Ever since the Kindle for iPhone app was released in March earlier this year (2009), there were much speculation and hope that a similar application will be released for the BlackBerry soon. Amazon then revealed that such an application was indeed in the works, boosting up hopes for BlackBerry users like me.

After nine long months, it seems that the Kindle for BlackBerry application is almost around the corner, as Amazon has recently put up a “coming soon” page where you can sign up for an email notification as soon as it becomes available.

Hurray!

I’ve been carrying my iPod Touch in my pocket in addition to my BlackBerry, just for the purpose of reading Kindle books. Looks like I won’t need to continue this awkward practice for much longer!

What’s so great about a “Kindle for iPhone” or “Kindle for BlackBerry” application, you ask?

Amazon has been selling electronic books for a couple of years now, but they could only be read on their proprietary e-book device called the Kindle.

The thing that makes the Kindle so great is the fact that Amazon is arguably the biggest internet bookstore in the whole world, and that makes many publishers grant exclusive rights to Amazon for selling electronic versions of their books. Many of these publishers are normally adverse to the whole idea of e-books, and wouldn’t event think of granting such rights to the dozens of other e-book vendors out there, even the more well-known ones such as eReader, Fictionwise or MobiPocket.

While I’ve been a long-time customer of eReader and Fictionwise (for more than 5 years), I had no choice but to switch to Amazon because I couldn’t buy many of the books I want to read from anywhere else. Naturally, this means that I need a Kindle to be able to read these books I buy from Amazon.

But with the release of the “Kindle for iPhone” app, I am able to read these “Kindle e-books” on my iPod Touch, even though I do not own a Kindle. Once the “Kindle for BlackBerry” is released, I will be able to read these books on my BlackBerry Bold too!

Tumblr blogger “Love All This” (http://loveallthis.tumblr.com/) has created a logical flowchart for the lyrics of the Beatles classic, “Hey Jude”.

It’s quite amazing how the lyrics for a whole song can fit into such a compact and intuitive flowchart.

But then again, it looks undeniably geeky… which maybe is the whole point?

BLACK POWDER: Battles with Model Soldiers in the Age of the Musket

Warlord Games is a well known manufacturer of 28mm hard plastic figures in the Roman and English Civil War era. They’ve now teamed up with the famed Rick Priestley and Jervis Johnson (both of them being pivotal architects of the immensely popular and games) to create , a rulebook for miniature wargaming in the “Horse & Musket” era.

Here’s an excerpt from Amazon’s product description.

Black Powder is Warlord Games’ first publication. It is a beautiful book in its own right with hundreds of color photographs taken by the Perry brothers of the most exquisitely painted model soldiers from their world-renowned collection.

The rule book’s intention is inspire a collector to play gentlemanly games with their own collections of soldiers with friends where the emphasis is on the spirit of the age of musket, not the letter of the rule. With decisive battles from the key wars of the period, such as El Teb, from the Sudan War, Ntombi River from the Zulu Wars, Alma from the Crimean War and Freemans Farm from the American War of Independence, as well as two fictional scenarios from the American Civil War and Napoleon’s Wars, there really is something to keep everyone happy. It is a hearty publication and not for nitpickers or miseries. There are some good gags in it, but it also plays well and enables players to conduct a very big battle in a civilized period of time, leaving them more time to chat about the highs and lows and what ifs.

Rick Priestley is best known as the famous Warhammer and Warhammer 40000 author, the world’s best selling table top miniatures game and Product Director for Games Workshop. He lives in Nottingham. Jervis Johnson is also an internationally renowned games writer and luminary in the gaming world. Jervis also lives in Nottingham but has a very posh voice.

Now, the important thing is that this rulebook normally retails for 30.00 GBP at British retailers, or 55.00 USD at American ones.

But at Amazon, they’re accepting pre-orders at an unbelievable price of merely 20.95 USD!!!

I knew for some time that there was a “Pre-Order Special” going on at Amazon, but I couldn’t believe my eyes when I saw the price. I mean, this is less than half the price of what the book’s selling for anywhere else!