the Cosmo girl in me has awakened

Finally I'm inspired to write another blog post. It's about my new favorite magazine - Cosmo!

To tell the truth, when I first heard that there will be an Armenian Cosmopolitan, i wasn't very optimistic about that... and I couldn't even imagine that I will be buying its every issue and participating in Cosmo events with such an enthusiasm. The cosmo girl in me has been awakened :) I don't remember myself buying any beauty or women's magazines. So far, the only magazine I've been buying with this periodicity was the "Хакер" when I was a teenager :)

There have been very different responses to Cosmo's appearance in the Armenian market. Many friends of mine have been mocking the articles, titles and just the fact that "those terms" sound so funny in Armenian. But is there any other way? I imagine how difficult it is for the writers and editors to translate and adapt the materials and just to find out how those things are called in Armenian! One of the biggest impacts of Cosmo in our society will be for us to finally get used to Armenian language terms for things. I didn't know Armenian equivalents for most of cosmetics items and even names of clothing (դիմափոշի for румяна, ստվերաներկ for тень, բոկոտիկ for босоножка, երանգաքսուք for тональный крем etc).

So here I'm gonna tell you why I <3 Cosmo so much :)

• It's very professionally done. From content to the design and layout (printing quality too :))). I really enjoy browsing its pages.
• Contrary to other beauty magazines we have in the market (which are brought from Russia), the content in Armenian Cosmo is actually targeted on us! You see the ad and you know that you can buy it here in the boutiques.
• The fashion and beauty columns are informative, useful and with items that are accessible for us. You can see professional photo shoots with clothing that is hand picked from our boutiques by their fashion editor with prices indicated and stylists advice on how to combine the items.
• They have a good social media strategy and a very professional website (kudos to Shushan!;).
• They succeeded in finding their target "audience" and their first months showed us how much this magazine was demanded by Armenian young women. I'm not surprised that Cosmo is actually the largest circulation Armenian magazine in our market.
• I'm really proud for knowing some people from the Cosmo staff personally and that's how I'm not surprised how they get such a great thing done every month :))
• You can find useful gifts in some issues! I bought two copies of an issue that had a really cute and quality passport cover from women'secret inside. My mom started to read Cosmo after that :))))
• They organize really cool events !!! :)

Last month Cosmo organized a "Tropic Party" in Vahakni and I went there with my cousin and met looots of friends. They had invited some beauty salons and cosmetics brands to showcase their products, had some contests and many surprises. Imagine, opportunity to have a free professional make-up (got lucky to have it!), hairdo (mine was amazing! my sister didn't recognize me at first when she saw me like that :)), free cosmopolitan cocktail (of course), great music and gifts, gifts...

me having a professional makeup (probably just 3rd time in my life :D)

here i learned about this hair gadget which makes awesome hair :))

so this was my look

me and my sister :) my hairdo consists of "broken waves" (yup, just learned the name)

this pic was featured in the September issue, I'm on it!! :D

Here's Cosmo's photo report on the party: part 1, part 2, part 3.

After the tropic party, we learned that there will be a shopping night in Yerevan, for the first time!!! They managed to get more than 80 boutiques and companies participating and actually organized a real shopping festival for Yerevan citizens.  I promised myself that I won't do any shopping before that date (financial issues, nothing else :D), but had to break my promise since I had to be a gorgeous maid of honor on my friends' wedding before the shopping night :))) [and you know, i couldn't recycle an old dress and even shoes on that wedding!]

With my shopaholics image known to the whole world, I unwillingly became a walking advertisement for the Cosmo shopping night :D I've been getting few questions on what it is and how it's gonna be held, every day. Calls, FB messages, in person... well, somehow i was really informed :) Hey Cosmo, I guess you owe me here :D

It so happened that had very limited finances [the shopping for wedding was... costly, to say the least :D]. As a true shopaholic, I already knew what's up in the boutiques, so the shopping night was planned to be just 'walking around, fitting stuff' kinda activity. And it so happened that at first, I got to be strolling from boutique to boutique with my awesome male friend :D very nice experience, I must say [well, it became a little awkward in the Etam lingerie boutique, but hey, there were few other guys in there too! :D]. Actually, in this case, I got lucky to know a guy who appreciates shopping in general and was really patient with me :)) 

late night shopping with Ani

After that I got the chance to visit the Burberry store for the first time (memorable thing, huh) and watched my friend Ani buy a beautiful new dress with a nice discount from there :))

So how was it? as my friend Gaspar noted, there wasn't so much stir and boom during the Museum night in any year :D The central streets were flooded with groups of girls, all dressed up, with full shopping bags. Some stores organized banquets and DJs playing.. with all the stir, you could think that there have been clearance sales everywhere. In reality, there were 10-20% discounts, plus gifts, contests and a promise to be open till midnight. There were queues in front of many boutiques up to late night. I managed to do a small shopping and to have this cute star pendant from Mango as a memory from this day :)

Cosmo's photo report on the shopping night: part 1, part 2.

