The Chronic Consumer

I pre-ordered a new Kindle 3G for my mom back in August, but it still hasn’t shipped yet. I knew I would be waiting, but I didn’t think it would be this long. The Amazon homepage now says that orders placed today will be delivered in “mid-September”. That’s just a couple weeks away, which means my mom’s Kindle ought to be shipping SOON, right? But I haven’t gotten an email or any other updates from Amazon letting me know what’s going on.

As for me, I’m still plodding along with my K-1. I’ve thought about upgrading, especially since the price has dropped all the way to $139, but can’t really justify the purchase since my old Kindle works flawlessly. If I do get a new e-reader, it’ll be one that can read DRM-protected PDF files so I can “borrow” books from the library. Kindle can’t do that, but that’s a feature I really, REALLY want.

One thing I absolutely love about the iPad is its capacity for colorful, interactive children’s books. I want my son to derive some real enjoyment from reading, but that just isn’t happening with traditional books. If it takes interactive stories like the Jack and the Beanstalk app for the iPhone/iPad to get him to spend a half hour with a book, then so be it.

This classic story was created in its interactive form by Ayars Animation, Inc. and sells for $3.99, which I think is an absolute bargain for the product you get. Jack’s story of the magic beans is told across more than 30 screens, and can be read by a narrator or not (as you choose). When selecting the on-board narration, the current words and phrases are highlighted to help your child learn to read along — a terrific feature for beginning readers.

The best part of the book is that each page is fully interactive. That means the child can tap different parts of the illustration (or even tilt the iPad) to make various things happen. For instance, the child can “drag” the sun across the horizon to make day turn into night; tap different farm animals (pig, cow, chickens) to hear them make their animal noises; or even play mini games that pop up. The best page is a black & white one that can be “painted” as the child moves his finger along the image. So much fun for kids!

Overall, I think Jack and the Beanstalk for iPhone/iPad is one of the best interactive books currently available. It is well worth the $3.99 price tag, and will keep your child engaged for a long time. I highly recommend this app!

A few months ago, I’d been having some trouble with my feet. I didn’t visit a doctor or anything, so I can’t be 100 percent sure what the problem was, but it felt like arch pain from having lack of proper support in my shoes. To make things even worse, the summer was coming up, which meant I’d be wearing flip-flops, slides, and sandals — none of which are known for great arch support.

Instead of risking even more damage to my feet, I decided to buy a really good pair of sandals and stick to them for the whole summer. After much shopping around and research, I settled on these Nike Rejuven8 Mules. I read a ton of reviews saying how comfortable these mules were, how much support they provided, etc. and decided to try them out for myself.

I’ve had them for about 2 months, but waited to write this review because I wanted to make sure I would be exposed to everything about the shoes before rendering a final judgment. For now, I can say that they’re amazing!

The Nike Rejuven8 Mules are every bit as comfortable as I expected. They have feature the newish Torch technology, which is essentially a three-layer design that consists of a rubber diamond pattern to help the shoe hold its shape, and a couple of mesh-like inner layers that help wick moisture away to keep your foot cool and dry. Whatever the technology actually consists, of it’s great! One thing I’ve noticed is that my mules do not have any creases in the body like regular shoes get from where the shoe bends as you walk. They look really good still, even after two months of daily use.

The inner lining of the shoe has little bumps all over it (sorry, I don’t know the technical term), which serve to massage your feet as you walk. This takes a bit of time to get used to, though. At first I thought the inner was rather painful after using the shoe for a long period of time. But now I think it feels very good. The inner is also removable so you can clean it, which is definitely a plus when you’re talking about sandals.

If I had to single out one thing that I don’t like about the Rejuven8 Mules, it’s the white soles. They just get so dirty and nasty looking after a while!

Overall, I think the Nike Rejuven8 Mule is one of the best summer/casual shoes on the market. They’re a little too casual to wear even to dress-down days at your office administration job, but they’re great for weekends or errands. At a retail price of around $70, they’re quite expensive; however, the price is offset by how extremely comfortable and durable they are. I have a feeling they’ll last me two or three summers at least, making the price worth it. This shoe is highly recommended!

Spectrum Spelling Grade 2 essentially begins where the Grade 1 book leaves off. The Grade 2 workbook gives children even more practice with difficult vowel sounds and other phonetic combinations, while also improving composition skills through various writing exercises.

What I particularly like about Grade 2 is the section called “Words Across the Curriculum”, which introduces kids to words from different school subjects. For instance, there are math words such as “cube”, “length”, and “circle”, social studies words such as “town”, “found”, and “crown”, and science words such as “shore”, “sea”, and “shadow”. Learning words from different curriculum areas is an important skill, so I’m glad that it’s emphasized here.

My son is slowly working his way through this book after finishing the first grade book rather quickly. Based on the results so far, I’m definitely going to buy Grade 3 in the series as well!

I don’t have a huge collection of baseball-style hats. I usually just have two or three that I rotate when I’m going to be out in the sun or when I’m too lazy to do anything with my hair other than pull it into a ponytail. I recently had to retire one of my hats because it was just looking disgusting (sweat stains, etc.) and decided I would get a Blackhawks hat this time around. I’ve never had a Hawks hat, but found this cool-looking one with the Tomahawk logo. I love it!

