A Few Screws Loose, but It Still Works

What the hell am I talking about? It’s not my mental condition I’m referring to, but another intelligent machine, in this case my old Kindle eBook reader.

Kindle with broken screen

Back in early June my old Kindle 3 gave up the ghost, or rather became unreadable due to the screen breaking through misadventure (see photo above).  I purchased a new Kindle Paperwhite as a result and am perfectly happy with it.

So the old Kindle appeared to be defunct and destined for the recyclers, that is until I found a video on You Tube that explained very succinctly how to replace the broken screen, and subsequent to that I came across an excellent instructable on the web that elucidated on the video.  It didn’t look all that hard, so I decided to give it try and rescue my old Kindle from the scrap heap.

Finding a new screen was easy. You can buy them on Ebay and they cost about $40.00 –$50.00.  Far cheaper than buying a new Kindle.

My new screen arrived, but I put off the task of  replacing the old broken screen for a month. I felt I had to psych myself up to begin, as I have never done anything like this before. That is, taking apart a device and reassembling it.

Yesterday I felt in the mood to try and I’m pleased to report that the Kindle is now operable again.

It took me all afternoon, involving as it did, removing all the innards bit by bit and putting it together again with the new screen installed.

It was, I admit, not as easy as it looked on the video, which I had playing  on my laptop computer in front of me as I worked.

There were at least twenty five screws to unscrew, some of them little black ones the size of ants. If you don’t have twenty-twenty vision it can be incredibly difficult and frustrating unscrewing and replacing them. One of course fell on the floor, so I gave it up as a lost cause and figured one less screw wouldn’t make much difference in the long run.

I was right. I actually ended up with a few extra screws and little metal whatsits which I couldn’t find a place for in the reassembly.

The cats were starting to grumble about being fed as I finally snapped the back cover of the Kindle into place.

After recharging the device I tentatively turned it on and to my delight, it was working. It’s not perfect, as the images are not displayed properly (faded out) but the text is crisp.

Kindle image display	Kindle text display

This could be the quality of the screen, but most probably it is a “bad waveform” problem - explained here (with advice on how to fix it). I certainly don’t feel up to taking the Kindle apart again, so I’ll just live with its imperfections. After all, as I have a new Kindle for reading, the old one can now be a spare should the new one stuff up.

I am however really chuffed that I was able to get my old Kindle working again. It was an educational exercise and I learned a lot in the process.

New Year 2012

Another year gone in a flash and the another in its infancy. Who knows what 2012 will bring, but I hope it will be a peaceful one for those who visit this BlogSpot and for the world in general.

New Year’s Day in Melbourne was a hot 35°C and the above plant, colloquially called a Red Hot Poker, is the ideal personification of the heat of summer. They’re blooming in profusion in the front yard at present so I snapped a photo. The one above almost looks like a rooster.

Today also marks the anniversary of my quitting work, so here’s to the joys of retirement. I’ve had a year to get used to it, and I’m finding it wonderfully restful, with no  Protestant Work Ethic anxiety waking me in the middle of the night.  You couldn’t pay me to go back.

I’ve found that retirement suits me. I’m never bored and you can fritter away the hours either productively or idly as the mood suits.

Reading of course occupies some of my time, and I found that I read a great many more books than I would have previously. The Kindle is a boon to the bookworm; it’s so easy to download books and it is gratifying that many new novels are available in ebook format from the publication date, or shortly thereafter. In the past, if I was not interested in purchasing the hard cover edition, I would patiently wait for the paperback edition. I didn’t purchase a single mass market paperback this year, but read many new novels.

There’s much to look forward to in 2012. I’ve booked for two concerts in March, and no doubt once all the side shows from the music festivals are announced, I’ll probably book more. The most keenly anticipated concert is the Ryan Adams solo show at the Regent Theatre on March 3rd. I’ve got second row seats for that. Steve Earle solo at the Corner Hotel on 30 March is the other show I’ve booked and I’m still tossing up whether to go to his son’s show at a new venue (close to home) The Regal Ballroom sometime in April.

On January 27 Black Caviar will be starting her autumn campaign in the Group 2 Australia Stakes at Moonee Valley. I intend to go to the track for that. It’s a good way to kick off the Autumn racing season. Let’s hope my luck improves as I haven’t backed a winner since Cox Plate day.

I spent a quiet New Year’s Eve, and was sound asleep by midnight, so missed all the fireworks and hoopla.

The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes

I keep forgetting how much I admire the writing style of Julian Barnes, but as soon as I start one of his books it all comes back; how enjoyable they are to read.

It was thus I began this latest of his novels, The Sense of an Ending yesterday; a few pages into the novel, I recognised its quality and relished the thought that there were many more pages to go.

Not that many, actually,  as it is a short novel of 150 pages.  A lot is packed into those 150 pages, as the narrator Anthony Webster, a 60 something divorcee, recalls certain events in his life, after receiving an odd legacy from the mother of one of his old girlfriends.

