I’ve been thinking about e-readers a lot lately. This may have something to do with Amazon greeting me with the above picture of its new Kindle every time I visit its site. And I’m not the only one influenced by Amazon–the new Kindle is the fastest-selling version of the e-reader. But doesn’t it seem as if the newest version of any product is always the one bought up the quickest?

Regardless, the $139 price tag is a big deal; just a year ago the Kindle was almost twice as expensive. I believe that this price drop has not been caused by competing e-readers, but by the iPad. Why would consumers buy a device that can only read books when they can get one of those fancy iPads that does everything (except support Flash) for only a couple of hundred dollars more? Yeah sure, consumers can be told that reading a novel on an LCD screen is not the same as browsing the internet or messing around with Excel spreadsheets at work, but many neither notice nor care although reading real books can be better for taking care of the eyes and you can learn more about this with eye care leadership services here. In response, ALL the e-reader manufacturers have had to compete with the Apple juggernaut. Who other than technophiles are going to be interested in the Kindle? And that same group of technophiles — at least the ones with money to burn — are definitely going to squeal over the iPad.

Perhaps Amazon is lowering the price of the Kindle because it’s following a razor and blades business model, selling its e-readers at a low price to generate a market for the Kindle Store. Whatever the reasons, e-readers are certainly reaching a mass-market price sooner than I expected. I’m just not sure they’ll ever reach mass consumption — until maybe flexible e-ink is widely available or some other unforeseen development, like people actually reading books more than their Facebook feed. A thin, flexible e-ink screen would be amazing. You could read the digital version of the New York Times, delivered to your flexible e-ink screen each morning; or flip over to your subscription of Wired or The Economist; or download the latest New York Post for a laugh. When you’re done, you can fold it up like a regular newspaper.

But if the technology were that advanced, wouldn’t it have a touch screen and enough processing power for the internet and streaming video and whatnot? It’d turn into an iPad-type device. Instead of reading novels or magazines above a 5th-grade level, they’d play Farmville 2024 and manage their fantasy teams. It boils down to how much people want to read, and I’m not sure that the average person wants to read at the expense of other entertainment.

I’m not above considering this trade-off, as I tried to allude to with my fantasy sports joke. I play video games, browse internet forums, IM people, and generally do a ton of shit other than read. An iPad device does appeal to me — just not at its current price point or level of functionality. At the moment, the Kindle is still much more enticing because it’s almost quarter of the price of Steve Jobs’ God tablet.

And, as I’ve said on here and on Twitter, I’m starting to hate all the crap I’m gathering. Books have been eating up my shelf space this year much quicker than Blu-rays, DVDs, and video games combined. I’ve really cut back on that latter group, but I’ve compensated with $25 or above mini shopping sprees on Amazon. An e-reader would eliminate a lot of future clutter, but I wouldn’t be able to lend my books to friends and, more importantly, I wouldn’t be able to exhibit them on a shelf in a vain attempt to make myself look intellectual, an impression unlikely to last if anyone looks down at my Judge Dredd or Family Guy DVDs.

For now, I think I can resist purchasing a Kindle. But once they’re selling for $99 and I’ve finished reading all of my physical books, I might just take the plunge. It’s the price point that got me to finally buy a PS2, and I remember feeling like an idiot for waiting so long.

Amazon has this set on sale for $34.99. It is the Gold Box deal of the day, apparently part of an HBO week of sales. If you are reading this on January 29, 2009, you are already too late. I’m sure no one will read this in time. It’s funny, I was going to make a post in a couple of days after I completely finished my most recent and most awesome viewing of this incredible series, so I figure I might as well make it now.

This is probably my fourth run through the show — the first in a number of years — and it’s just as great as I remembered, if not better. Some of the CGI is showing its age, not being helped by the higher resolution of Blu-ray, but such a minor quabble is outweighed by each beautiful shot that is magnified by the sharper picture. “Bastogne”, the last episode I watched, was particularly amazing. The snow, the tree bursts, the ruins of the town — everything looked better than I thought it ever could.

But the real star of the Blu-ray set is the interactive field guide. I actually turn off the interactive part while watching, letting the disc run its automated version of pop-up video that includes brief soldier bios, military information, actual training and propaganda videos from the 40s, and other cool tidbits. Basically, if you don’t own this set, you are not an American. What? You don’t own a Blu-ray player? That only adds to the evidence pointing to you not being American. You have not embraced your inner consumerist yet.

Best Buy is having its (bi?)annual 50% off HBO DVD sets sale. I put the question mark because I only seem to notice the deal around Christmas every year. I hear they do it biannually, though. And since Amazon is pretty much the greatest commercial entity ever created, they are matching Best Buy’s sale with almost every set. That means you can buy The Wire Complete Series for 90 bucks almost any which way you prefer. Other awesome deals that I highly recommend, going by their Amazon prices:

Curb Your Enthusiasm (Seasons 1-6): $15.99 each
Rome (Seasons 1 & 2): $29.99 each
Band of Brothers (Blu-ray): $37.49

Of course, there’s The Sopranos, Entourage, Deadwood, etc. I actually haven’t seen Rome, but I’m not buying it because I’m crossing for my fingers for a Blu-ray release. Gratuitous gore and nudity in HD? Yes, please.

