eBook Whining

I'm a huge eBook reader, and this particular post is about my obsession. If you're uninterested, skip now.

I love eBooks. With my HTC Universal (a 3.72", 640x480 full color screen) and a 1Gb SD card, I can carry around a library of several dozen books (plus music). I can read in bed with the lights out, which makes my wife happy. I carry a gear bag with me pretty much everywhere I go (a legacy from my year as a stay-at-home dad), so I can whip out the ol' PDA anywhere when I'm at loose ends (waiting at the pediatrician's office, for example), and I have a book to read. It's great.

One thing that's unfortunate, though, is the spotty coverage of titles. You can buy Heinlein's Double Star and The Puppet Masters, but not Stranger in a Strange Land and The Moon is a Harsh Mistress. You can get some Steven King, but not The Stand. Plenty of best sellers like The DaVinci Code, but none of the Harry Potter books. It's weird and irritating.

People blat on all the time about preserving our natural resources. They're changing all the stop lights from incandescents to those weird, LED things, and I've noticed that they've started doing it to car tail lights as well. More and more people are using those butt-ugly curly fluorescents in a lot of places in their homes (and all hotels seem to be using them), even me. Recycling is penetrating even the Great Unwashed. But here's a great way to save paper and print costs and ink and all the associated mess of the printing industry, and you can't even get the Harry Potter books--the best-selling books on planet Earth, for the love of God--in eBook form. It makes me nuts.

(And you know that it has to do with lawyers. Not money--I doubt Jo Rowling needs more money--lawyers.)

Okay; whining completed.