RIP Barnes and Noble

Warning: Frustrated vent post. Read at own risk.

Barnes and Noble used to be the king of my book buying world. I've got their little nook reader, a healthy library of books (Digital and physical), and they've been the only place I've bought books for the past decade or so. I've used them for years, visiting their stores, downloading their books, and supporting them because I liked them. I like their stores and the atmosphere there (Even though the bastards got rid of most of the comfy chairs), I like supporting one of the few dedicated book sellers, and I've already invested quite a bit into my library with them. It's not a massive library by any means, I have no pretensions of being well-read, but it's been growing steadily over the past few years. I never had any reason to go anywhere else for my books.

That is, until they gave me a reason.

A few weeks ago I discovered a speed reading app (Balto Speed Reader on Android) and have been cracking the DRM my books so I could read them with it. Purely personal use, so I didn't have any qualms about figuring out how and downloading the necessary software. Never had a problem with it.

I was overjoyed to receive a Barnes and Noble gift card for Christmas since I had a number of books I've been itching to buy and read. I suppose it's important to note, I haven't bought a book in months. I went through a phase where I was rereading a bunch of my favorite books from ten years ago, so I didn't really have any need for something new. The opportunity to read something new made me feel like a little kid.

I sat down, bought a book to read at work the next day, and made a series of discoveries that made me hate Barnes and Noble.

Like, forever.

Google Drive

I do a lot of writing. Anything from doing homework, checking shopping lists, working on a pet book project, writing stuff for my blog, or even taking notes on random ideas. If I'm not reading a book, drawing, or playing a game, chances are I'm tapping away at a keyboard.

Which is one of the reasons I jumped for joy when Google Drive finally came out on mobile devices.

Simple, Useful, and Usually Broken

The Unending Steam Library

I've been shuffling through my Steam library wondering what happened.

Ten years ago I would have been ecstatic to have such a huge variety of involved, long running games. Those were the days before Steam gathered its momentum, where it was still more common to buy a game at a brick and mortar store than buy one online. I'm pretty sure I still had dial-up ten years ago, too, so even those sloppy flash games were uncommon. If you bought a game back then, especially with the limited budget of a teenager, you'd better play that thing to death.

Now I look at my list of 200+ games on Steam, most of them from sales and Humble Bundles, and wonder whether or not it's possible to have too many games.

So many games,
So little time.

Young Me scoffs at the idea. Too many games? Impossible!

Teaching Compassion in Farcry 4

Ajay's love of compassion knows no bounds.