KINDLE FIRE 2 RELEASE DATE

KINDLE FIRE 2 (CODENAME: HOLLYWOOD) RELEASE DATE!

Not rumors. Conjectures. The difference?

Conjectures are based upon hard data ... and rumors. :-)

The Amazon Kindle Fire was announced on September 28 last year.

One of the major features which is attributed to its success is its use of a modified version of the Android operating System and the price point of just $199.

In the process, the Kindle Fire created its own zone in the market, that of a smaller budget tablet.

After nearly a year of successful, unchallenged existence, the Kindle Fire is now threatened by another tablet

which is expected to soon make its appearance in Google I/O. The Google Nexus 7 tablet.

The Nexus 7 is also a 7 inch tablet

but it is better than the Kindle Fire in almost every other aspect. It’s got a better screen resolution, a better processor, a better and more advanced OS

(Android Jelly Bean).

It even comes with a camera, which was missed by many in the Kindle Fire.

The final killing blow is the Nexus 7’s expected price. It is said to the same as the Kindle Fire, at $199.

Amazon’s only option to defend itself now is to bring out a new and better Kindle Fire.

And according to a CNET source,

Amazon will launch the next generation Kindle Fire on July 31, though the site cannot yet confirm the launch date.

According to another similar report on Digitimes,

Amazon plans to bring out a new Kindle Fire with a better screen resolution of 1,280 by 800-pixel

in the beginning of the third quarter

and at the same time reducing the price of its existing model to $149.

This business strategy is the same that Apple applies to the sale of its iPad.
{Source: THE DROID GUY http://thedroidguy.com/2012/06/will-amazon-launch-kindle-fire-2-in-july/ }
***
Enough business! How about some myth and mystery?

On Bikes And Destiny:

LET'S TALK BLOGFEST

Let's talk.

It's a bit early I know. But spirits of storm and lightning are flying and crying in the dark skies above me right now. At any moment, the power may cut out, leaving me without a cyber-voice. And I am on first call. A bleeding child may need me to drive in these heavy rains. And I have promises to keep.

At least my life is not boring.

Today I'm entering FICTION GROUPIE's LET'S TALK blogfest :
http://fictiongroupie.blogspot.com/2010/04/lets-talk-blogfest.html

And no one I know can talk like my protagonist, Samuel McCord. This entry comes towards the chilling finale of RITES OF PASSAGE. Sam is on the deck of the cursed DEMETER, not too long after the time of my PAY IT FORWARD entry of yesterday.

He is staring off into the horizon, trying to see in its silver sheen any hope that he will live to see the next dawn. His new-found love, Meilori Shinseen, has a twin sister, Maija. And like Meilori, she is lovely beyond legend, her spirit warring with ambition and passion. Maija has been toying with the ship's doctor, Jason Stewart.

And so the board is set, the pieces begin to move :

I wandered the decks alone. Much of my life had been spent alone. And tonight, I knew I would meet my fate that way. I always knew that when I died, it would be at night -- and alone.

My past was reaching out from the mists for me. History, it seemed, could kill. If it was my history, that is.

Time was stalking me from the future. And that was a mystery. Would I solve it before all went black? My enemies and my answers awaited me at the "Ball of Death and Mystery." If I died then, it would only be appropriate.

The Will behind the world had placed me here on this ship. I had to believe it was for a good reason. One worth dying for. Trouble was, I felt a thought ahead and a move behind.

An embarrassed cough sounded to my left. I turned. Dr. Stewart, looking gutted.

“Maija,” he said and explained everything.

“What about her?”

“I - I thought we had become --”

“Maija is like the sea. You never know all about her.”

“I was an old fool.”

“Lot of that going around."

“Your lady, Meilori, is her sister. I thought you would have some idea of how -- I mean -- just what I might have done to offend Maija.”

“How do you know you offended her?”

His eyes flinched at the memory. “Because she told me not to come to tonight’s Ball.”

