Bastard Child of Parchment?

Gentlemen,

Like Brother Colin aka Count Von Pluma I too have been spending rather a lot of my time over the past few weeks on Amazon.com; purchasing Christmas gifts for friends and family whilst wearing nothing more than a pair of hand-made Mongolian silk boxers...and sometimes nothing but the suit that God gave me!

During one of my numerous visits to the website I came across Amazon's new "e-book" reading device, called Kindle. I read the descriptions, checked out the specs, and watched some of the short video clips. I have to say that I was impressed at how cool the Kindle looked and performed. The fact that no matter where you are, you can download any book, magazine, blog, or newspaper in less than 30 seconds without a subscription, seems pretty darn sweet to me.

However, the real question about this device, and whether it will be successful has nothing to do with how it looks or performs; it's about breaking the mold, and forcing people to do what previous attempts have failed at, making people read a book on screen.

Here is a quote from a very interesting article I happened upon during my research for this post, which I think makes a good point, "The reason the iPod took off is that music was never meant to be a “thing” in the first place. It was born as pure sound, and pure sound is what it has returned to. But books were always physical objects, and the printed book as a piece of technology has yet to be improved upon. And won’t. Certainly not by something that looks like a prop from Charlie’s Angels and has, are you ready, a whopping ONE typeface."

As a tribe of men bonded by our love for all things parchment, I was curious to hear how everyone in the group feels about e-books in general, and whether or not we should make steps to ban their use in the MOP?!?

New Members

Gentleman, I feel we must commence blogging on new membership. We can discuss member criteria and potential candidates here. Do we have any criteria written down already? I would like to propose the Old Boy as our first elected member...Dad would be an immense contributor and enthusiastic member of our club. He would provide a new perspective full of experience and wisdom we do not yet have.

Also, I propose that we create some sort of initiation for our new members. Something that would form a bond of unbreakable proportion. Honestly I think a very discreet branding of the letters MOP would be excellent...something we could all do. Nothing flashy or visible, just permanent. Commence blogging!

P.S. Colin or Tys, still waiting on that next book selection...

My Spidy Senses were Tingling

Gentlemen,

I finally got around to doing my laundry from last weekends majestic walk in the woods. As I fumbled through my rucksack I came upon my water bottle that was used to house our council meeting Spiderman. My eyes widened as they tried to focus on what was now living within it's plastic walls.

As you can see our 'little fellow' had thrived in his new home. He had literally sucked up all of the water and grown to super-hero size.

The task of removing him from the bottle was not an easy one; a task I would liken to that of child birth.

Unfortunately my first attempt resulted in a tragic dismembering of his right hand. But on the second try (with the help of heavy lubrication) I was able to bring him into the world successfully. Behold our first son....a son of the parchment...if you will.

He can live at my place until the next council meeting. Then either Colin or Tyson can decide what his future holds. If it's anything like the previous ceremony, I'm sure it won't disappoint.

I'll keep you all updated on his progress i.e. first words, walking, web slinging etc.

Let the Blogging Commence!

Men of the Parchment,

It was high-time that the 'seekers of the written word' had a blog to post to. This will allow us to communicate more effectively between council meetings. We should use it to share ideas, quotes, pictures, happiness, frustrations, sadness and other manly emotions. The possibilities are endless.
So go forth thee seekers of the 'typed' word, with thou 'keyboard' in hand! Oh and by the way Evan great pictures from the 'Kid Who Climbed Everest' council meeting. It was truly an awesome weekend high up on the appalachian trail. My back has not yet fully recovered though!