Fezmid

A coworker has the Nexus 7 and loves it - I don't know what he uses it for though. The other thing to think about in the iPad vs Kindle Fire vs Kindle reader is whether your dad likes to read in bed. If so, the iPad might be too large and heavy; you'd want either the Kindle reader or a smaller tablet like the Fire or Nexus.

The Kindle Fire is locked down as well.

You missed when they brought all of the storylines together. I usually have trouble following that many characters myself, but I thought they did a great job with it personally.

Yeah, the Nook sucks for maps... It's primary design is for reading, just like the Kindle Fire. Pooj said his parents primarily want to read. I haven't seen the Nook interface, but the Kindle Fire is MADE for reading first and foremost. If mapping is important, then the Fire (and Nook) isn't a great option - the Fire doesn't have a GPS!

For reading?

If their main concern is reading books, get a regular Kindle. If they want to check in online when on the road, then go with the Kindle Fire since it's designed to be a reader first and a tablet second. Web browsing and such works great on the Fire, but the main design revolves around books. My wife uses her Fire for reading books and magazines on a daily basis. Like you said, an iPad or standard Android tablet would be overkill. You'd want this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GGCAVM/ref=gw_c1_4gfam2_kt?ie=UTF8&nav_sdd=aps&pf_rd_m=ATVPDKIKX0DER&pf_rd_s=center-1&pf_rd_r=1130STW8XKANC1TVADX0&pf_rd_t=101&pf_rd_p=1404643762&pf_rd_i=507846 Or if you want it a little bigger, this: http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B008GFRB9E/ref=fs_j The Color Nook is probably ok too, but I prefer shopping at Amazon over B&N.

Why'd you give up on it...???

He was eating the soup? Or licking the boxcar...???

Dogs are WAY higher maintenance than cats. Try leaving a dog home by himself for 2-3 days. Not good. Now try the same with a cat. No problem! (not trying to turn this into a dog vs cat debate, but nobody can argue that a dog is less maintenance than a cat )

We have a dog too - he's pretty cool, although I sort of prefer cats because they're lower maintenance (you want to go out with friends after work, no problem. With a dog, you really can't without going home to let him out first). I'm also not a fan of the face licking -- luckily ours doesn't do that very often. Other than that though, I guess they're pretty cool. Ours was a rescue as well - they found him wandering around the city and he looked like a ball of fur (don't have a picture of that here at work). Wife fell in love instantly and it turned out the dog was only put on the floor for adoption that day. When we brought him home, it turned out that he was already pretty well trained. He knew to paw the door when he had to go out, and he knew a bunch of commands - sit, down, stay, kennel, drop it, leave it, and probably a few others I'm forgetting. To this day we have no idea why anyone would've let him go - only thing we can think of is that since it happened at the start of the housing collapse, the owners may have had to move into a place that didn't take dogs. Here's a couple of pictures:

Yeah, but Obama ate the binder!

LOVED the first season. LOVED the commercials for Asylum. Have it recorded, but haven't watched it yet.

What?! If we can pass health care reform without actually reading it, then surely the players can just sign this and find out what's in the deal later. C'mon!

Using Romney's logo without permission. Can't the DNC get in trouble for that?

Comcast has been charging since day 1. Reminds me, I should probably go buy my own since my new company doesn't reimburse broadband...

Wow, I thought that was an Onion article at first. That's what passes as journalism at the New York Times...? The author apparently did no research. Yelp is available on the Blackberry. So is Google Maps. You can easily go to OpenTable (there may even be an app), and to say there's no social media apps is ridiculous -- I had Facebook and Twitter on my Blackberry. In fact, during the Olympics, iPhone, Android, and Blackberry users all made roughly the same number of tweets (which surprised me when I heard that, but hey). The 9900/9910 has a screen roughly the same size as the iPhone and has a slideout keyboard (I still miss it... ). I put it up on eBay and got $220 for it, so there's obviously still a market. Great article for the Onion. Not so much for the NYT...

Hmm, if I took that job, I wonder if they'd let me keep my Bills flag that I hang on the wall....

Yeah. my inlaws are both instructors at a technical college and I've seen the mailings they get from the union -- they even get a list of everyone they "should" vote for in the upcoming elections (saw it a couple of years ago).

How is this a first down??! Cost us 7 points. Will you hear about this on ESPN? Nope... http://via.me/-61236sk

I follow a lot of technology things - Oracle, HP, people who write about cloud, security, etc, etc. I also follow Neowin.net writers (since I write for them). As others have said, find topics that interest you and follow them. (I'm aptly named @Fezmid, but I doubt you're that interested in technology related news. ). As far as celebrities -- I like Jim Gaffigan. His tweets are usually pretty funny.

He's 18... How is this a crime? (fire her, sure, but arrest?)

Obama is accountable, his underlings are responsible. Part of RACI, and is what I was getting at with my previous post. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Responsibility_assignment_matrix

Well, as President of the United States, he is accountable for everything. But he hasn't taken accountability for ANYTHING negative in the last four years. When something goes right, he takes all the credit. When something goes wrong, he blames everyone else. That's not a good leader; that's how you get fired in the private sector.

Yeah, that's why I said NEW Verizon plans. Although I was surprised that I don't use as much data as I thought I would -- only around 400-500M/month. I don't stream much, so that's probably why - 20 minutes of Netflix is around 100M, so that would add up quickly if I used it.

The new Verizon plans allow tethering for free. I think most of the carriers do that now.