I stiffened. “I’ll be damned.”

“What?”

“She actually does care for you, doctor.”

“I don’t understand.”

“Things are set to get awful ugly tonight at that Ball.”

“Maija knows this?”

“She’s part of it, doctor.”

He paled. “I knew she had a dark past.”

“Her present’s kind of black, too.”

He looked anguished off into the horizon. “I sensed that. Good Lord, how can I be attracted to such a woman?”

“People are never one thing, doctor. There are always several faces behind the mask they show you.”

I reached out and squeezed his shoulder. “One of those faces cares, truly cares, for you. Just be glad it exists -- and that whatever you two shared was real.”

He swallowed hard. “But if something criminal is being planned for that Ball, I should be there.”

I shook my head. “No. Let Maija have the knowledge that she saved you, and that in your heart, at least, she is still someone worthy of being loved.”

He smiled as if that heart were breaking. “You are not the typical policeman. You are a romantic."

I put my gloved forefinger to my lips. “Shhh. You’ll ruin my reputation.”

He straightened as if a heavy weight had been lifted from his shoulders. “You’ll be there, won’t you?”

“Yes. I’ll stand in for you.”

He nodded and walked away. I watched him turn the corner about the deckhouse. I sighed, and it felt like blood oozing from an open wound.

Fingers tugged lightly on my sleeve. I caught a whiff of jasmine and spice on the breeze. I turned.

Maija. Odd how she could look so much like her sister and still strike me as appealing as an adder. She looked at me intensely for long moments.

“T-Thank you.”

“De nada.”

“This changes nothing between us, you know. You will still be destroyed by the end of this evening, and I will play my part in it. Play it most wholeheartedly.”

“I would expect nothing less from a future empress.”

She looked hot into my eyes. “Fool! You will hold back against me for my silly attachment to the good-hearted doctor, will you not?”

“I imagine so.”

“It will be your undoing.”

“Probably will.”

“Then why do it?”

I shrugged. “Don’t know any other way to be.”

She studied me. “I shall feel the emptier tonight after what must be done is accomplished. Yours is a face I shall miss, strong without the cruelty of toughness, kind without the bruise of weakness. When I have rid the world of that face, I shall have deservedly earned the hatred of my sister -- and of the name monster.”

“Then don’t do it.”

She smiled with wooden lips. “I know of no other way to be."

She moved with a fluid grace after Dr. Stewart. I wished the two of them some small measure of peace and love before the hell of this evening. I smiled bitter at the realization that I was standing all alone again, drifting silently through the darkness towards my destiny.

And to end with a bit of haunting beauty, echoing Samuel's memory of his love for Meilori, here is Blackmore's Night :

DELETED SCENE BLOGFEST

It's my pleasure to enter Mia's Deleted Scene Blogfest
http://literaryjamandtoast.blogspot.com/

Of course, with my work schedule, I'm having to do it a little early again.

A little background on my deleted scene for my novel, SOMETIMES THEY LIE. I envisioned a life history for my hero, Luke Winters. A Lakota psychologist in Boston, witness to the mercy murders of his grandparents and exile from his tribe, Luke is trying to find meaning in the cold city of Boston.

As I was in the midst of the first chapter, I suddenly realized I wanted to tell another phase of his epic life -- one that occurred three years after this chapter -- so "Poof!" There went what I had written. The agents were as quiet as roadkill on my queries to them for SOMETIMES THEY LIE. But if you're interested in what replaced this first chapter, here's the link to "Sometimes You Don't" in the short story contest where I placed it : http://www.radiantprose.com/entry/view/301

And here is that deleted scene :

SOMETIMES THEY LIE

Her words were husky echoes. “They say you have a tragic past.”

“Don’t we all?”

She let my words hang in the air. She studied me. I studied back.

