Post-Christmas Analysis

Happy Boxing Day everyone!  (hey, if my dad can call his sweatshirt a "jumper," then I can refer to Boxing Day).

It was an odd Christmas - but a good one.  The power was out yesterday morning, so we opened presents in the semi-darkness.  It came back on eventually, but it continued to blip on and off, much to our great annoyance.  Well, I guess since Mt. Wheeler Power are a bunch of jackwads during the rest of the year, it would follow that they would play the Grinch on Christmas too.

We got to talk to Mark, though it took twenty minutes and a trek in the snow to my cousins' to use the phone (Beehive Telephone Company got in the Grinch act as well this year).  Honestly, I can't wait until that kid is home.  Maybe it's just mission fatigue or the fact I haven't seen my brother in three-plus years.  It'll just be good to have our whole family together again.

Anyway - I did make a pretty good haul this year.  For Christmas, I got:

- A Felicity doll plus her Christmas outfit (I'm annoyed that the packaging called it her "Holiday" outfit.  Good grief - she celebrates Christmas in the book, you morons).

- The new Brad Paisley CD

- "Mockingjay" and "America by Heart"

- "Doctor Who" Seasons 3 and 4 on DVD (and "A Christmas Carol" aired on BBC America on Christmas Day - I count that as part of my gift haul, but it was a close call with the power blipping on and off).

- "The Nightmare Before Christmas" on DVD

- Some shirts from Old Navy and DownEast (plus a Colts shirt from Fanzz ^_^)

- Fuzzy socks

- Tall boots with flat heels (yay!!)

- Mark sent us all Argentina National Team soccer jerseys and authentic Gaucho slippers ($4 off the streets of Buenos Aires ^_^)

- An M&Ms dispenser made to look like a fortune teller - it has a little button you push and you get an answer to any question you ask.  Well, "yes or no" questions, anyway (think Magic 8 Ball)

- A quilter's kit complete with scissors, a rotary cutter and a new quilt pattern from Kathryn (it's pretty sweet)

- $50 Barnes and Noble gift card

- $40 from my grandparents

- Lotion and fancy hand sanitizer from Bath and Body Works

- Plus plenty of candy!

I love getting money for Christmas... but now I am somewhat presented with a dilemma.  See, I've been in the market for either a Kindle or a Nook.  I've been looking up reviews on both and trying to decide which one I want to get.  As far as I can tell, there's very little difference between the two other than a few small things that pretty much balance out the comparison.  The only thing I'd want it for would be to read books (I don't really need or want the audiobook capabilities).  I don't really need 3G service either, so I'd be looking at the Wi-Fi-only option.

I have downloaded some of the free Kindle books to my laptop, but the one book that I actually purchased never would download (I just found a free torrent for it and that worked, so I count that I paid for it).  If I got a Nook, I could use my gift card, plus the money from my grandparents and that would knock off about $90 from the final price.  But... I like the fact that Amazon keeps your books in your Kindle archive in case you lose them... but the Nook lets you back up your books on micro SD cards.  I'm a little wary of leaving things solely online because that means you're counting on the internet never, ever, ever crashing or going away.  And with the recent Delicious scare, I'd almost rather have a physical backup of my own (yes, I know that Yahoo didn't really shut down Delicious, but the chaos that ensued on the internet was deafening - so to speak).  But also, the Kindle can read PDFs and I use those a lot and it'd be cool to use that feature.

Anyway - those are my thoughts.  Does anyone out there have any insight into my conundrum?  Do you own either one of these eReaders?  What do you like or dislike about them?  Please chime in because I'd like some input from actual Nook and/or Kindle users before I make my final decision.