Okay, we have a “Lite-Brite” and a Fisher-Price “Made by Me! Spin ’n Spiral Doodler” and they came with templates for paper/patterns. I always lose those things, so I scanned them and here are the PDFs:

Lite-Brite Template

Made by Me! Spin ’n Spiral Doodler Template

These are mostly for my use, but other parents can download them, too.

I never thought I’d say this about the closing of a big box retailer, but I’m sad about the Borders closing.

I grew up within bike distance of a public library: the Wells Library, in my home town of Lafayette. The library was a frequent destination for me on summer days. I would ride my bike there and hang out in the stacks all the time. I still love library stacks. I love the smell of the aging books. I love discovering hidden gems on the shelves. I love the sounds of the library. The hushed voices. The hum of the air conditioning and the click of shoes on terrazzo floors. It’s more than merely the love of reading, it’s a love of the experience. The thrill of the hunt, with the reward of a great book. Which is why I also love bookstores.

There aren’t many things I like about my hometown. But one of them is a bookstore: Von’s Books. Von’s books was much like a library to me. It was a little further out of reach, so I had to be taken there as a kid–and fortunately my mother is a reader, too. Von’s is the kind of overstocked independent bookseller you might see in a charming romantic comedy. It’s homey. It’s dusty. The shelfs are bursting with books and it seems there are stacks of to-be-shelved inventory all over the place. I loved that I could get lost in the shelves there just like the stacks at the library. I also loved that every time I needed help finding something, I had to go to the counter at the front of the store where the clerk could almost always be found with their nose in a book.

That was never my experience with the big box booksellers, like Borders or Barnes & Noble. Sure, they had row after row of books. Sometimes their stores seemed bigger to me than the library I remember from my childhood. They had friendly clerks, roaming the stores and keeping the shelves tidy. The difference was that when I wanted to ask about a book or an author or ask for a recommendation, it was a crapshoot. Some clerks were readers. Bookstores attract people who want an employee discount, I’m sure. But more often than not, the clerk would need to run off to a computer terminal to answer my questions. It was often clear to me that this was a job to them. Just a job. I want my bookstore to be staffed by people who read voraciously and who love books, not just people who need a job.

I hated Borders for other reasons, too. In college, I was in Bloomington, Indiana, which had an indie bookstore by the name of Morgensterns. I loved Morgenstern’s. My friend and I would go there to hang out. It wasn’t as musty and dusty as Von’s, but they had a good selection and a staff that seemed to know and love books. Then Borders opened. It was offensive to me. It wasn’t just that Borders was a “big box” chain store. It was that they chose for their location a space in the very same shopping center, just a few doors down from Morgensterns. There was no doubt in my mind then, nor is there now, that Borders wanted to put Morgensterns out of business, pure and simple. And they did. I don’t think it was even a year before Morgensterns closed their doors.

So I can’t say I wasn’t the tiniest bit happy when I first started hearing about Borders problems. Karma, man, it’s a bitch. But I guess I thought that like many corporations facing grim realities in a digital age they’d find a way to get by. Downsize, maybe, but come out still chugging along. I had hope when it looked like Books-A-Million might come in and scoop up their remaining stores. The notion that their stores are worth more liquidated rather than open, selling books to the public, really makes my heart ache. No bookseller is worth more closed. None.

In my current hometown, Oak Park, Borders occupies a prominent anchor store position near a busy intersection downtown. We aren’t without other fantastic bookstore options in Oak Park. Down the street from Borders is The Book Table, where the people staffing the store read books and where a book lover always feels welcome. We also have The Magic Tree–which is a favorite of my daughter. I pay more for books at both of those stores than I would on Amazon because I know I’m paying for more than just a book. I’m paying to have them stay in the community, to keep my town the kind of town I want to live in and the kind of town I want my daughter to grow up in. I’m happy to do so and I’m happy to support these local businesses.

Because of that and my feelings about Borders, you might think I’d be happy about their closing. But I’m not. I’m sad. Really sad. I’m sad because of the people Borders closing will put out of work. I’m sad because of empty storefront that will occupy that busy corner in my town. I’m sad because there’s one less outlet for publishers to promote authors to the masses. But most of all, I’m sad because there’s one less bookstore to haunt in my hometown.