She was a striking woman. Her eyes were smoky gray windows into a burnt out soul. Other men in the bar were flicking appraising eyes her way. Perhaps they wondered why she was sitting at my table. Me, too.

Her own eyes passed over me, slowly, reflectively. Her slender fingers tested the ends of her long red hair. Apparently, both I and her hair passed our separate tests, and she spoke again.

“You don’t sound Boston.”

“I’m Lakota.”

“Who?”

“Sioux.”

Her lips curled in what she thought passed for a smile. “Oh, you mean Sioux Indian. You won at The Little Big Horn, didn’t you?”

“Yes, and look where it got us.”

“That was over a hundred years ago. Where your people are now is your own damn fault.”

“Story of the human race.”

“They say you’re a good shrink.”

“Psychologist.”

“Whatever. I need your help. I need to die.”

I nodded slow. “You’re dying?”

“I’m dead.”

“Meaning?”

Her long face suddenly became all eyes as she murmured, “Rose red, black heart, ivory bones.”

And then she simply wasn’t there. One heartbeat she was looking at me as if the words she spoke were crushed glass. The next, her chair was empty. I sat still as my heart raced fast. What the hell had just happened?

I looked hurriedly at the other customers. They all seemed oblivious of my visitor’s impossible exit. I studied their faces to see if there was any echo of shock in their eyes. I sighed. None.

This was the brooding hour. Most who came here at this time of day were nursing wounds, some old, some new, some never to heal in this lifetime. Most never took their eyes from their glasses.

I looked down at my own glass. Last I heard ice tea had no hallucinatory effects. No answers there. Hell, no answers anywhere that I could tell.

I spilled a bit of my ice tea as a voice suddenly spoke above me.

“Luke -- hey, didn’t mean to startle you.”

I looked up. Monica. Long black hair. Short green skirt. Best waitress that Illusions ever had. I tried for a smile. Almost made it.

“Had a hard day that’s all.”

“What happened to the redhead? She was drop-dead gorgeous.”

“I think you’re right, Monica.”

She flashed me her imp’s grin. “I’m always right, kiddo. And what happened to the redhead?”

“Guess she couldn’t be late for the witching hour.”

“Luke, you know for an injun you talk funny.”

“I’m a psychologist. We’re paid to talk funny.”

“That’s a comedian you’re thinking about.”

“You’d be surprised how often the two are the same.”

“No, I wouldn’t. This block’s full of them, remember?”

“How could I not? I’m one of them.”

Her china blue eyes grew wet. “No, Luke, you’re not. You’re just their token Native American.”

She had pronounced the last two words with bitter pomposity. Her eyes suddenly couldn’t meet mine. She walked briskly into the shadows.

I whispered after her. “When you’re right, you’re right.”

I went to my apartment with even more mixed feelings than usual. I expected a waiting ghostly presence in my living room. None showed up there. Or in my bedroom either. I figured the bathroom was safe. You never hear of a ghost haunting a toilet.

The next few days I awaited a return visit. She never came. The circle of the seasons flowed slow and steady and unrelenting. The year passed like a kidney stone, full of pain and promises of more to come.

Mac put Illusions up for sale. He wanted to go back to the old country. Poland. Don’t ask. Long story.

The bar was sold, becoming even more upscale. Monica became the new manager, though she still waited tables. But now only when the mood struck her. The name was changed to an odd one.

Rose Red.

Yes, you guessed it. I had bought the bar. I changed the decor to something out of an old black and white film noir movie. You half expected Bogart to be talking to Ingrid Bergman at a secluded table.

With my typical luck, my secluded table only had Aaron Brookheim. Tall, dark, and quite possibly the most deadly man in Boston. He shook his head at me.

“Do you have a death wish, Luke?”

I paused before answering. Not from fear. True, he ran the most elite escort service in Boston. He owned the most elegant and illegal gambling casino in town. He also carried more weapons hidden on his person than I had regrets. And last, and known only to a select few, he was the Mossad’s representative on the East Coast.

