the crutches are a workout on their own, and I may be able to manage some upper body workouts once things straighten out a bit, but I imagine I will not be able to achieve the same intensity of exercise again for some time, if ever.  There is no guarantee I will be able to run, or even walk without considerable pain once all is said and done.  That coupled with being homebound for a lot of the summer sounds like an invitation for weight gain; I’m going to of course try not to go off the deep end, but who knows.

All my vacation and road trip plans are pretty well wiped out as well.  I’m not sure at this point if the bike is salvageable, and if it is, I’m not sure if I will want to ride again.  I hope I do, but it was the most frightening and painful experience of my life, one that will continue to pain me for many months.

So, that’s where things stand now.  I came out very lucky considering; my injuries could have been a lot worse.  I will just have to see how things progress as I heal and find out what my options are as the joyful experience of wrangling with insurance companies continues.

When Barnes & Noble entered the market with the nook, I viewed it with mixed feelings.  From a technical standpoint it was very similar to the Kindle, same basic technology and stats.  The Kindle offered a few more features, such as a web browser, and it also sported a keyboard instead of a touchscreen for navigation.  It seemed likely that B&N would be able to match Amazon for selection, or at least come close.  The nook also supported more formats, including the popular ePub format, and you could load documents to directly via a usb cable just like a usb drive, no special software or convoluted processes involved.  Of course the content purchased from B&N was DRM protected, and I still had concerns about price and durability.

Eventually I decided to forgo my concerns and purchase one.  Or actually two, since my wife is also a voracious reader and wanted one as well.  So after a trip to the local B&N to try one out, I ordered two of them and anxiously waited for their arrival.  There were a couple of main factors that led to me deciding to buy eReaders for us.  The first was simple portability.  I often take books with me to dinner, to the doctors, to the park, etc.  Anywhere where I might have a bit of downtime and a chance to read.  I also tend to read multiple books at a time, switching between them as the mood takes me.  With the nook I could easily carry five or six novels with me so I would always have a variety of books available.  And if I ran out, I could just buy another one and download it immediately from just about anywhere.  The other issue was that of space.  With both myself and my wife reading several books a month, and our reluctance to get rid of books, the house was really filling up.  We have books everywhere and have pretty much run out of shelf space, and there isn’t a whole lot of room left in storage either.   A few years ago I made the shift from buying physical CDs to buying electronic downloads of MP3s whenever possible and really like the fact that I don’t have to figure out where to store the discs anymore.  It is more environmentally friendly, and creates less clutter.  Moving to eBooks would save a lot of space and mess.

The nooks arrived in a few days and we got them charged up and eagerly went about purchasing our first eBooks to read.  This is the first annoyance I have with the system.  Since the eBooks are DRM’d you cannot share them between devices if those devices belong to different users.  The nook does have a share function, but it is limited in how long you may lend a book, and only allows you to lend a book once.  This feature is also not available on all books.   So, to allow my wife and me to share books between us, both nooks had to be registered under the same B&N account.  Not a huge problem, but it does somewhat impair the usefulness of the B&N account.  All the targeted marketing that makes suggestions on which books you may be interested in effective, now is muddled by the fact that two different people’s tastes and preferences are being represented on one account.  Now whenever I log on it has a list of romance books I may want to check out, great.  More importantly, it makes sorting through the books on the nook, or in my account history more difficult, as it will contain a lot of titles I’m not interested in.   It also means that if we are both reading the same book at the same time, it makes keeping track of where you left off.  The nook will sync your bookmarks and last page read amongst the devices registered to the same account.

You can browse the B&N book store right from the nook, but I found it easier to just do it on the computer.  Once you buy a book online it becomes available to the nook for download, or can be set to auto download if you prefer.  So getting a book was easy.  The price wasn’t bad, cheaper than buying the new release of a book in hardcover, generally around the cost of a paperback for most titles.   I chose Stephen King’s Under the Dome for my first download.  I figured that I might as well throw in for the long haul with one of King’s traditional doorstop novels.  Of course, since it was electronic the size of the book doesn’t really hit you.  You can see the page counter which gives you an idea, but you don’t have this huge thick book intimidate you.

I really liked the eInk screen on the nook.  It is pretty much identical to the one on the Kindle.   It allows you to read under just about any lighting conditions that you could read a normal book and is very easy on the eyes (though I would like to see a built in book light for reading in the dark).  Couple that with the ability to change fonts and text sizes it makes reading a comfortable experience.   My wife particularly liked being able to switch everything to large print.  Pages could be turned with either navigation buttons on either side of the screen, or by sliding your finger (or more often your thumb) along the small LCD touchscreen below the eInk display.  I’ve heard many people complain about the slowness of page turning on both the nook and the Kindle, but I did not find it to be much of a problem.  There is a bit of lag from when you initiate a page turn and when the new page displays, however it was not really long enough to disrupt my reading.  I also got into a bit of rhythm while reading and would start the page turn a line or to from the bottom of the page.  Timed right, the new page displays shortly after you finish the last line on the previous page.  The size of the nook and the location of the navigation buttons made it feasible to use the nook one handed, which was a bit of an advantage over normal books.

Overall, the process of getting a book and reading it on the nook was easy, and I enjoyed reading books on the device.  This is important as it is the primary function of the device, and if it did not perform well in this category, it would be destined for failure.  There were a few glitches here an there, but overall they were minor and not frequent enough to be much of problem.