About a month ago, I sold my original iPad. I knew I’d want an iPad2, since a forward facing camera was the one feature I *really* wanted on the old iPad. I’ve actually been going through iPad withdrawal since I sold it–I wasn’t able to pick up an iPad on launch day, and my order through the Apple on-line store wasn’t supposed to ship until the end of April.

But I’d read that Apple stores got shipments in daily (although it’s a crapshoot on the models they get) so I decided to give it a shot. I got in line at the Schaumburg store just before 9:00AM, and by 9:30ish I was walking out with my new iPad2! Awesome luck! (Your mileage may vary!)

So yesterday I had a chance to play with it, so here’s my take:

Size
It is, without a doubt, lighter and thinner. It’s more comfortable to hold up for reading and laying with on the couch or in bed. It’s not like the old iPad was a brick, but the new svelte body style is a nice touch.

Speed
It’s faster. No question. The interface actually feels about the same–maybe a little snappier–but apps load much faster. So no complaints. Network performance is fine, seems about the same to me. I have a wi-fi only version so I can’t speak to 3G performance. (I’m not giving telcos any more of my damn money for craptastic service when free wi-fi is never more than spitting distance away in a major city like Chicago. So F* You, AT&T)

Screen
Meet the new screen; Same as the old screen. I *really* wish they’d up the resolution with a retina display, but c’est la vie.

Cameras
Oh yeah, baby. The cameras are pretty nice. Are they going to replace my DSLR? Uh, no. But it’s really nice to have the ability to take snapshots and record video with it. And I loves the facetime. And Skype. I do think Skype needs to bring out an “HD (read: iPad optimized) App” before it will be really cool, but damn, being able to video conference from the couch is exactly what I was looking for. Couldn’t be happier with that.

Smart Cover
Meh. Yeah, the magnet alignment and clip on thing is cool… but I wanted black, and didn’t really want leather. So that kind of sucked. I also hate that the cover offers no protection for the back of the iPad. At all. None. Zip. Zilch. Oooh… it rolls up so you can prop it up! So f’ing what? You know how often I roll it up to prop the iPad up on a table? Yeah, never. I’m always holding it. Yes, it’s cool that it senses when you close the cover (F’ing magents! How do they work?) and puts the iPad to sleep, but overall, this falls solidly into lame territory for me. I’m going to skin the thing anyway for body protection from scratches, etc. And hopefully the 3rd Party cases will have more to offer soon, but I’d say skip the “Smart Cover” unless you really want a fairly expensive screen cover that has some cool magnets.

And there you have it. The iPad2: Slightly Thinner. Slightly Lighter. Slightly Faster. Finally, cameras! And a “meh” cover.

Update: Now that I’ve been using it more, I have to say I actually hate the “Smart Cover”. It’s anything but smart. Yes, it fits the front of the iPad very nicely. And at first glance, it’s cool the way it rolls up. But there are some serious flaws.

First, you know how it lines up perfectly over the screen? Well, with the iPad’s tapered body, that means it does not line up perfectly when you fold it over the back (i.e. when you’re using the iPad). It hangs over just enough to be incredibly annoying.

Second, the magnets on the front and sides line it up great. Too bad there is no magnet on the back, which means when you fold it over, again, to use the iPad, the “smart” cover kind of flops off, constantly getting in the way if you switch hands to hold it.

The “Smart Cover” is a perfect example of style over function. The concept is “wow” and at first look, you think, “gee that is nifty.” Then you start using it and you wonder if the people who designed it ever actually used it themselves, in real world situations, or if they just sat around stroking each other over how cool it looks.

Yeah, it looks cool. But it doesn’t protect a full 50% of the iPad, and it’s annoying as hell in practical, everyday use. Don’t give Apple a dime for the “Smart Cover” and go with a third-party option instead. Trust me.

Last week, I wrote up my experiences on the Boxee Box vs. Roku and I mentioned that one of the frustrating limitations of the Roku was the inability to view local media stored on my NAS (Network Area Storage) box. I also mentioned that it was primarily the lack of live sports events (being married to a Buckeye) that keeps me from giving up Satellite.

