My newspaper's battery just died.

Since I joined the faculty 23 years ago, The Atlanta Journal Constitution has been a regular part of my morning routine. My wife read the Athens Banner Herald and I read the AJC – it was a good arrangement. She kept me informed about happenings in Athens and I kept her updated on state news. But on April 25, the Atlanta Journal Constitution stopped delivering to Athens. When I woke up on April 26 and every morning since, I haven't had my morning paper. It has been killing me. I have learned the hard way how much those pieces of dead trees meant to me. I have been less informed. I feel less connected to the world at large. And even my cereal doesn't taste as good. It has sucked. I tried eating breakfast at the computer so I could get the paper online. After digging Cheerios out of the mouse, I gave that up. And I tried reading at the breakfast table on my iPhone. Word to the wise: don't touch your screen with banana fingers. Things had to change.
Last week they did. I bought a Kindle DX (http://bit.ly/NJvGt). The AJC isn't available on the Kindle, but the New York Times is. Now, I don't even have to get out of bed to read the paper. Silently the NYT sneaks into that 9.7” device that stays on my bed stand – no more cold walks to the end of the driveway. The volume in the recycling bin has been cut in half (the trees around my house are happier about my digital move). The screen is easy to read and the device is a great size – easy to carry around.
Lots of people have declared e-readers like the Kindle the new savior for the news industry. I am still undecided. I am still getting used to the device. Some navigation is tricky. And I miss ability to tear out an article to give to a colleague. Plus today something new and totally unanticipated happened. My Kindle ran out of juice – in the middle of my Sunday Times!
I just finished the the dead-tree book I was reading so I will downloading my first Kindle book this week. That should be interesting. It is a mixed blessing to not have to go to the bookstore. Plus it will be harder to impress people with the thickness of the books I choose (Vanity Fair published a great article last month about how digital makes it more difficult for us to be culture snobs – http://bit.ly/4jmVL).
I will keep you posted on my experiences.