Christmas Toys

I'm just a sixty one year old kid. No socks, ties, shirts, or underwear for me, I want toys. I pretty much got my Christmas wish this year. I didn't get the fishing Kayak, the net book, or the new bicycle, but I did get a Kindle reader, a Forza 3 Xbox video game, and a Rubik's cube. What a great three days. I started out with the Rubik's cube before my wife, son, mother, and daughter in law were even finished opening all of their presents. Who knows what they got.

You know the definition of insanity; Repeating the same thing over and over again, and expecting a different result. That's me and the Rubik's Cube. I figured out how to get the top layer right and most of the second layer. That is not the path to Nirvana. I must have repeated the same moves at least fifty times with no improvement in my position. The cube is sitting on my desk; it's shiny blue tiles all perfectly aligned on the top row, with yellow, orange, red, and green tiles mocking me from the near side.

Next I downloaded Margret Atwood's "The Year of the Flood" on the Kindle. At ten bucks a pop, I read much too fast, so after I finished " The Year of the Flood", I downloaded David Foster Wallace's "Infinite Jest" a book that is much more suited to the unique capabilities of the Kindle. I had tried to read "Infinite Jest" a few years ago, and got about a third of the way through it before developing a case of Carpel Tunnel Syndrome from flipping back and forth between the story and the fictionalized notes at the end of the book. It is also necessary to consult an unabridged dictionary at least three or four times per page. A few generations from now, the book will be as unapproachable as James Joyce's "Ulysses" is to people who didn't live in Dublin at the time it was written. The Kindle makes "Infinite Jest" much easier to read. It's weight is about a fifth of that of the paperback version of "Infinite Jest". The Kindle has a built in dictionary which reduces by about a third, the number of required look ups. And, you only have to place your cursor on the applicable number and click, and you are immediately transferred to the corresponding footnote. Reading "Infinite Jest" also reduces the cost of reading from about two dollars per hour, down to about twenty five cents per hour. Did I mention that "Infinite Jest" is really a great book. I'll review it for you in about a month.

In between reading and Rubik's Cube, I played Forza 3. I'm too old to be an accomplished gamer. I like Halo, and Gears of War, and Rainbow six, but I really suck at them. I just don't have the fine motor skills, or the quick wits to play these games well. Plus, I just can't put the time into them. I've seen my son play World of Warcraft for days (not hours) on end, but that's not for me. My favorite games are the Forza games. These are racing games that are, to me, so realistic and intense, that I can only play for a few hours at a time. You start out with a stable of only a few fairly slow cars, and as you win races, you accumulate credits to upgrade your cars, win additional cars, and new tracks are opened to you. You play with a wheel which has feedback built into it, and brakes, and an accelerator. I could go on and on about this game.

That's how I spent my Christmas holidays, I hope everyone had as much fun as me.