P.S. Shopaholics among you can check out this Foursquare list I made of boutiques where I shop for clothing and lingerie.

P.P.S. I'm not affiliated with Cosmopolitan Armenia in any way (except for the people i know who work for it) and this isn't meant to be an advertisement. I just want to show my support for this 'project' and will continue promoting the stuff i like in my blog :)

Fight Club. my feelings about the book, quotes and some kinetic typography

While I was reviewing my 2010, I happily concluded that the Kindle was one of my best acquisitions of the year. Thanks to it, I read so many books, I wouldn't normally read due to my stirring life. However with some geeky touch - it became possible!

One of the most notable books I've read during summer was the "Fight Club" by Chuck Palahniuk. It was an awesome read.

Actually, I've been hesitating whether I should confess this embarrassing fact, but to be fair I will. I hadn't seen the movie... till last month. But I love the fact that I saw it after reading the book and that the movie was cooler than the book. Even the author Palahniuk has stated that he found the film to be an improvement on his novel.

At first, I was unsure if it was a right choice for me to read this book. I'm generally against violence and I hate watching that kind of movies, and especially reading about it. I prefer to get some positive emotions from those things I occupy myself to give my brain some rest. But the book got me thinking about lots of stuff and even affected some of my beliefs. This is a cult movie indeed. It contained a great amount of notable quotes that were carefully copied with my Kindle's "Notes" feature :) Here are my favorite ones. I'd bold almost every quote here.

this 'warning' flashes in the DVD version of the movie before the FBI warning

"This is how it is with insomnia. Everything is so far away, a copy of a copy of a copy. The insomnia distance of everything, you can't touch anything and nothing can touch you."

I loved the part when the author was describing why they were attending the various support groups.

"I never went back to the doctor. I never chewed the valerian root. This was freedom. Losing all hope was freedom. If I didn't say anything, people in a group assumed the worst. They cried harder. I cried harder. Look up into the stars and you're gone."

...

"Marla's eyes narrow. She never dreamed she could feel so 'smarvelous. She actually felt alive. Her skin was clearing up. All her life, she never saw a dead person. There was no real sense of life because she had nothing to contrast it with. Oh, but now there was dying and death and loss and grief. Weeping and shuddering, terror and remorse. Now that she knows where we're all going, Marla feels every moment of her life."

"Marla's philosophy of life, she told me, is that she can die at any moment. The tragedy of her life is that she doesn't".

About perfection

"Sometimes, you wake up and have to ask where you are. What Tyler had created was the shadow of a giant hand. Only now the fingers were Nosferatu-long and the thumb was too short, but he said how at exactly four-thirty the hand was perfect. The giant shadow hand was perfect for one minute, and for one perfect minute Tyler had sat in the palm of a perfection he'd created himself. You wake up and you're nowhere. One minute was enough, Tyler said, a person had to work hard for it. A moment was the most you could ever expect from perfection. You wake up, and that's enough."

...

"I just don't want to die without a few scars. I say. It's nothing anymore to have a beautiful stock body. You see those cars that are completely stock cherry, right out of a dealer's showroom in 1955, I always think, what a waste."

...

"At the time, my life just seemed too complete, and maybe we have to break everything to make something better out of ourselves."

...

"If you don't know what you want, you end up with a lot you don't
May I never be complete.
May I never be content.
May I never be perfect."

...

"You are not a beautiful and unique snowflake. You are the same decaying organic matter as everyone else, and we are all a part of the same compost pile."

...

"Nothing was solved when the fight was over, but nothing mattered."

...

"I'm breaking my attachment to physical power and possessions, because only through destroying myself can I discover the greater power of my spirit".

...

