Before the announcement of the nook, I didn’t want a dedicated e-reader.  Well, that’s not true; I kind of sort of wanted one, but I kind of sort of want a lot of things, such as a Hello Kitty TV.  Doesn’t mean I’m going to go out and buy one, though, since hundreds of dollars can buy a lot of things that will entertain me for more than the ten minutes of fascination I would have with the kittyfied TV and bowified remote.

Then nook came along, looking cute, shunning the need for connection software, and equipped with a user-replaceable battery.  My “I kind of sort of want an e-reader” attitude turned into an “omg nook is awesome and someday I will have it” attitude.  That “someday” was supposed to translate into “whenever nook 2 comes out and original nook gets a price drop”, but that’s now changed to “whenever a NYC B&N has it in stock”.

I still can’t think of a way that it enhances my hobbies enough to be worth $260, but just the fact that it exists prompts me to think about the little ways an e-reader can help, such as not worrying about overdue library books, being able to comfortably read those horribly thick learning books on the subway, and being able to search for a specific word or phrase rather than physically scanning the book with my own eyes and wasting precious reading time.  Yes, I thought about all those things two weeks ago, too, but every time I’ve thought of those little perks since then, my nook desire heightens considerably.  Please plateau so that I can be normal again.

Amateurishly analyzing myself again, this desire is probably also due to the fact that I can’t have one and people always want what they can’t have.  It’s not being sold in stores yet, there is no announcement about exactly when it will be sold in stores, and the expected ship date for any nooks ordered today is the first of February.

Well, since I can’t have a nook just yet, the only other way I can squelch this desire is to get the next best thing, which for now is Kindle 2.  In some ways it is better:  it has a browser, it reads Mobipocket, and DMP has some BL out in Kindle format.  In some ways, it is the same:  no connection software needed, natively reads about the same amount of file types, although not the same file types.  In some ways, it is worse:  battery is not user-replaceable (well, it can be, with some work) and needs a bit of adjusting in order to make it read library books.

Unless I see a Kindle 2 for $100, though, I’m still waiting for nook.  I love shopping at Amazon because they are cheaper than B&N without having to pay $25 a year for membership, but the company is rather ebil, not allowing Mobipocket PID’s to be used on a Kindle when they own Mobipocket, forcing people to only buy content provided by Amazon or content that is already DRM-free and could have been side loaded by any user in the first place.  At least with a nook, I can read library books without worrying that some firmware update will break that feature.  I’m a little worried that something similar to what is hopefully a glitch on Sony readers will happen, though.  Hopefully this will either be a non-issue with nook or the fact that I don’t use Overdrive and just download directly from NYPL makes it a non-issue.

Not that I think B&N is totally non-ebil; I’m actually a little jealous because there are so many of them that they overpower the presence of Borders, despite Borders’s free membership program with frequent 30% off coupons and Borders Bucks.  I don’t remember B&N ever sending me a coupon for more than 25% off when I was a member nor do I recall anything akin to the Borders Bucks program.

So in short, I’m whining because:  I can’t get a nook before February, B&N is more popular than Borders, and Amazon is ebil for not letting their Kindle read DRMed Mobipocket books, despite it actually being feasible since someone made a python script that will let it do so.