Any of you have a Kindle? You know, the ebook thingie from Amazon? It seems cool.

One of my colleagues got one a few months ago to "test it out," and I found out by happenstance, and when I did, I begged him to let me touch it. I played for less than five minutes, and yes, it was pretty neat, but not, you know, three to four hundred DOLLARS neat.  Especially since it doesn't do library books, and I am more of a borrower than a buyer. (If it were like a Roku for library books — a $100 device with unlimited access, etc, I'd be STOKED. I do love the roku, seriously.)

Fast forward to Monday, when said colleague sees me in the hall and says "hey, you want that kindle? I hate it." He would rather read on his blackberry, just doesn't like it, learned what he needed to and was wanting to pass it on, so I was like OH, HELL YES. Only much more professional and calm, like "yeah, I'd love to have it, I can show it to faculty." (Um, yeah. Ahem.)

So anyway, now that I have had a Kindle dangled in front of me, I'm looking at the Kindle store and making plans on books to uh, test out on it. Obama's two memoirs are under 5 bucks, as is the Red Tent, which everyone tells me I should read, but I've resisted for so long that if my mom saw me holding the book, I'd just get some "I told you so!"

And I don't HAVE it yet. I have the box, and I've added it to my shelf o' tech boxes, that are, amazingly enough, great conversation starters to people coming near my cube (it joins a MacBookPro box, and two Flip Video boxes) but DAMN, I want to get some hands on with the thing. Here's hoping my colleague unearths it at home this weekend…..