"Its only when you've lost everything, that your free to do anything."

by ~theWickeDesign

I was thrilled by the scene with the supermarket guy (in the book it was in a bus). Here's the big quote from the book, better to read it entirely or watch the scene from the movie see below)

"Raymond K. K. Hessel, your dinner is going to taste better than any meal you’ve ever eaten, and tomorrow will be the most beautiful day of your entire life."

Here is the actual movie scene in Italian, in case ))

My sweetheart Jared Leto has a small role as "Angel Face". His character gets terribly beaten by the "Narrator" and the following line just made me think. A lot.

I felt like destroying something beautiful. 

Here are some wonderful animations - kinetic typography videos made with some epic moments from the Fight Club.

“Man, I see in fight club the strongest and smartest men who’ve ever lived. I see all this potential, and I see squandering. God damn it, an entire generation pumping gas, waiting tables; slaves with white collars. Advertising has us chasing cars and clothes, working jobs we hate so we can buy shit we don’t need. We’re the middle children of history, man. No purpose or place. We have no Great War. No Great Depression. Our Great War’s a spiritual war… our Great Depression is our lives. We’ve all been raised on television to believe that one day we’d all be millionaires, and movie gods, and rock stars. But we won’t. And we’re slowly learning that fact. And we’re very, very pissed off.” — Tyler Durden

Yeah, and I have to mention that I'm now pretty terrified after realizing how restaurant waiters can mess with the food :(

in case you want more quotes. Here's a fair collection on wikiquotes.

"Every Path is the Right Path". Mr Nobody, the movie

I can't watch movies at home in the recent months. When I have the luxury of a spare time, I prefer reading or writing. Even when I try to force myself to watch one of those highly recommended movies, i stop when i realize, that after watching it, the direction of my thoughts will change and my brain will be occupied analyzing it. Sometimes I don't need new thoughts and ideas, because I still need to deal with the existing ones.
Last week I got sick and spent more than 2 days in bed. I couldn't read, write or even watch a movie. I did nothing but suffering from a headache and cold. When I felt a little better, I realized that it's THE time. And Mr Nobody was it.

the trailer:

This is one of the greatest movies I've seen in life. It's dealing with some of my favorite topics and featuring my favorite musician, actor and sweetheart Jared Leto and the fabulous Diane Kruger.

I'm a Jared Leto 'witness'

Here are my favorite quotes from the film.

still from the movie: Nemo (Mr Nobody) and Anna (one of his choices)

“There comes a time in life where everything seems narrow. Choices have been made. I can only continue on. I know myself like the back of my hand. I can predict my every reaction. My life has been cast in cement with airbags and seatbelts. I've done everything to reach this point and now that I'm here, I'm fucking bored. The hardest thing is knowing whether I'm still alive.”

The movie brings the hope that no matter what choice we make it is not the consequences that make our decision the right one. It is US. And the appreciation and the gratitude of what we have experienced. No matter if it is bad or good, positive or negative. We need to appreciate our feelings for the sake of feeling.

Every path is the right path. Everything could have been everything else and it will have just as much meaning.

I often start imagining various possibilities like "if I'd done this instead"... various outcomes of my choices. Sometimes I can feel those experiences just by imagining them in details. It's when I realize that I didn't miss anything and I never really regret about my choices.

Before he was unable to make a choice because he didn't know what would happen. Now that he knows what will happen, he is unable to make a choice.

If you liked The Butterfly Effect, Vanilla Sky and Wicker Park, you'll definitely enjoy this movie! The futuristic scenes on Mars and on the way to it are just awesome. It's also worth seeing how the world in 2092 is described.

We cannot go back. That's why it's hard to choose. You have to make the right choice. As long as you don't choose, everything remains possible.

Eat Pray Love – the best selling book and what I learnt from it

I've just finished reading one of the most interesting books I've read in my life, which, coincidentally, discussed my favorite passions: Italy and yoga as main topics.

What is it about?

At 32 years old, Elizabeth Gilbert was educated, had a home and a husband, and a successful career as a writer. However, she was unhappy in her marriage and often spent the night crying on her bathroom floor. In the midst of an affair she separated from her husband and initiated a divorce, which her husband contested. The affair continued for some time but did not work out either leaving her devastated and alone. While writing an article on yoga vacations in Bali, she met a seventh-generation medicine man who told her she would come back and study with him. After finalizing her difficult divorce, she spent the next year traveling around the world. She spent four months in Italy, eating and enjoying life (Eat). She spent four months in India, finding her spirituality (Pray). She ended the year in Bali, Indonesia, looking for "balance" of the two and found love (Love); in the form of a dashing Brazilian factory owner. Gilbert paid for the trip with an advance she received on a book she planned to write.

