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Garmin n���vi 260W 4.3-Inch Widescreen Portable GPS Navigator
$229.99
Just took this out of the box & discovered no usb cable is included and there's no ac power cable. Amazon says customers who buy this frequently buy it with a car charger, like you would think it must not come with one. Don't bother getting the additional car charger -- it comes with one. Look for an ac power adapter instead. Also, you will need to get a usb cable, a special one is required for the Garmin to communicate with your 'pooter. I found both a usb cable and acpower adapter on ebay, but it would have been nice if there were some way to know that I should have ordered them from amazon at the same time as the 260W.

Also, I probably would have looked further for a GPS had I realized the 260W has been discontinued by Garmin. Live & learn.

Amazon.com $50 Gift Card (0109)
$50.00
Gift cards may seem impersonal to some, but after years of trying to guess what DVD or CD my children want or don't already have, I decided to go this route this year. Half the fun is picking out what you want, I think! I'm hoping all will enjoy receiving these in their stockings.

Kindle Wireless Reading Device (6" Display, Global Wireless, Latest Generation)
$259.00
A recent business trip and a reward coupon from Amazon caused me to take another look at the Kindle. Since I was only going to be out of town for three days, I wanted to pack a carry-on. With space at a premium, I didn't want to pack three paperbacks--yet I knew that reading material would be mandatory. The Kindle was perfect. It's so small and slim that it fits into my handbag. Best of all I've re-discovered the joy of reading some wonderful authors. The $9.99 price tag for most bestsellers versus the $29 for a hardcover or $14 for today's paperbacks is yet another good reason to invest in the Kindle. And I was pleasantly surprised to see how many books have fallen into the public domain. The amount I'm saving will pay for this investment within the year and the ease of carrying make me look forward to my next deadly dull business trip.

Under the Dome: A Novel
$35.00
vaguely remember reading something by King at some point where he stated that he could publish his grocery list and it would be a best seller- which actually makes his job as a writer tougher- when you know that anything with your name on it is going to make you tons of dough, where's the incentive to produce high-quality stuff? I was struck by the sheer physical size of this book- 1000+ pages- and by the fact that there were no blubs or synopsis on the dust jacket. King's name alone on a $35 hardcover was enough to ensconce it on the bestseller list.

With this book, at least, King wasn't phoning it in. This is a fantastic read. Sure, it `s very long, but it's well paced. King tracks a large cast of characters through a shared catastrophe, narrating simultaneous events through multiple perspectives. Expository information about the characters and their community is seamlessly integrated into the plot. The characters- even minor ones who meet their demise early in the tale- are fully realized human beings, with all of their beauty and flaws.

I haven't read everything King has written, but I've enjoyed what I have read. What drew me to this was the subject matter: I'm a sucker for post-apocalyptic tales- which is essentially what "Under the Dome" is, although the apocalypse is local, rather than global, in scale. King masterfully musters all the elements that make those tales so appealing to me: the emotional responses to the unthinkable, the adaption of talents and routines to the situation at hand, the erosion of morality in a crisis, and creative application of technology for survival or alleviation of the circumstances.

King clearly had a lot of inspiration here. Characters mention "On the Beach" and "Alas, Babylon"- but there's so much more. In the post-dome political re-ordering of Chester's Mill, Maine (where else?) there are echoes of Hobbes, Locke, Machiavelli, and Nietzsche. Other King works also appear- The Stand and especially The Mist. There's even a dash of Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who. I don't think any of this detracts from King's accomplishment here: I was simply amazed at how King was able to stir together so many familiar ingredients into a uniquely compelling creation.

The existential, otherworldly threat of the Dome lurks only on the periphery- the real horror here (as in the best of these tales) emerges from human beings facing a situation that challenges their deepest assumptions and beliefs about their reality. There's no shortage of gore and supernatural terror here, however. I give King credit for only allowing us ants to see our tormentors imperfectly, and leaving many unanswered questions: this is the kind of cosmic terror that Lovecraft initiated, and the best horror writers today strive to emulate.

Do yourself a favor- if you're at all interested in the book, don't wait for the paperback.