Audiobooks have always seemed to me to be an invention for people too lazy to read.

While casting around for things to fill those 40 gigabytes on my iPod, however, I thought maybe they're just the thing for long haul flights when I'm too tired or distracted for the printed word.

As I was choosing a couple of selections from iTunes I was intrigued to see that the speeches from the Democratic and Republican conventions are available to download free of charge, courtesy of C-Span.

I chose Lynne Cheney and Arnold Schwarzenegger.

By the way, if anyone knows of any good sites for free audiobook downloads, let me know. Kazaa doesn't appear to have much.