Five chapters of Mansfield Park

have been read by me.  That's five chapters in three days.  If I read one more chapter today, I'll have an average of two chapters per day, and I'll be on my way to finishing the book before 2009 even starts to happen.

I realized another good thing the iPod ebook thing is good for.  Filibusters!  You know how it is—you're in the Senate, you need to kill some time, but what to do?  Sure, you might be alright if you're the kind of person who can stand up and expound on any topic for an unlimited amount of time, but what if you're like me and you tend to go blank, freeze up, in those situations?  Well, with ebooks on your iPod you can just say, "And now, I would like to read to you Tolstoy's masterpiece, War and Peace."  And then you simply whip out your iPod and there you have War and Peace ready to go in the palm of your hand!  And if you finish War and Peace with no sign of surrender from the opposition party, then it's just a few short clicks to Ulysses.  Und so weiter.  Now all you need is one of those urine bag thingies they have at hospitals, and you're good to go.