The book (published in 2006) is written in a nice and understandable language, with a good sense of humor. The one thing that irritated me, was her very detailed description of the depression she was suffering from; and all I could do watching her (in photos, videos) was imagining her endless crying on bathroom floors with her forehead on the floor and the self-torture.

I could relate myself to so many moments, especially when Gilbert was describing her love for the Italian language and Italian food and also her struggle for mastering the art of meditation. 

This part could've been easily written by me:

It's kind of a fairyland of language for me here. For someone who has always wanted to speak Italian, what could be better than Rome? It's like somebody invented a city just to suit my specifications, where everyone (even the children, even the taxi drivers, even the actors on the commercials!) speaks this magical language. It's like the whole society is conspiring to teach me Italian. They'll even print the newspapers in Italian while I'm here; they don't mind! They have bookstores here that only sell books written in Italian! I found such a bookstore yesterday morning and felt I'd entered an enchanted palace. I wandered through, touching all the books, hoping that anyone watching me might think I was a native speaker.

She writes this while in Rome, living 4 months there and I felt exactly like this when I visited Italy and spent 20 days in various cities, living my daydream.

[...] bel far niente has always been a cherished Italian ideal. The beauty of doing nothing is the goal of all your work, the final accomplishment for which you are most highly congratulated. The more exquisitely and delightfully you can do nothing, the higher your life’s achievement. You don’t necessarily need to be rich in order to experience this, either. There’s another wonderful Italian expression: l’arte d’arrangiarsi—the art of making something out of nothing. The art of turning a few simple ingredients into a feast, or a few gathered friends into a festival. Anyone with a talent for happiness can do this, not only the rich. [...]

See the similarities with Armenia? ;)

The book was informative: I learnt quite a lot of remarkable facts about Hinduism, Indian culture, yoga, meditation, Indonesian people, Bali and its traditions... and also gruesome facts about deepest kind of depression and relationship troubles that luckily i haven't ever suffered from.

I like how she describes yoga and meditation in chapter 38.

"Yoga, in Sanskrit, can be translated as “union.” It originally comes from the root word yuj, which means “to yoke,” to attach yourself to a task at hand with ox-like discipline. And the task at hand in Yoga is to find union—between mind and body, between the individual and her God, between our thoughts and the source of our thoughts, between teacher and student, and even between ourselves and our sometimes hard-to-bend neighbors. In the West, we’ve mainly come to know Yoga through its now-famous pretzel-like exercises for the body, but this is only Hatha Yoga, one limb of the philosophy. The ancients developed these physical stretches not for personal fitness, but to loosen up their muscles and minds in order to prepare them for meditation. It is difficult to sit in stillness for many hours, after all, if your hip is aching, keeping you from contemplating your intrinsic divinity because you are too busy contemplating, “Wow . . . my hip really aches.”

Meditation is both the anchor and the wings of Yoga. Meditation is the way. There's a difference between a meditation and prayer, though both practices seek communion with the divine. I've heard it said that the prayer is the act of talking to God, while meditation is the art of listening."

This part illustrates my feelings about making plans for enjoying something in the future, sticking to the past, living with memories and anxiety towards a future event or happening:

[...] The other problem with all this swinging through the vines of thought is that you are never where you are. You are always digging in the past or poking at the future, but rarely do you rest in this moment. It’s something like the habit of my dear friend Susan, who—whenever she sees a beautiful place—exclaims in near panic, “It’s so beautiful here! I want to come back here someday!” and it takes all of my persuasive powers to try to convince her that she is already here. If you’re looking for union with the divine, this kind of forward/backward whirling is a problem. There’s a reason they call God a presence—because God is right here, right now. In the present is the only place to find Him, and now is the only time. [...]

The three main ideas I took from this book (they weren't entirely "new", however they got "confirmed" in me) are:

• Being in the moment (like described above)
• Enjoying the meal. Truly feeling what I am eating, and eating not for satisfying my hunger, but for enjoying the meal
• Doing everything the best possible way and the most beautiful way.