One of the reasons I had opted for the nook over Kindle was that it came with native support for PDF files.  I have a lot of content (mostly game books and newsletters) on PDF, and I was looking  forward to being able to read them somewhere besides my computer screen.  This turned out to be a bit of a problem.  It was very easy to connect the nook to a usb port and drag the files to it.  The problem though,  is that while it will display the PDFs, it does not give you the ability to change font sizes or zoom.  It displays them page per page, so if you have a PDF formatted with two columns, then it displays this way on the nook, making the text nearly too small to read.  This was something of a disappointment.  The Kindle added PDF support after release, but appears to have the same problem from what I have been able to determine.   So my plans for taking a bookcase full of game books along on one slim device did not pan out.

Like the Kindle, the nook also has the ability to take notes.  I did not find this particularly useful, it is not something I do outside of school, and my main use of the nook was reading novels for enjoyment.  That being said, I think the Kindle probably comes out ahead in this aspect.  The nook uses a soft keyboard on the small navigation LCD screen, while the Kindle has more of a physical keyboard.  For trying to type out anything beyond a few words I think the soft keys would get a bit frustrating.

The Kindle has a web browser, though from what I hear it is slow and not particularly pleasant to use.  The nook added this functionality after release, though I never tried it out.  The eInk display is not well suited for displaying anything much beyond text, and does not refresh quickly.  I have a phone that I can browse the web or check email with, so this is not functionality I desired in an eReader.  There were a number of other minor features that I’m not going to get into.  I bought the nook for reading books, and it worked very well for that purpose, the other abilities seemed to be just things tacked on for the hell of it.

The great problem with the nook goes back to one of my initial concerns, durability.  Around a month after getting the devices, my wife’s nook slipped from her purse and fell about a foot onto the desk.  There was no visible damage to the nook, but part of the screen simply stopped working, making it unreadable.  There are no repair options for the nook, Barnes & Noble does not repair them, only replaces them.  Of course this was accidental damage, not covered by warranty (and I’m ok with that, I don’t expect them to pay for our mistakes).  So basically we have a $259 dollar device that lasted a month.  When you purchase it, you can pay an additional $70 for a two year protection plan that would have covered it, but that brings the price up to $329.  For me, this is a bit of a deal breaker.  I understand that electronics are delicate, but I also know that accidents happen.  I can’t just casually throw the nook in my gym bag or the seat of my car.  I don’t feel comfortable putting it in my motorcycle saddle bags, taking it on a canoe trip, or placing it anywhere were it might get something spilled on it, sat on it, or knocked over.  It is a very expensive device that wants to be a book, but cannot be treated like a book.  I’m almost afraid to take it out of the house, which greatly reduces the value.  I decided at that point not to buy a new one.  I gave mine to my wife and figured I would just go back to reading dead tree versions of books for the time being.

A side not here, I bought the nooks with a platinum MasterCard which supposedly has purchase assurance, insuring your purchases against accidental damage.  Well, this turns out to be a joke.  I went through a lengthy process of submitting documentation for the purchase and the damage, to have them time and time again find minor reasons to reject my documentation.  The final hang up was that I have t to submit a repair estimate from an authorized repair center for the device.  Since there is no authorized repair center for nooks, this is impossible.  I submitted letters from B&N stating that they do not repair them and any other repairs would void the devices warranty, but MasterCard still demanded a repair estimate.  I found one place online that sold screen for the nook for $199 and had a flat repair rate of $59, meaning that it would cost $258 to repair a $259 device, plus shipping and handling.  I submitted this to B&N and they rejected it because I had not shipped the nook to them for evaluation.  I finally gave up as it was apparent they had no intention of honoring the claim and I was just wasting my time.

This brings up the second problem, DRM.  At the point I gave my nook to my wife, I still had a couple of unread books on it.  So now, if I want to read them, I have to sit in front of my PC and read them with the B&N software.  I am in the process of getting an Android phone, but there is no nook software for that yet.  They do have it for the iPod and iPad, but of course, that doesn’t help me.  I don’t particularly like reading books on a LCD screen, but to get through the books I have that is what I will have to do.  However I have no portability.  I can’t read them on my netbook, since that runs linux at the moment and I’m only allowed to read the books I bought on Windows and Mac.  This problem will continue with any new books my wife gets for the nook that I may be interested in reading.  And if at some point she breaks this one, or it just outlives its life expectancy (2-3 years I would guess), then all the books bought for it will still only be available on whatever platform B&N deigns to allow.  I have heard that there are more open ePub readers that will read these books, but you have to input the credit card number you used to purchase the book originally since this is what is used by the DRM.  So if I want to be able to re-read a book in the future, I will have to keep track of what credit card I used to buy each book, a patently absurd idea.

So, what can I say.  I greatly enjoyed the nook for the short time I had it, and I really do miss having it now.  I’m still jealous when my wife reads hers in bed at night.  It performed its primary function admirably and was a convenient, pleasant way to read books.  Outside of that primary function, it was pretty limited, but that was never a major concern for me.  I don’t want a multi-function device that can kind of do everything, I want a device that does what it was designed to do, and does it well.  In the end though, paying hundreds of dollars for a device with such a short life expectancy, and buying books in a format that I can’t be assured of being able to read when and where I want to just seems like a bad investment.  I hope that eventually eBooks will go the way of mp3s and become freely available.  I also hope that the technology gets to the point where it is a little less fragile.  Until then, keep cutting down those trees to make my books.

• The Human Centipede
• Iron Man 2
• Jason is joining the world of the Smart Phone with an HTC Incredible
• Jason continues ranting about the evil of Facebook, and others on the web agree.
• The WANCers Google themselves, most action they’ve had in years.
• Cosplay for your penis, Dapper Dicks.
• Rubber, the best movie ever about a sentient, psychic assassin tire.
• Mike gets motivated and is hosting a Can’t Stop The Serenity screening in Lawrence, June 16th.  Serenity and Browncoats: Redemption will be shown.

Show notes may actually follow at some point.