Well, a friend suggested that I give PlayOn (www.playon.tv) a try. So I did. The conclusion? PlayOn is not ready for prime time, but there is potential there.

To give you some background, I have a pretty robust network environment at home. My wireless devices are all 802.11N with good performance, and the NAS sits on a 1GB switch. Netflix and Hulu both stream like champs to my Roku.

PlayOn requires a “server” that runs on a PC on your network. Once that is installed, you can connect to it with other devices (iPhone/iPad, Roku, XBox, etc.) and stream a number of different channels. The idea was pretty appealing, because you can stream content from ESPN, ESPNIII, PBS Kids, etc. It’s an interesting selection–and channels that we watch a lot in our house (PBS Kids, especially). There is also a feature that lets you stream your local media files (well, almost).

Installing the PlayOn server on the PC was easy. It was also very easy to get the channel installed on the Roku. Sadly, though, that’s where PlayOn stopped performing.

First up, we tried to watch Mr. Roger’s Neighborhood, on the PBS Kid’s channel. It took forever to start the stream, and then, before the video started, an error popped up that the media file was “unavailable or an unsupported format”. What? An unsupported format? It’s their system. Okay, so we tried another episode. Same thing. Frustrating.

We decided to move on and try another channel. We tried Cartoon Network, and I just tried a cartoon at random. Another annoyance: it started playing an ad, but the buffer ran out before the ad was finished. So, it replayed the ad from the beginning. Three times. This was to be a constant problem. Finally, the program started and it played OK.

The final network TV test was Comedy Central. I queued up an episode of the Colbert Report. After watching the same ad three times in a row, the video started to play. Then, about 1.5 seconds later, the audio started to play. It remained out of sync for several minutes when I just got so annoyed I gave up.

I would be more forgiving of these issues if I thought it were a problem with my setup, but since I regularly use Netflix streaming and Hulu Plus–both of which are awesome, I’m pretty sure all of the issues with streaming were problems with PlayOn. And considering most of the potential users of PlayOn are probably also users of either Netflix or Hulu, I would say PlayOn has a way to go in improving their software if they want people to pay for their service.

Overall, the network programming was a big fail. So I decided to try the local media option. In fairness, PlayOn makes it very clear this feature is in Beta. So I really can’t fault PlayOn that it did not work for me at all. I do have an atypical setup, too, in that I have a NAS box where I store my media, so I’ll cut PlayOn some slack.

In the end, I’m still stoked about the potential for a product like PlayOn, which would let me stream individual network television. We watch very little broadcast television in our house, limited to about five channels with any regularity. If we could subscribe to a service that allowed us access to that content, and found a way around the live sporting events, we’d drop satellite/cable in a heartbeat. So listen up PlayOn: the market is there! PlayOn isn’t priced bad at all: $3.50 per month. If it worked, I’d gladly pay that. However, based on my experience with PlayOn so far, it’s not work any money at all. Yet. If they fix their software issues, or a competitor comes along with software that works well, that could easily change.

So, now that I have a little one at home (well, have for a while) I decided I should have some life insurance. Not a lot, but enough so that should something happen to me (god forbid) my wife and baby wouldn’t be thrown into complete economic turmoil. Anyway, today, I got an e-mail from the insurance underwriter. It said,
“I am in receipt of your application and there is a question that did not get answered. Just as a reminder to continue the process of your application all requirements must be completed.

To avoid delay in processing your application please answer the following question below:
Is any person to be insured now pregnant?”

I honestly wasn’t sure how to respond to that. You see, *I* am the person to be insured on the application. The only person to be insured. The only person on the application. The application which also asked my sex.
Was it really necessary to ask me that question? The underwriter couldn’t have just checked “no” and went on with her day, and not interrupted mine? Okay. Whatever. So I responded:

“Since I’m the person to be insured, I can assure you, I am not pregnant. ”

I thought that would be the end of it. But no. They wrote back. Telling me, “we cannot leave any questions unanswered.” So I had to respond with:

“Is any person to be insured now pregnant? No.”