And the last quote about soul mates is just.. great:

People think a soul mate is your perfect fit, and that’s what everyone wants. But a true soul mate is a mirror, the person who shows you everything that’s holding you back, the person who brings you to your own attention so you can change your life. A true soul mate is probably the most important person you’ll ever meet, because they tear down your walls and smack you awake. But to live with a soul mate forever? Nah. Too painful. Soul mates, they come into your life just to reveal another layer of yourself to you, and then they leave.

The way she describes the countries she's visiting, Elizabeth advertises them so well that hundreds of her readers and fans are choosing to take her path and maybe also write books about it. They visit Rome, India and Bali, even finding the medicine man whom Elizabeth has met and told about.
Since the book became so popular and the movie staring Julia Roberts came out, there's a whole "eat pray love" craze going on. There's a controversial article mentioning that Elizabeth Gilbert has ruined Bali. One of the Italians she met in Rome, Luca Spaghetti, has written his own book telling about their encounter, and has got his own website.
The film also sparked pilgrimage to the Italian ice cream shop where Liz Gilbert used to eat gelatos every day.

Summary
I'd absolutely recommend this book to anyone, especially to the book's probably target group - middle aged women who would like to take a journey of self-discovery themselves; those who suffered divorce and loss; fans of Italy and everything Italian (like me), those interested in yoga and India, also for people who like traveling, learning about different cultures and are in the mood for some philosophy.

Interesting fact

Armenia and Liz

While in Bali, Liz describes meeting a Brazilian woman named Armenia, who was "gorgeous, elegantly dressed, charismatic and engaging and indeterminate in age, just insistently sexy". She runs a multinational marketing business called Novica, which supports indigenous artists all over the world by selling their products on the Internet. She speaks about seven or eight languages." As her name was so interesting, i decided to google a bit and found out that Armenia was indeed Armenian! Brazilian too, but Armenian from father's side! Armenia Nercessian de Oliveira. A very beautiful and powerful woman, indeed. Here's an interview with her on the Novica website, where when asked what inspired her to become involved in humanitarian work, she answered:

"My father was Armenian and a survivor of the 1915 Armenian Genocide. My father came to France as a refugee and in 1930 he immigrated to Brazil. Coincidentally, my second assignment with the United Nations was in the international protection of refugees."

Yes, she had 16 years of experience in humanitarian work in UN.
I can't wait to see who played her in the movie.Was she Armenian-ish at all?

Elizabeth Gilbert
Elizabeth Gilbert is an American novelist, essayist, short story writer, biographer, and memoirist. She is most known for her 2006 memoirs, "Eat, Pray, Love", which as of July 2010, has spent 180 weeks on the New York Times Best Seller list, and was also made into a film by the same name in 2010.

Her 1997 GQ article, "The Muse of the Coyote Ugly Saloon", a memoir of Gilbert's time as a bartender at the very first Coyote Ugly table dancing bar located in the East Village section of New York City, was the basis for the feature film Coyote Ugly.

If you are interested, you can download the e-book in .epub and PDF formats here. 

The Movie

More than 7 million copies of this memoir have been sold in 40 different languages, and now die-hard devotees will get to see Liz's travels come to life on the big screen. The movie that just premiered in LA is featuring Julia Roberts, Javier Bardem and others and has been one of the most anticipated movies of this year. It even happened that Julia Roberts converted to Hinduism during the shootings.

Here's something from Oprah's, on Eat Pray Love book and movie.

The movie trailer


In Russia it will arrive to cinemas on October 7, my guess is that somewhere around that time we'll get it too.

Elizabeth Gilbert's talk on genius, translated by my friend Gohar who has had recommended this book to me last year, but i forgot it then. A great talk!

Vardavar '10 photo exhibition at Lovers' Park

I'm now here to tell you about a very interesting photo exhibition that was launched today at the Lovers Park.

Ara Aslanyan, a talented photographer/designer/illustrator started a photo project called "Vardavar" in 2009, where he photographed his friends during the process of pouring a bucket of water on them :)
note: Vardavar is an interesting Armenian tradition.

Aro himself during Vardavar 2009 project

This year he developed the idea and together with another very talented photographer - Arnos Martirosyan, invited various celebrities to take part in the project. More than 20 show business stars agreed to be poured a bucket of water and be photographed.

the photography process (from aro.am)

The results are astonishing. Drops of water solidified and looking like they have been forced to freeze in time and the process of human faces becoming wet were captured at a shutter speed 1/1000s of seconds. Charismatic face expressions and amazingly captured moments make the photos unique and definitely worth seeing (regardless of the fact you like those celebrities or not).

