Peanuts

I picked up the first volume of The Complete Peanuts a few days ago. The early stuff is great. I scanned in my favorite strip so far. (Hopefully, the Schultz estate won’t mind.) It’s a beautifully designed book, and the strips are wonderful. I doubt I’ll be buying the whole run — it’ll take 25 volumes over 12 years — but I’m probably in for the next few, at least.

Microsoft Reader

I’m very frustrated with Microsoft Reader. I wanted to start reading The Subtle Knife, book two of Philip Pullman’s “His Dark Materials” trilogy, today. My little Pocket PC would not cooperate. First, MS Reader would just give me errors. Uninstalling, reinstalling, reactivating — nothing worked. Eventually, the device wound up getting stuck in such a way that I could not reset it, no way, no how. I’ve got it going again, after flipping the “last-ditch” switch that wipes the memory completely, restoring it to factory defaults. I’ve got it working again, but really I shouldn’t have to spend more than an hour just trying to get to the point where I can read a book. Back to paper, dang it.