Oh Dear, O~Deer

I write this as my first post from my new TouchPad, but there is far more significance to tonight than a new toy. As cicadas scream from every direction around my comfortable outdoor chair, as the hair on my leg stands on end, and as my body chills from the air, not from the ice cream I am eating, one thing is very clear: fall is coming.

Never mind the fact that I am constantly hammered by an unbearably-busy schedule now. Never mind that I have not been on my bike in nearly a week. Never mind that I am running out of steam to see my usual friends. As it comes to a close, summer 2011 may go down as the best summer of my entire life (sorry, 2001), and while it has been a blast, I am silently and hesitantly chugging along into another period of change in my life.

What is next for me over the next few months? I am still working on that, actually, but I know that I have no special goal in mind - only that I will be extremely busy with work, non-stop weekends, and a couple of very important personal projects.

Then again, I love change, so this fall should be awesome.

B3 out.

The Unexpected Tablet

About a month ago I noted that I would be getting in the tablet game sometime this year. First I would see what Amazon produces for the Kindle line this year - a quality color Android tablet, perhaps? If that was not an option, I would simply give in to the Apple-mania and go with an iPad 2 or 3.

Today I have an HP TouchPad.

Here's the story behind it:

Everyone knows this part: this past week HP dumped the TouchPad and Pre lines, and as of today issued a "markdown order" to its retail partners for the 16GB and 32GB TouchPads to sell for $99 and $149 respectively.

This news came to me late last night (about 11:30pm). "A cheap, dead tablet? Sure, I'll take two!" I stayed up until midnight hoping for early price changes from most of my favorite online retailers - no dice. Instead I was up early Saturday morning - just before six - and noticed that Wal-Mart was selling the TouchPads at their clearance prices. I ordered two for store pickup. Awesome.

I immediately ran over to my local Wal-Mart for pickup and got my 16GB unit. I later found out that the store did not have enough units to fulfill my complete order, so I took a refund in stride and happily accepted my one TouchPad.

Here are my first impressions:

webOS is fantastic. In just a few hours of using the operating system, I am already finding it much more usable than Android. Task switching is awesome and the overall user interface is snappy and polished. The default apps are all acceptable and perfectly usable (particular props to the web browser, email client, calendar app, and integrated Facebook app).

I am a little off-put by the hardware thus far. The tablet itself is a bit heavy, although as my first tablet, the weight does not bother me much. The screen is bright, although mine has dimming issues - perhaps a hardware defect in my unit. Finally, the hardware does not seem to always be able to keep up with webOS: on more than one occasion per use, I have to tap repeatedly on my intended target, only to find my app was chugging the whole time. A bit frustrating.

Here is another way to look at my purchase of the TouchPad: this is my first tablet. It was super-cheap. This was not a gamble purchase by any means - simply an experiment. Even though the hardware is not ideal, the novelty of having a tablet and the $99 entry price makes this a great purchase no matter how I slice it.

B3 out.

The Human Sponge

Today's (nearly-random) trip to Cedar Point was one for the record books - as in, the record for the least number of rides ridden during a visit to Cedar Point.

I was to meet with Jason and Denise for a day at The Point. I arrived right on schedule at 9:00am, but due to some outside influences, Jason and Denise were late by an hour and a half. I used this time to indulge in some of my favorite rides: the Millennium Force, the Maverick, and the Gemini. These rides were all prior the park's general opening at 10:00am, so I was able to blow through them in about 45 minutes. Once the park opened I slowed down and walked around a bit.

Once Jason and Denise showed up, we immediately waited for the Raptor - and the keyword is "waited." I have not spent any significant time in any queue line at Cedar Point yet this year. We waited more than an hour to ride the Raptor, but it was worth it - and it was the second-to-last ride of the day.

Shortly after noon, the skies darkened, thunder rumbled, and lightning shut down almost every ride in the park. And that was the rest of my day at Cedar Point: wet and cold. Despite the rain, we waltz around the park without a care in the world: soaked from head to toe, riding the small oddball rides along the way, enjoying greasy food, and wondering what the hell we were thinking.

Despite our unorthodox day at Cedar Point, my time was enjoyable. I walked around soaked, I drove home soaked, and as I write this several hours after the fact, I am still a little soaked.

Today has been the unexpectedly perfect day.

B3 out.

About Those Tablet Things

At the beginning of 2011 I made a promise to myself: I would buy a tablet sometime this year.

The iPad 2 came out in February - and it was beautiful (it still is). This year has seen tablets take off, however, and I am now sitting on quite an interesting fence. Here is the full story:

Last November I bought my Droid Incredible and became a fan of Android. The platform is of decent quality, easy to customize, and highly tweakable for a geek like me. It is certainly buggy, however, and the app platform for it is hit-or-miss and sorely lacking quality games. Even so, Android can only get better with time, so I am sticking by the platform for my phone needs.

I would like to see how Android extends to the world of tablets. I have yet to play with with a Honeycomb tablet, but I have not been too impressed by what I have seen yet, and again, the tablet-specific app market is pathetic. So why not pick up my iPad 2 already? Two words: Amazon Kindle.

With dozens of rumors of Amazon releasing a 7-to-10-inch iPad-competing Android tablet this year, I am holding out. I am a huge fan of Amazon's online offerings (Cloud Player especially), and with their quality ecosystem of music and movies, I feel that an Amazon tablet could be the first Android tablet to capture my interests.

And so it goes: I am waiting to see what Amazon offers the world. If their tablet (most likely part of the Kindle namesake) is what I hope it to be - a decently-prized (sub-$400) high-quality Android tablet with plenty of baked-in hooks to Amazon's services - then I will be there on day one. If not, it looks like I will be picking up an iPad to satisfy my tablet cravings. This will be an interesting fall season.

B3 out.