Cuddled up in bed with the missus and my iPhone running the Kindle app.

Pathetically, I am reading a vampire novel written for teenage girls.

Look what came in the mail today...oh yes.

Kindle books on the iPhone are very readable thus far. I was able to set the type size to be small enough so I felt like I was looking at a page, yet large enough to read comfortably.

I'm going see if I can finish this book that Sean loaned me as a paperback, on my iPhone/Kindle. I'll let you know how it goes. MJ has been poo-pooing the iPhone, but this new development has her attention. She has a birthday and wedding anniversary, so...fingies crossed.

"Beat the Reaper" was a fictional game played on a Firesign Theater comedy album. The bon vivant game show host would inject a contestant with a deadly disease, and said contestant would have 10 seconds to avoid certain death by guessing the malady from which he was then dying. In other words, he had 10 seconds to beat the (grim) reaper*.

*Def. from Wikipedia...

Grim Reaper: A Western depiction of Death as a skeleton carrying a scythe

Death as a sentient entity is a concept that has existed in many societies since the beginning of history. In English, death is often given the name the "Grim Reaper" and from the 15th century onwards came to be shown as a skeletal figure carrying a large scythe and clothed in a black cloak with a hood.

In some cases, the Grim Reaper is able to actually cause the victim's death, leading to tales that he can be bribed, tricked, or outwitted in order to retain one's life. Other beliefs hold that the Spectre of Death is only a psychopomp, serving only to sever the last tie from the soul to the body and guide the deceased to the next world and having no control over the fact of their death.

In many languages Death is personified in male form (English including), while in others it is perceived as a female character (for instance, in Slavic languages, e.g. in Polish).