Listening Not Required

Wasn't Avatar cool? Did anyone else see the most recent iteration of A Christmas Carol? 3D is both a trend and a legitimate method of taking in certain forms of entertainment, and I happen to work for XpanD, a company that makes 3D glasses.

Our 3D glasses are not the flimsy disposable ones people use at most theaters here in the U.S., but rather they use "active shutter" technology. This requires built in circuitry and battery power, and the increased cost to consumers did not translate well to the mass cinema market, and so we are starting to focus on personal use.

ANYWAY, my job often includes hours of mindless data entry, and so to make my job more bearable I have taken to listening to audio books at work. Yes friends, audio books rock, and they roll. They can entertain and/or educate, and require little interaction (aside from switching CDs occasionally or pausing to interact with other humans). They are a quality media in which to bask if someone is looking for a passive (background) activity.

What's wrong with audio books? Well, they certainly do not entertain in the same way that music does, so they are not really a substitute. Also, one has to be able to ingest other people reading to them for hours (I know from experience that there are plenty of people who do not enjoy that aspect). They are also spendy (even when purchased online in MP3 format).

So what? I get my audio books free from a library, and I also download them from sites like http://www.podiobooks.com. There are other good sites to get quality audio book downloads (which I might list here later). If you like to read, and don't mind a stranger's voice in your ear for long periods of time, I recommend that workers of businesses that put up with headphones on their employees look into audio books for a more enriched work day.

What subjects have I listened to? Any and all fiction (entertainment = day flies by), philosophy, politics, science, self-help, business, economics, class lectures, and foreign languages. You know those signs advertising apartments and homes that say "If you lived here, you would be home already"? Well, if you had an audio book to listen to, you could have been listening to it while reading this post. Oh yes, one can even read and listen at the same time!