Images are printed in huge 2x2 meter size and arranged at the trees all over the park. Today, at the opening, many of the celebrities were there to check out and pose with their images.

Organization of a project and event like this is a tough job indeed and there have been numerous challenges (putting it mildly) along the way, but I'm happy for Aro and Arnos that they finally did it and it was really great!

Arnos, Aro and Kristine Pepelyan :) /sorry for my camera :D/

The photos will stay there for only about a week, so hurry up to watch!

Kindle, my review of the great e-book reader

i've put my favorite Salome
as a screensaver :)

My Kindle arrived! I wrote about gadgets in a recent post.
Many of my friends have been demanding a blog post about it ASAP, but I could actually start writing after a week of playing with it.

In case you don't know, Kindle is a book reader device from Amazon. It is a thin, lightweight, electronic reading device that you can take anywhere and download your favorite book, newspaper, or magazine right into it.

As for the technical details...

• Display: 6" diagonal E Ink® electronic paper display, 600 x 800 pixel resolution, 16-level gray scale (no color!)
• Size: 203.2mm x 134.6mm x 9.1mm.
• Weight: 289.2 grams.
• Storage: 2GB internal (approx.1.4GB available for user content). It's said it can store approx. 1500 books.
• Battery life: up to 2 weeks with wireless connection off.
• Connectivity: 3G, works in many countries, but not in Armenia ;( check the map.
• USB port: USB 2.0 (micro-B connector) for connection to the Kindle U.S. power adapter or optionally to connect to a PC or Mac.
• Audio: 3.5mm stereo audio jack, rear-mounted stereo speakers.
• Content Formats Supported: Kindle (AZW), TXT, PDF, Audible (Audible Enhanced (AA, AAX)), MP3, unprotected MOBI, PRC natively; HTML, DOC, JPEG, GIF, PNG, BMP through conversion.

My impressions

iPad and Kindle, why compare?

It's the best e-reader of everything I've considered. It's certainly better than iPads as a book reader.. they are actually not comparable! My thoughts on Apple are here, and actually, i think that having multi-functional devices is not the best solution. To me, cellphone should be mostly for mobile conversations, a photocamera for photographing, e-reader for reading, PC or a good laptop for work, and netbook for browsing, working from home, writing etc... I can't find a good use for a tablet (especially iPad) so far :)

my netbook and Kindle. each of them has its place in my heart :-))

good for eyes
E-ink makes it so easy to read on... I've actually discovered that "weekend reading" thing can be real :) I've read an entire book on Kindle in just 1 weekend! And i was not just reading, but also going out occasionally :)

text-to-speech
you know, you can make Kindle to read for you :)) Just plug the headphones and enjoy a male or female voice reading for you :)))) (you can choose also slower and faster speech)

music
you can put some music into the respective folder in Kindle and it can be played during reading. some instrumental music would be good to focus on reading and isolate from the ambient noise.

easy to transfer
when plugging the USB cable, the computer instantly recognizes a new device as a removable memory. there are folders for documents, audiobooks and music. just drag and drop the files.. no software needed for transfers.

cool features
Kindle has a Built-in Dictionary with Instant Lookup. In text format documents you can put the pointer to a word, and its definition will be instantly shown from the Oxford dictionary. Very useful! Also, it's possible to highlight quotes, make annotations on interesting parts, put bookmarks etc.. (that's what the qwerty keyboard is useful for).
Also, unlike a laptop or smartphone, Kindle never gets warm so you can comfortably read as long as you like.

file formats
while text formats are preferred, PDF files can be easily read on Kindle too. I noticed that it's better to convert PDFs into text format (like .prc) since the fonts will be scalable on Kindle and it will be possible to highlight interesting parts in text and make notes on it.

file converting
turns out the old good Mobipocket reader (the only e-reader app that worked on my symbian phone) has been acquired by Amazon and it converts PDFs to a favorable format.

screen

reading on a beach :)

it's not touch screen. But the coolest is: Read in Sunlight with No Glare. Kindle's screen reflects light like ordinary paper and uses no backlighting, eliminating the glare associated with other electronic displays. As a result, Kindle can be read as easily in bright sunlight as in your living room.
The screen has a sharp display with 16 shades of gray and is very unusual for someone not familiar with electronic ink technology. At first i had to persuade someone that it's not a sticker on the screen i didn't scratch, but the screen itself :D

interface
The device has a 5-way controller (joystick) enables precise on-screen navigation for selecting text to highlight or looking up words. There are buttons for Menu, Home, Back, Next page and Previous page.

