Monkey House

Small update, on two related points–

As you guys (anybody reading this blog) already know, we have opted to have a home birth. Part of our plan is to use a birthing tub (AquaDoula is the brand name) for comfort, muscle relief, and if Alie feels like it, the delivery itself.

Tubs need water.

Water source is ensuite faucet.

Ensuite faucet to tub requires hose.

Hose to tub requires adapter on faucet.

Now, most (all?) faucets have a screw-on aerator attachment. You know the thing I’m talking about. Little mesh baskety-dealy that prevents the water from coming out in one forceful gush… in kitchens, people unscrew these for attaching Brita filters. Yeah. We broke that. I broke that. In all fairness, it was seized onto the faucet with about 20 years of corrosion and mineral build-up. Same thing happened to a colleague of mine not too many months ago, so I know I can’t be the only one.

But either way, off to Home Depot. And if you’re off to Home Depot, might as well do it right. That meant getting a new faucet, shut off valves (had to go back a second time as I got straight when I needed angled), and braided supply lines. Add to this a “new” sink we already had! Since we hated the beige one that was in there (and happened to have a white one that we got for free not too long ago), changeroo time.

For possibly the first time ever, I can say that although breaking the faucet sucked, the actual renovation was a complete success. No drips, nothing broken, no problems!

Some parting statistics:

- Filling the AquaDoula takes 55 minutes with our faucet. That’s a long time to be running water. Felt guilty.
- Heating the AquaDoula to 95 or so degrees Farenheit takes 18 mother-effing hours. Needless to say, we didn’t get to enjoy the fruits of our labour that night.

So, nothing major to say. Mostly, gearing up for the baby involves the gathering of material goods and resources. Here are a few recent developments:

• Installed our car seat and had it officially inspected. Missed getting poured on by a deluge of rain by about 2 minutes
• A friend of a friend sold us a bucket-load of great stuff for a bargain. Can’t wait to see our little one in the jolly jumper, though that’ll be a few months off yet
• There was a recent flea market of baby/kid stuff. Again, loading up for cheap. Y’know, I’m glad we’re not too posh for previously-loved items. We’re getting stocked right up!
• Workin’ on the name lists, though the girl name list is much shorter. And no, we’re not planning on sharing those names until the naming is complete

Still working on the maternity pics, sort of. As in, I’m not REALLY working on them, but I know I should be. Found a pretty cool site that allows for some neat editing online (ie. no need for Photoshop!).

The word “unique,” by definition, means exactly this: “one of a kind.”

Imagine saying to someone, “Wow, great outfit. It’s very one of a kind.” Or “Hey man, you have a REALLY one of a kind songwriting style.” It makes no grammatical sense.

Is it one of a kind or not? If it’s kind of like something else you’ve seen before, it’s not unique, period. If it’s kind of like something you’ve seen before, but with something different to it, then it has a unique approach (or whatever). And if it’s truly one of a kind, such that you want to enthuse about it, it’s “unique”.

Not “very” unique. Not “really” unique. Just unique.

Rant over.

A colleague/friend of mine and his wife are photography enthusiasts with a fair bit of good equipment. They were looking for opportunities to build their experience in photographing people, so we happily volunteered our time for a photo shoot (read as: jumped at the chance for free maternity shots!).

I haven’t had a chance to putz around with them yet (the free session for obvious reasons did not include dozens of hours of Photoshop retouching!) but here’s one of the nice “belly” pics:

Do Not Open Until June 7, 2009

More to come!

Just read an article about the forthcoming Kindle DX eBook reader. Ever since the eBook concept was first brought to the public eye, friends and family have said, “Ugh, I can’t imagine reading a whole book on a laptop.” I’m sure I’m not the only person who was forward-looking, but for at least the last 10 years I have responded with, “But wait until the electronic ‘page’ starts to look and feel like a real one. You’ll see!”. I don’t think the current generation of eBook readers are there yet. But the screen colours and contrast at least aren’t eye-offending.

Here’s where I get annoyed, though: I have always been counting on the advent of the eBook to bring down the prices of books again. After all, a small marked-up text file is cheaper to produce, manufacture (there is no manufacture), and distribute than a real book. Pass the savings along to the readers! But no. This world is effing greedy, and new eBooks cost roughly the same as a paperback.

What will really get me to move to an eBook reader like the Kindle DX is the combination of a few things:

1. Lower price for a unit: ~$400 is still too much for a rather focused tool. Eye strain or not, if I were to spend $400 on something similar, it would be for a netbook. Why? ROI. The assumption is that to get return on investment, you should weigh against the cost of the existing alternative (printed books). For $400 I can get:

• a dozen new (current) hardcovers
• 30 new paperbacks (the same as 30 new eBooks, it should be stated)
• 60 or so “Bargain Section” (but new) hardcovers
• 60 or so used hardcovers (it’s debatable whether the market in used books should be allowed since authors and publishers get no additional revenue; but it’s not illegal!)
• 100 used paperbacks (see above re: used books)

You can’t even GET used eBooks unless you want to be shady. Unlike the printed version (a physical asset), as far as I know if you redistribute an eBook you are breaking copyright and committing piracy. Arrrrr…. It would take me probably 8 years to get through 100 books.

2. Lower price for the downloadable books: ~$10–$15 for an eBook from the bestsellers list is the same cost as the same book when it comes out in paperback. I prefer hardcovers in general, but you’re not getting that with the eBook either.

3. Increased personal spending on books. Whether it’s the rising cost of paper books or increasing my volume of reading beyond 8-12 per year (at best), if my personal yearly spend on books increases into the hundreds, it would be worth it to me to have an eBook reader.

4. Desire for the technical features. I think this is what they’re counting on. People deciding they just want their several-dozen books in one portable place, or people who find it more convenient to read at night with a backlit screen than with annoying booklights.

Until these things conspire to make an eBook the right option, my smugness at having predicted more readable eye-friendly screens is squashed alongside my dreams of people offering eBooks for the right non-gouging, non-opportunistic cost.

Finally, because I like images in my posts… I just grabbed this from a related Kindle DX article over at betanews about the Kindle DX. The author liked the screensaver. Someone has made a quiz out of it. I got (shameful for a lit major, but we were reading books, not looking at pictures!) 3 out of 5. I didn’t register at the end, so I don’t know how highly I ranked. (scroll way down… weird empty space automatically inserted…)