I can’t stress enough how great Amazon’s shipping was. It was actually through a third-party shipping company, but they apparently work closely with Amazon. The delivery dude actually took his shoes off before coming in the house due to the pouring rain outside. Seriously. He wasn’t wearing white gloves, but he did put together the TV stand with me and made sure it was setup and working before he left. All free, other than the necessary tip. I mean, the dude TOOK HIS SHOES OFF. I can’t guarantee you’ll get a guy that nice, but I can say that the shipping will most likely be quick and relatively painless. And you will have an awesome HDTV in your presence for hundreds less than what you’d pay at Best Buy or Circuit City or some store that isn’t going out of business.

The HDTV light is glowingly warm and beautiful. I bask in it as much as I can. Even when I’m not watching it, I leave it on in the background on mute. I need to buy a DirecTV HD receiver for my room so I can leave one of those nature channels on as much as possible. Besides, it’s only been two weeks and I already can’t stomach watching SD content. Sitting 5 feet away from a 42″ television half of the time might have something to do with that. I would take a pic of a Blu-ray running from that perspective, but I don’t feel like picking up my laptop to take it. Not having a functioning digital camera is annoying sometimes.

I’m going to go ahead and blame this glorious new piece of electronics in my room for my lack of updates in the past two weeks. I’m sorry you had to suffer while I played Gears of War 2 and Geometry Wars 2 and watched Blade Runner and The Proposition on the best HDTV my budget could buy. And playing Audiosurf on it was a revelation. Holy crap. I want a PS3 just so I could play Wipeout HD on it, as that would be Audiosurf times ten times 1080p/60fps times infinity.

Although, that does bring me to the dilemma that my new 1080p Panasonic Viera plasma brought me. How could I have such a viewing apparatus in front of me without supplying it with Blu-ray, the best quality picture it can handle? I already did have a Dell laptop with Blu-ray built in, but without an HDMI port, it would not output 1080p to the HDTV. Yet, after watching Blade Runner both using the HDTV as a monitor and spinning it in my cousin’s PS3, I could barely tell a difference, if any. A PS3 or standalone player was not needed.

But then both my laptop screen and HDTV started going black whenever I attempted to connect them through VGA. I was on the verge of buying a standalone Blu-ray player (Sony BDP-S350) for $180. But a call to Dell fixed that quickly, as I was told a simple monitor switching shortcut. Problem solved!

Until I received my Crank Blu-ray in the mail today. My excitement fueled by the imminent viewing of one of the best-looking Blu-rays out there was destroyed when I popped the disc into my Blu-ray drive and it wouldn’t play. Days of anticipation slaughtered. Damn you, you piece of shit laptop. Wait, is it the disc? Do I need to ship it back to Deep Discount?

Tomorrow, I will find out which of the two is the answer over a friend’s house. His PS3′s reaction to the Crank Blu-ray will decide the fate of my wallet/Christmas wishlist.

Either way, I’ll still have my beautiful, shiny, black baby.

Here’s a shot I found on the internets of it:

Let’s start off with probably the least interesting site: Amazon Windowshop Beta

It has potential, but right now I end up seeing shit I don’t wish to be subjected to, such as Kenny Chesney and Toby Keith. This is due to Windowshop only displaying new releases and bestsellers. So since half of America has shit taste in music (and sports, and presidential candidates), sane people have to suffer. I think the site will improve 500% once you are able to link your Amazon account to the site. I don’t get why that isn’t the deal now.

Next is something that should’ve been done years ago: MTV Music

Come to think of it, it was done years ago. Only it was on television instead of the internet. And then it was done on YouTube. So why am I even posting about it? Maybe to show that MTV hasn’t completely forgotten what that acronym stands for.

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I saw a few posts today about this site launching, and one headline said “Every Music Video Ever”, which couldn’t be further from the truth. While I was able to find the above awesome video — quite possibly my favorite growing up — the site doesn’t even have Soundgarden’s most famous music video. That would be the one for “Black Hole Sun” if you are a dumb teenager. That is EPIC FAIL. YouTube quite obviously beats the shit out of this site, even with its horrendous quality.

I have left Pete Rose’s wet dream for last: One Season

A site where you trade professional athletes like stocks. And it’s legal. And not officially gambling. It’s all based on a free market system driven by supply and demand! Sound implausible? Why do you think the stock market is a joke right now? It’s the same fucking thing. Only instead of investing in companies run by corrupt pieces of shit, you can now invest in players that take steroids and have illegitimate children across the country. You even get $10 free to start out with! Sign me up, please.