The predominant theme of the novel  is memory – its trustworthiness or rather its fallibility and how liable a person is for the actions of their life in relation to other people. Theories of history also play a part in the novel, in terms of truth and reliable reportage of facts.

Despite the novel being written from a male point of view I found myself identifying with it, being at that 60 something age myself. However, in my case, I smugly thought, I have a record I can refer to in my diaries, which I kept for 20 years or so.

I mean to reread them at some stage, not to vicariously relive my youth, but to clarify my memory of times past. It could be very embarrassing, reading one’s callow youthful thoughts, but then again it might be enlightening and finally force me to decide whether to retain them for future generations or destroy them.

Sorry to get off the track, but perhaps the protagonist of Barnes’ novel would have benefitted from keeping a journal.

Be that as it may, of all the Booker long list novels I have so far read, The Sense of an Ending strikes me as a likely winner of the prize. It has a maturity and quality quite lacking in the others, which were entertaining and well written, but hardly prize winners.

Books – Currently Reading

I seem to have consumed a great many books over the winter, the last few weeks being especially intensive.

The Booker  long list was announced on 26 July, and I noted at the time that I had not read a single one. Normally there are one or two that are worth looking at, even if they don’t make it to the short list, let alone win the prize. I‘m often baffled by the selection of the winner, last year’s winner,  for instance, The Finkler Question, which I got around to reading after the award was announced, and subsequently  loathed, though I loved the 2009 winner Wolf Hall.

This year’s long list seems diverse and interesting, so I decided to give some of them a go,  my stricture being that they must be available in ebook format and be appealing in one way or another to my taste. Normally I would only get around to reading a small selection of the Booker list, as the expense of buying books in Australia is prohibitive and besides, half the list is not available here at all.

The Kindle comes to rescue again, so this year I can sample those books on the long list available in ebook format at less than half the cost of a regular book.

So far I’ve read three of the long list; a seafaring tale, a western and a Victorian mystery thriller set around horse racing. All were very different and all were entertaining and interesting to read.

The seafaring tale is Carol Birch’s Jamrach’s Menagerie, narrated by Jaffy Brown, who opens the novel with the following statement:

I was born twice. First in a wooden room that jutted out over the black waters of the Thames, and then again eight years later in the Highway, when a tiger took me in his mouth and everything truly began.

Jaffy’s adventures, after being saved from the tiger by Jamrach of the title, and given a job as yardman and animal carer in the menagerie, eventually take him to sea in quest of a dragon. The voyage ends in shipwreck and what follows thereafter is one of the most harrowing reading experiences I have ever undergone.  Towards the end of the book Jaffy recaps his life as follows:

 One way or another I suppose you could say that voyage was the making of me. I’d have been a yardboy. Is that what it was all for? To make of me the man I am now? Is God mad? Is that it? Stuck between a mad God and merciless nature? What a game.

Believe me, it’s a remarkable book, powerfully written – a tale of high adventure and survival after unimaginable hardship.

The Sisters Brothers by Patrick De Witt is a picaresque Western yarn set during the Californian gold rush period. The story is narrated by Eli Sisters who along with his brother Charlie are famous gunslingers feared throughout the west. They are hired by a man called the Commodore to seek out and destroy a prospector named Herman Kermit Warms.

Eli’s narrative follows the brothers journey from Oregon to San Francisco, and their encounters along the way, which often end in bloodshed.

However the book has more depth than at first appears, and is darkly funny. Eli’s voice is matter of fact, laconic and deadpan, and he often muses on his career as a gunslinger and his wish to get out of the business, settle down and open a trading post.  I won’t spoil the ending, but if you liked True Grit or the Coen Brothers movies, this book will probably appeal.

With my fondness for horse racing, I suppose it’s obvious why I should find Derby Day by D.J. Taylor appealing.

Horse racing during the Victorian period is in fact the focus of this novel.

The book is more an intrigue than a mystery, with various characters from both high and low life all scheming for a result on Derby Day. And there are a few murders to be investigated as well. None of the characters are  particularly attractive or likeable, personality wise, but the complex plot, and the wheeling and dealing on the part of various characters, keep one interested to the end, which naturally concludes with the running of the race at Epsom. The hero of the novel, if there is one, is the racehorse Tiberius. Whether he wins the Derby or not, I’m not letting on.

Though I wouldn’t go so far as to say any of the above novels will the Booker Prize, I found them all enjoyable, though I am not inspired enough by the writing to seek out other novels written by any of the above authors. I plan to read The Sense of an Ending by Julian Barnes next, just as soon as I can download it onto my Kindle and will probably read The Testament of Jessie Lamb by Jane Rogers, as it is a dystopian novel, and has been compared to Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and P D James’ Children of Men, both of which books I love.