I got an invitation to a birthday party today from someone who lives in the valley/bay area. I've known this person for a few years - we're not close, but certainly not adversaries either. This person is definitely a frienda, a colleague, an associate - that kind of a relationship. The kind of relationship where you make sure that you break bread together if you are ever in the same town at the same time because you know the conversation is going to fun, smart and definitely challenging. Exactly the kind of conversation I love with lunch.

I was pleased to get the invite, but I had to turn it down. The whole distance between here and there thing would have made it near impossible. Actually, I'm kind of bummed I won't be able to make it.

And impressed a too. A lot of times, valley events are valley events - i.e. if you aren't in the valley, you don't know about it until afterwards, never mind get an invitation ahead of time. It was nice to get an invite *beforehand*. I really wish I could be there. It'll be a great time - fun, smart and definitely challenging.

Exactly the kind of conversation I love with birthday cake.

Eric Rice is getting all hot and bothered about one of his Christmas presents...

Yup. Got a Sony Reader for Christmas, and it is *bad ass*. It looks like a book, feels like a book, reads like a book. And it takes PDFs, JPGs, MP3s, AACs, and RSS feeds.

Don’t try and compare this to phones, laptops, or any other computer device.

Compare it to paper.

- via Eric Rice, "The Official Site"

Being a red-blooded geek myself, this got me all hot and bothered too. Of course I had to check into what the heck a "Sony Reader" is. I'd never heard of it until I did my annual check on Eric's blog (I only need to check him once a year - he's timeless :)

These things do look pretty sick. Great looking display, nice form factor and a touch of elegance that you don't usually get in handheld devices of this ilk.

I got a bit of a shock when I clicked the "buy direct" button though - $349. I'm used to devices like this being subsidized by the book sellers (you know the old "buy a subscription, get a cheap/free/discounted reader" trick?)

$349 is a lot of cake to spend on paper.

Even though they do have a couple of rebates and discounts available (in a flash page I can't link to), I think I'll be sticking to the real thing until I can find someone as nice as Eric' benefactor to give me one ;)