Seriously. When did people stop thinking–or being allowed to think on the job. I could understand needing clarification if the question were ambiguous. Or could have any possible answer. But needing to ask a *male* applicant for an insurance policy if he could be pregnant??! This is why America is going to hell in a handbasket.

So, I’m watching the Bears… not something I would normally be doing (I grew up in Indiana… where basketball is king). Anyway, a commercial came on for NFL.com, and I noticed the background music sounded familiar. So I rewound and replayed it… sure enough, it was Everyday is Like Sunday, by Morrissey. I am an alternative child of the 80s, so Morrissey and the Smiths were a huge part of my high school existence. I understand whoever picked the tune was being cute… it’s not Morrissey’s version, and they conveniently fade out after the lyric “everyday is like Sunday…” which is a good idea, since the next line is, “everyday is silent and grey.”

Well, I was not going to blog about American Idol. My favorite part of the show is the schadenfreude of the “audition” portion of the show. Plus, last week I cringed as the dorks (for the most part) butchered some of the greatest music of all time.

So, imagine my shock and horror when I found out they were doing The Beatles *again* tonight! I just can’t hold back…

Amanda Overmyer
Yes, the “Lafayette” she mentioned is in Indiana and happens to be my home town. But she is such a one-trick pony… last week she was barely tolerable, this week, I wanted her to do Helter Skelter… instead she butchered Back in the USSR.

Kristy Lee Cook
I decided last week, when she destroyed Eight Days a Week in some sort of Grand Ole Opry train wreck, that I hated her. This week, I still hate her. She murdered You’ve Got to Hide Your Love Away. She couldn’t pick a key. She couldn’t hit actual notes. Do not mess with *The Beatles* melodies. She simply cannot sing and is so boring. Please, go.

David Archuleta
It wasn’t his greatest performance, but this kid is really likable… and he’s much better doing thoughtful, slower songs. The Long and Winding Road isn’t my favorite either, but he sang it well.

Michael Johns
A Day in the Life bastardized and chopped down into 1:30? Dude, who thought that would work???! An uninspired performance and a horrible arrangement. I appreciate that he dedicated it to his friend, but it was a pretty bad performance.

Brook White
Oh, poor George. He doesn’t get the credit he deserves for writing some truly excellent songs. And worse, people do things like this… oh, what an abomination. And seriously, every time she opens her mouth, I like her less. Considering I didn’t really like her to begin with, she should shut up. Bottom three? Fingers crossed!

David Cook
Clearly one of the most talented–even if is resorting to ripping off Whitesnake. Seriously, Whitesnake??? But he is consistently entertaining and did a pretty good job. The “Frampton” effect was super cheesy… and I just. don’t. like. him. I couldn’t put my finger on it until Simon called him “smug,” and then I realized that’s it… he comes off as a real smug guy… more full of himself than his performances so far warrant. He’s clearly talented, but he just rubs me the wrong way. So I don’t really want to see him go very far.

Carly Smithson
Great song, pretty well sung. It wasn’t a “blow me away” performance, but it was solid.

Jason Castro
Well, I’m not going to give him much credit for being smart… but his rendition of Hallelujah was pretty great a few weeks ago, and he did a decent job on Michelle. He’s the exact opposite of Cook–he’s not smug at all–he’s just plain goofy. And I’ll take a reasonably talented goofball over a reasonably talented jerk anyday.

Syesha Mercado
Yawn. This girl is so cute… and so dull. What did she sing again? It was 30 seconds ago and I’ve already forgotten!! Oh, yeah, Yesterday… beautiful song, pretty girl, utterly forgetable performance.

Chickezie
Well, last week, he *tore up* She’s a Woman. I mean, it was actually really awesome. This week, he tried the same formula, on I’ve Just Seen a Face (not a great Paul song to begin with) and it just didn’t work as well. I still like the guy.

Ramiele Malubay
There’s got to be one true karaoke performance per show. This was it… Bad. High school talent show bad. Karaoke bad. This should land her in the bottom three…

Update: So Amanda was booted… not too surprising. At least Kristy Lee Cook was in the bottom three again! Amanda was really a one-trick pony, so her time was short anyway, I doubt she’ll be missed.