The first thing I look for in a hat is whether or not it’s adjustable. I hate fitted caps because there’s no hole for me to fit my ponytail through, and I cannot wear hats without a ponytail. This particular hat, which is from ’47 Brand, by the way, is adjustable. I don’t especially like the buckle-style strap, but whatever. It works.

Next, I look at the shape of the crown. The one on this hat is perfect because it’s right in the middle of that totally slouched look and the opposite (not really sure what it’s called, but it’s when the hat looks stiff and pre-shaped). This middle ground provides a very nice, comfortable fit.

And finally, I consider the color and logo. You can’t go wrong with black, and I personally love the Blackhawks tomahawk logo. I think it’s great on hats and isn’t completely overused like the team’s main Indian head logo.

I bought this Tomahawk logo hat online for about $23, and am very happy with it. I can totally recommend it without reservation to any Blackhawks fan out there!

Here are the product specs if you’re interested:

• 100% cotton twill
• Relaxed, garment-washed cap
• Raised Chicago Blackhawks ‘Tomahawk’ logo embroidered on the crown
• Six sewn ventilation eyelets
• Decorated in the team colors
• Adjustable fabric strap
• Officially licensed
• Made in USA

One of the products I allowed myself to buy after the Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup was this Patrick Kane Stanley Cup Finals Locker Room Tee. It’s from Reebok, and is pretty cool, IMO. As you can see from the pic, it says “Blackhawks Hockey” in white across the front, and also features the player’s number, Hawks Indian Head logo, Reebok logo, and NHL shield. The left sleeve has the Stanley Cup Finals logo, and the back has the player’s name and number.

These are the same shirts the players wore in the locker room during the series, and is where I first noticed them. I actually wanted a hooded sweatshirt instead, but didn’t want to spend that much money. This tee was around $22; the hoodies were considerably more expensive.

Anyway, I love this shirt. It is extremely comfortable and has been through the wash several times already without showing any ill effects. It’s one of my favorites for sure! I highly recommend it to any fan who wants something to commemorate the Stanley Cup win. I believe other available players include Toews, Hossa, Keith, Seabrook, and Sharp, so pick your fave and order a shirt now.

As soon as the Chicago Blackhawks won the Stanley Cup back in June, I started shopping for a few commemorative items in celebration of the championship. One of the products I pre-ordered from Amazon was this Blu-ray disc featuring some highlights from the 2009-10 season. According to the product details over at the official NHL Shop, this disc would feature:

• Full coverage of the winning season
• Exclusive interviews
• Behind-the-scenes action
• Includes footage of the celebratory parade
• Approx. Run Time: 120 minutes

Sounds good, right? But actually, the “full coverage of the winning season” bit was not true at all. The disc just glossed over the entire regular season in less than 10 minutes, showing only a few highlights, such as footage from the team’s opening games in Finland (which were already available on the Blackhawks website anyway), the come-from-behind victory over the Flames in October, the Mitchell hit on Toews that put him out for a few weeks, and Hossa’s return from shoulder surgery. I mean, I wasn’t expecting highlights from all 82 games, but that was skimpy.

Things picked up a bit for the playoff run, but even there, the highlights were lacking and felt rushed, particularly for the Nashville, Vancouver, and San Jose series. They showed only a few goals from each series, and the narration barely set up the scenarios. As a result, what should have been some dramatic moments were again merely glossed over and came across as kinda dull.

The Stanley Cup Finals received the bulk of the coverage, as expected, with very detailed highlights from all six games. This part of the Blu-ray was superb.

The extra features weren’t that great, particularly since most of the stuff can be called up on YouTube. The features about Toews and Kane’s draft days were excellent, though. It was amazing to watch those scenes knowing how those picks would pay off so quickly.

Also, the back of my Blu-ray packaging (which is EXTREMELY flimsy and CHEAP, btw) says that this disc is 250 minutes long. That is nowhere near the truth, though. I think they must be including the “exclusive features via BD Live” in that time estimate. The season/playoff recap is only an hour and three minutes, and the extras are anywhere from 3-8 minutes each. The BD Live stuff was basically just short features that are available on the NHL.com website. Again, nothing special there, and these clips definitely should not have counted towards the overall running time.

Overall, I feel that $24.99 was a bit steep for what this Blu-ray contains. I think $19.99 would be a much more appropriate price — and someone really needs to address the inaccurate advertising in the product description on the NHL Shop website!!

There aren’t that many iPad apps that I would actually pay for, but I’d heard that they have a few terrific interactive children’s books available, including The Cat in the Hat by Dr. Seuss. I checked out the app, saw that it was only $3.99 and that it had excellent reviews, and decided to purchase it for my son. I was not disappointed!

This book plays beautifully on the full iPad screen. There are three different settings (Read to Me, Read It Myself, and Auto Play) to take you through the entire book. In Read to Me mode, the narrator reads for you, highlighting each group of words as they’re being spoken to make it easier to follow along. You swipe across the screen to “turn” the page when necessary. Read It Myself mode should be self-explanatory. In Auto Play mode, the narration and page turns are fully automated.

In addition to the three reading modes, each page is interactive, which means you can touch various parts of the picture and have the narrator say what the object is (e.g. “ball”, “fish”, “Thing 1″, etc.).

This kind of interactive book is a wonderful way to help kids learn to read. My son, who was unable to read this book on his own before, can already read half of it by himself after spending just a couple days practicing with the app. Moreover, the colors come through beautifully on the iPad, and make this app definitely worth the $3.99. Highly recommended!