Jeff Bezos - the founder of Amazon.com

sleep mode
after 5 minutes of inactivity the device goes to the sleep mode thus saving the energy. the sleep mode is a nice graphic pic usually with some great author depicted or a page from an ancient book. After digging in some forums i found a way to put custom screensavers :)

charging
it fully charges in 4 hours with its USB 2.0 cable, however it has also a power adapter included that can be connected via USB port.

audiobooks
it's possible to download audiobooks from Audible.com (in its format) and listen them on Kindle, bookmarking in some parts, like in text.

books and other content
of course Amazon's benefit in Kindles is not just from selling the devices itself, but the books which are now available widely for the Kindle format and special price. On their website it's announced that The New York Times Bestsellers are only $9.99 in Kindle format. Some content is licensed for credit cards with billing address in the US only. This concerns all magazine and blog subscriptions (it wouldn't work here anyways, due to our non-inclusion in the Kindle global wireless / 'whispernet' service)

how to buy Kindle in Armenia
As you could guess, Kindle is not available in any tech store in Armenia (unlike iPads which are wide spread here now). The only way is to order it online on Amazon.com itself. The website is promising to deliver it here:

However, I'd highly suggest to do the traditional Armenian way of shipping stuff from the US -- finding someone coming from US to Armenia to actually bring it with him. It ships within 5-7 days in US for free.. faster shipping can be available at some cost, however if you haven't yet got the Amazon Prime account, you can get a 1-month trial for free and get things delivered faster, for free :) (if you forget to uncheck a certain button there before the trial expires, it will, however, charge you some $70 for the Prime account).

collections
when i first turned on my Kindle, charged it and put some test files on it, i didn't find a way to sort books by types or other criteria. In the manual it kept saying about some collections and ease of ordering. I dug the internets and found out that the collections and some other features are available in the new software update that was out just couple of weeks ago :)

what's bad?
Ok, i know that you see that I'm quite happy with it, but there must be something that would make it not perfect :D one thing i would state is that the page flipping is a bit slow, however it's not annoying and easy to get used to.
another thing is that it doesn't support unicode... but! you can make PDF files with Russian/Armenian texts, in appropriate format and still read it on Kindle. Still, copying quotes and making annotations won't be possible if it's not a text file.

other Kindles?
Kindle was first launched in Nov. 2007 it was the 1st generation device and had a slightly different design from the current Kindles (launched Feb 2009).
In June 2009 Amazon released a bigger Kindle DX (close to A4 format) and in June 2010 Kindle DX Graphite (roughly black version and with 50% more contrast display).

the Kindle evolution

It's rumored that Amazon will release a new, thinner Kindle in August 2010.

covers

I was recommended by a Kindle owner (privet, Gaspar! ;) to buy a leather case unless i want to have the back of the device worn out.
So i ordered original Kindle's leather cover (orange) which was about $35, and, in reality, was kinda desaturated orange...
But what was most depressing... after few days of my purchase, it turned out that my favorite Moleskine has released a special Kindle cover with a small notebook in it! ;(

my Kindle and its orange cover

Moleskine Kindle cover

why Amazon rules

The next day I bought my Kindle and its cover and it was shipped, i am opening my Google reader just to read that... Amazon has reduced the price for the Kindle (from $259 to $189) to compete with other e-book readers (the day before that, practically, hours after i purchased it). And it's $70 difference!

I'm shocked, devastated.. accepting sympathy notes... writing a status on FB about how ugly Amazon is... and BAM! the power of social media comes for help :) actually it was a good friend of mine - Susan Meschian who gave a hint that Amazon should have some refund policy for these cases... I dug in help and FAQs, but didn't find a relevant info.. then i wrote to their customer service... (their reply could come in 12 hours) but i didn't resist and called them. I didn't have to explain much :) they said i'd be refunded $70 in 2 business days :) and I was!!! I also got the same reply to my email. So i'm just a happy Amazon and Kindle customer :)