This morning on the subway, among the company of your usual batch of commuting crazies (aggressive Asian lady ready to push you into the tracks for a seat, African man singingly intensely to himself under his breath, couple that makes out at his stop so aggressively that I am pretty convinced he was leaving for the army rather than the office, thirteen year olds sharing I-pod headphones and texting each other ("OMG do u thnk ppl know we r txting each otha?" "Hehe obvi bcuz we keep riting stuffz + looking @ each otha + LMAOing" "ROFL")), I looked over at the seemingly normal girl with cute shoes sitting next to me and found her to be using an overly large mobile device. My Blackberry 8830 is pretty large, but this thing was the size of my head. Upon second glance, I saw that it was not an iPhone on steriods after all--it was a Kindle.
I am normally technology's number one fan. I read the Apple blog regularly, nearly peed my pants when this baby came out, can name my favorite ten iPhone apps quicker than I can name my favorite ten friends, and will respond to any message sent to my Blackberry--text, email, or BBM--within ten minutes. But the Kindle is absolutely where I draw the line. This electronic reading device angers me for several reasons, the most important of which I will list here:
1. I love books. I love the feel of cracking open a new book, rifling through the crisp pages, reading the front panel for a summary, checking the back to see if the author is hot. I love folding down pages of the book where a sentiment rings particularly true or a ridiculous thing occurs. I love organizing my books in order of like on my bookshelf. This impostor robot book can be used for none of the above purposes.
2. It looks dumb. Kindles look really stupid. They are ugly and gray and nobody can judge you on the subway based on your choice of New Moon vs. Freakonomics.
3. It costs $359! Thus the only reason one would purchase one--for convenience and to save money on books--is eliminated. According to the Washington Post, the median number of books read by Americans last year was 9. (27% of Americans hadn't read a single book last year. America--WTF). At 9 books per year and an average of $15 per book, it would take the average American 2.5 years just to pay for the Kindle. You will probably drop and break that shit before it pays for itself. And that's not even counting the cost of books--Kindle books cost approximately $10, so you would have to read over 60 books for the cost to make up for what you are "saving." 6 and a half years of looking like a douche, here you come!
Looking away from the girl with cute shoes, I noticed TWO more people in my subway cart with Kindles, and immediately proceeded to judge them. I would rather sit next to the African singer, beating an invisible drum on his knees and shaking his head to his muttered melody, participate in a three way text session with the 13 year olds ("OMG! Kindle sux" "Ugh tot" "WTF who r u?!"), risk death by beating the Asian grandmother to a seat, and be the Deanna to the makeouters' Jon+Kate than sit next to the Kindle user.
And she WAS reading New Moon. Judged.
P.S: Whoever said sex sells was right. Or maybe my its just my friends--I know you sluts read this, I post one picture of a burger blow job and all of a sudden you're all commenting? I better see equal enthusiasm on my posts about books. Oh and, ADJ, you're right as usual--Wikipedia places the average at 5.1-5.9.
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