WARNING: I started writing my “review” of the Kindle, and got into so much backstory that it turned into a bit of a novel, so it’s gonna be a two-parter. (But for now you can appreciate my Tennyson-esque poetic style and ambitious author-esque posturing.)

Leo is a huge technophile, possibly one of the hugest. He’s the one who watches the Keynotes as they’re being live blogged, and who manages to score an invite to every new hot site in beta, and was on line for the iPhone after fantasizing about it for months. Being the way he is, it brings him the greatest pleasure to buy the latest and greatest of gadgets, even if at the most basic level, the gadget doesn’t interest him. He buys them so he could play with them, get to know them, and advise people who ask him for his humble opinion (because everyone who knows him immediately pegs him as the “tech guy.”)

Here’s why I’m lucky: because I am in love with this man, it is me who gains all the positive externalities associated with his being such a tech geek. As a young college student with a modest background and a traditional (read: frugal, very) family, I don’t usually have money to throw at delicious gadgets, especially at the rate at which they come to market, no matter how much I work (a lot) or how much money I earn (very not a lot).

In this situation (read: heaven) I get to play with his iPhone, his Wii, a slew of tried briefly and discarded cell phones, the entire third Adobe Creative Suite, a Macbook Pro, and NOW….

The Amazon Kindle.

This is especially immersed in AWESOME because at an equivalent level to his technophilia, I am the biggest bibliophile on the planet. I don’t know if it works the same everywhere, but in my elementary school, starting from Kindergarten, we would receive these “book order” slips. It was a special wholesale type deal that Scholastic had with New York City public schools, where the teacher would distribute a one page catalog sheet of the latest and most popular Scholastic kids books. You wouldn’t believe how much I yearned for these books, and how much trouble my parents had denying me the money to buy the richly colored books I saw on that catalog sheet. Back in the day, my family situation was such that a picture book that cost $3.95 was too expensive. (Presently, this makes sense, as my mother used to earn $5.00/hour working at a grocery store while consequently spending $3.00/ hour for my “babysitter.”) Every month, though, I was allowed to order the “special,” the one book that was always 95 cents. And no matter what it was, I would get excited about it and wait anxiously for the book order to arrive. As such, years later, my brother inherited one of the largest collections of “101 (fill in the blank) Jokes” books ever.

When I was in the second grade, my teacher took us to the public library as a field trip. When the librarian explained that, with a little card, I could borrow as many books as I wanted, and for free, I fell in love. I know pretty much every book on my local library’s shelves and the library has been a trusted and true friend to me ever since. Books, in general, are my favoritest, most favorite objects on the planet.

Enter technology!

The Amazon Kindle is an electronic book reader that initially garnered a lot of press because, duh, it’s Amazon, one of the world’s largest first and second-hand physical book retailers, entering the digital book marketplace. The evolution makes perfect sense, and the buzz it generated was colossal, aided by the fact that not too recently before the announcement was made, Sony released their own well-received e-book reader. The competition was going to be hot.

Judging by the 6 hours it took them to sell out of it after its official debut just before Christmas, and the fact that it was still on back order several weeks into January, Amazon seems off to a good start.

And so am I, because I get to play with it until I pass out (or it gets boring, whichever comes first!).

Leo received his Kindle in the mail yesterday, and after both taking the time to appreciate the super cute box that it came in (it looked like a book! Aaaaaww) we cracked it open and he let me get my grubby paws on it first. Isn’t he a gentleman?!

First Impressions:

Coooooool.

More in-depth impressions:

—Coming soon, I gotta play with it a bit more, really wrap my brain around it. (Am I a disappointing blogger? Will you still love me, all 2 readers?)