Ugly Holiday Sweater/T-Shirt

We live in an age of irony and not even something as pure as Christmas can escape it's reach.  The once popular, then maligned, and now popular again because it was so maligned seems to apply in just about every aspect of our lives.  The hipsters are running wild with their horn-rimmed glasses, fedoras, vintage camera apps that (according to some) "ruin" perfectly good digital photos, and a fear of sincerely actually liking pretty much anything.  I have to admit, I am not immune to the rise of this wanna-beatnik culture.  I love my camera filters, I often where non-baseball type hate--though in my defense I was doing that before it was cool to be uncool--and I listen to Mumford & Sons on a regular basis.

As I mentioned in my opening line, even Christmas, a time of sincerity and earnestness, is not immune.  After it's decline in the late 20th Century, we have in recent years been witness to the return of what was once a Christmas party staple:  the ugly holiday sweater.  You know the kind I mean.  Loud, garish cable-knits with giants snowflakes or Christmas trees or snowmen embroidered on them.  Something your grandmother made for you in the late 70's or early 80's and you did your best to hide your extreme disappointment after opening the package Christmas morning.  I remember a having a couple of these as a kid and was never a fan.  Not only is it not the coolest thing to be seen wearing homemade clothes, even as a seven year old, but they never fit right, made you itch like you've got fleas, and transformed you into an uncomfortable sweaty mess while sitting in a packed church for a Christmas Eve service.

But in recent years the ugly holiday sweater has returned with a vengeance, even spawning their own social gatherings.  Its' not uncommon in this hipster age to get an invite to an Ugly Holiday Sweater party, each party goer trying to out ugly their friends.  Despite not being a huge wearer of sweaters generally, and for the reasons mentioned, holiday sweaters in particular, the hipster in me could not be suppressed and I told my wife I wanted to get myself a knitted bit of holiday cheer.

However, thanks to the good folks at Woot!, I found an even better option.  The ugly holiday sweater t-shirt!  All of the ugliness, none of the itch!  And what better way to be even more ironic then with an ironic take on an ironic classic.  Yay irony!

Woot! has a number of colors and designs to choose from, featuring most of the iconic holiday images from the sweaters of old.  I went with a stylish navy blue bearing the faux-stitched likeness of a couple of reindeer and the ubiquitous snowflake emblazoned in the center.  Available in both long and short sleeved, I went with the long sleeved, as its more of a winter item and to make it seem more sweater-like.

So if you're inner-hipster is crying out for some holiday fashion that will still be acceptable to all your handlebar mustache wearing cronies down at the coffee shop, but would rather skip the inevitable hives breakout from a woolen fleece, the ugly holiday sweater t-shirt is the choice for you.  Check 'em out.

Kindle Fire

Desperately desiring to be on the cutting edge of...book reading...I saved up my birthday cash/gift cards and got myself the latest in rectangular computing devices, the Kindle Fire (which, if you haven't heard, can do a whole lot more than read books).  I've had it for just about a week now, and so far am glad I made the investment.  Here's a quick breakdown:

Aesthetically, its a slick little contraption.  Elegantly black, it has a rubberized back surface which is comfy to grip and keeps it from slipping off surfaces.  Since it's a touch pad device, there is only one physical  button, the power button.  While that keeps the clutter down, a physical volume control would be nice.  The LCD screen seems durable enough, and I hear tell its made of something called Gorilla Glass which is supposedly uber-resistant to scratches and such.  I like the size, though some may prefer something larger along the lines of an iPad.  It's 7.5x4.7, which is the perfect size to fit in my back or cargo pocket of my pants/shorts.  The display itself is seven inches diagonal.

I've already had a couple people ask me if its better than an iPad, but that's kinda like comparing apples and oranges.  Or maybe tangerines and oranges.  The Kindle Fire is somewhere between an e-reader and a full featured tablet.  The iPad is capable I'm sure of doing more than the Kindle Fire, but I'm not so sure about $250 to $400 more.  The iPad commercials like to show Appleostles recording albums, painting masterpieces, editing movies, and performing other such wonders on the latest model, but let's be honest here for a second.  What is it that we actually do on our tablets?  Watch Netflix, listen to music, surf the web, read books, and play games.  Am I right?  Be honest.  The Kindle Fire does all that, and very well.

Pair it with Amazon Prime ($70 a year) and it's tough to beat in those fields in my opinion.  With Prime you get a Netflixish video library for free, free access to the Kindle Lending Library, 5GB of free storage in the Cloud, plus free two day shipping on almost anything from Amazon.com.  I thought Prime was worth it before just for the free shipping.

You can view most of your documents (PDF, Word, Excel, what have you), but at this point anyway, I don't know that you could do much actual creating.  Even if I had an iPad, I don't know that I'd use it to type substantive documents, as virtual keyboards can be exceedingly frustrating.  I hate editing video even on my laptop.  Give me a desktop for those jobs.

There are some minuses.  The aforementioned volume control buttons would be nice.  You can't customize your homescreen much, which is a little odd.  At about 7GB it has less storage than an iPad or a Barnes & Noble Nook, though with the Nook that is somewhat deceiving.  The newest Nooks have 16GB of storage, but only 1GB of that is available for user created content.  The other 15GB have to be used for content purchased from B&N.  Lame.  An SD card slot on the Fire would be a plus as well.  The app selection is not nearly as wide as the  iPad, but since it's brand new I'd wager it won't be long before a lot more will be available.  But it does have Angry Birds!

If you plan on using your tablet-esque device for creating content, you have the extra $400 to throw around, and are looking to join the Cult of Steve, then an iPad or similar is probably more in your wheelhouse.  Godspeed to you on your quest.  But, if you plan on mainly consuming content and like having extra money in your bank account, I say Fire away!  See what I did there...with the Fire......?