I am currently suffering from gadget-lust, which I honestly thought I had cured myself off. My object of desire is the Kindle 2 and in the past I would probably have bought it right away. I have several meters (guessing over 20) of books stored offsite(*) and the idea of having them all accessible on a tablet is very appealing.

(*) My parents’ attic.

However, the K2 costs $359. That amount would also buy a netbook which I think could read the ebooks as well. Alternatively it would buy a vitamix blender, which I think could blend the books.

Besides, having found other sources (library and swapping), I have not bought a book in a long time, Given that I practically only pay postage to read the books I can’t get from the library but which I can get from paperbackswap, $359 would last years. Naturally the downside of the library is that you can’t keep the books for more than 4-6 weeks, also I frequently have to wait about a week to get a book, because most of what I read comes via interlibrary. The downside of paperbackswap is that it can take months before a match shows up, but they do (occasionally) offer books that I can not get via interlibrary(*). Also it takes up storage which comes at a premium, especially in the RV — I have a few boxes of books stored underneath. Guess how often I read those. That’s right, effectively never.

(*) Libraries don’t carry all the books in the world. They sometimes toss books that are not checked out often enough, kinda like real people, think storage costs.

In conclusion, I’ll be waiting until they drop the price to around $100.