Too Stupid To Live Tuesday: Whiny Kindle Edition
Stupid #1: The Kindle Ads
So while I've been out at the beach in Long Island visiting my family, Kindle appears to have launched an ad campaign. A Too-Stupid-To-Live ad campaign.
Now, normally I think Amazon is genius—and that's not just because I live in Seattle and I receive dividends in the form of better home prices and local economy for saying so. Amazon led the way to interwebs book buying and brought ebooks mainstream. Sure, ebooks existed before Kindles…I guess. But in 2008, when I bought my Kindle off craigslist, I wasn't aware that I could read an ebook without one.
More than any other company, Amazon made ebooks palatable to the average reader. The problem is this—people are buying iPads. But that's not really the issue. The problem is that people are reading on the Kindle app, not the Kindle itself. And once people realize they're reading on an app, they'll realize the device they're reading on is an Apple product.
And hey! Doesn't Apple have something nowadays?? What is that thing called again…oh, I know! iBooks!! iPad is not Amazon's enemy, iBooks is.
The ad campaign is dumb because it's not even addressing what Amazon actually wants to do—which is keep people buying from Amazon! instead, Amazon is whining and snarking about being able to read the Kindle in direct sunlight. Because, yeah…the average gadget buyer didn't already know you can't read a backlit device in bright sun.
…because none of us have learned this from our cell phones.
Dumn, Amazon. Dumn, dumb, dumb. Oh, and by the way—sand gets in the Kindle's page turning mechanism at the beach. You're welcome.
2. The "But eBooks Can't…(blank) Argument."
I'm getting sick of people trying to come up with excuses for why they can't read ebooks. If you prefer paper books, if you despise change, if you really, really *want* to read paper, I can't stop you. But I wish bloggers and book pundits would stop trying to manufacture reasons for ebooks' inferiority.
Today I read a blog post that cried, "But you can't bend over the page!"
Well. 0.o As if Kindle wasn't stating the obvious enough in it's "you can read it in sunlight" ad.
No, you can't fold a page. Why? Because an ereader, or device with an app, is NOT MADE OF PAPER!! It is, however, thinner, lighter, and more convenient than a giant pile of paper books. And in life, dear readers, you cannot have everything you want. Deal with it.
3. Cat Pee.
What the frak is up with cat pee!! You can't get rid of that smell to save your ever-lovin life! When we purchased our house, I noticed that the front porch smelled a bit like cat pee. I overlooked this, thinking that once the cat was gone, the smell would dissipate. No such luck. In fact, we've since torn down the porch and built a whole new one, but the scent lingers. I swear, it's in our walls.
Effin cats.
4. JFK
The airport, not the former president. I flew out of there the other day and felt like a refugee trying to escape a war torn country. Honestly, I would have been glad to arrive anywhere that was not New York, even with only the clothes on my back. I half expected to be given a new name when I touched down in Seattle, and to be carted off to work in an industrial-revolution-era factory.
5. Borders Nostalgia
I can't remember the last time I went into a half-decent Borders. Oh yeah—it was circa 2000 in Kona, Hawaii. That was a nice Borders. Since then, every one I've been to had all the ambiance of an Office Depot. Walking into a Borders in the past few years gave me a sick, slightly embarrassed feeling—partially embarrassed for the people working there, and partially for myself for having made the mistake of stepping through the doors, and then feeling so guilty that I felt like I had to buy something.
And I felt this way for years before I knew the company was in trouble. It was like watching an injured animal die and slow and painful death in the middle of the road. I'm not entirely sure I can be sad when the poor thing is finally out of it's misery.
And there you have it folks. My five Too Stupid To Live stories of the week. What're yours?