But no, there was another reason I paused before answering. He was a friend. One of the few I had left that was still living. And he deserved the truth. And please, do not become Pilate on me.

“Yes. I believe I do.”

He flexed his long fingers as if keeping them from strangling me with an effort. “I can believe it.”

He pointed to the oil painting. “Where did you find a photograph of her and an artist in Boston suicidal enough to paint this?”

“I painted it.”

“You can paint like this? Hell, it looks like that von Stuck painting you have in your living room.”

“You mean Sin?”

“Yeah, if it’s that one with the snake.”

“Yes, it is. It’s one of the better portrayals of the evil temptress . One of the chief, if not the chief, theme of the Symbolism school of Art.”

He frowned at me. “What?”

“Symbolism. To clothe the idea in perceptible form.”

“I know what symbolism is, smart ass.”

He turned his eyes back up to the painting and shivered. “Damn, her eyes seem to bore right into you.”

I looked up. Yes. It was one of my better attempts since that night. In the smoky depths of those eyes you could imagine monsters swam. The monsters who haunt us or drive us or both.

He rubbed his face angrily at himself. “Forget that, Luke. Where did you get the photograph to do it?”

“I did it from memory.”

“Memory? That’s impossible. She died over thirty years ago.”

Words that were velvet sneers murmured above us. We both looked up. I went cold. Rose Red.

“It so pleases me that even after thirty years I am the subject of such dread and interest.”

Looking like the Dark Angel in Carlos Schwabe’s The Gravedigger’s Death, she looked down amused at the two of us. I studied the cold glitter to her eyes.

I changed my mind. No, her haughty look reminded me of Gustav Klimt’s Judith. He and Freud had been alike in their fascination with the association of death and sexuality, of Eros and Thanatos. My own past made me share their fascination and obcession.

And Rose Red, in her form clinging black gown, seemed to breathe both death and sexuality. She looked up at her painting. She cocked her head, studying it. All emotion bled white from that haunting face.

She turned back to me, echoes of regrets and lost innocence in her hollow gray eyes. “They say you help hurting souls.”

“They who?,” I managed to get out.

She smiled with her lips only and sat down. She no sooner sat than her body blinked out of sight as if it had never been there. Aaron dropped his shot glass.

Its shattering on the floor sounded like a fired gun. Far to my left another glass hit the bar with almost an equal loudness. Monica. She looked like she had seen a --

No, I won’t use that phrase.

Aaron husked, “What the hell was that?”

“I think you may have answered your own question.”

He shook his head firmly over and over again. His was a world of expediant assassinations, carefully crafted lies, necessary subterfuges, and deadly espionage. There was no room in it for the supernatural. None at all.

But I was Lakota. My grandfather had taught me that the white man’s view of the world was stunted, limited by his insistence that everything had to conform to his ideas of what was possible. But he had also taught me not to believe everything I saw, not to take what was before my eyes at face value.

“A hologram,” whispered Aaron. “It had to be a hologram.”

I nodded slowly. “That would be one school of thought.”

“Don’t go redskin on me, Luke. Someone is trying to pull something on us. We’ve got to figure this out.”

“What do you mean we, paleface.”

His look should have jutted four inches out of my back. “Very funny. That was supposed to look like the ghost of Anthony Vincent’s first wife. When word of this gets out --”

He didn’t finish. He didn’t have to. Anthony Vincent. Even I had heard of him. If you wanted to make a crooked dollar, first you had to get permission from him. The first fruits of every black harvest belonged to him. And to fail to pay tribute to Boston's dark Caesar was to die.

Like his first wife had died.

Actually, she had simply disappeared. Word on the street was that Vincent had murdered her with his own hands. I smiled bitter. Some things you just had to do yourself.

*********************************************

Hope you enjoyed that lost classic scene. And here is a haunting video to go with the haunting scene you just read :