It’s press day here at the Consumer Electronics Show, and I’m officially a member of the first amendment brigades for the duration, thanks to an article I’m writing for TidBITS.

For those of you who have never been to (or heard of) CES, see below:

Note the phonebook-like directory of the conference; that’s covering up one or two conference addenda magazines below. Frommer’s publishes its own guide to the show, which I’m expecting to be handy. And in the front, the five Triptik style maps you need to navigate the various convention halls. I’m hoping to God that most of this stuff is on that conference DVD.

I’m already starting out the week with a new gadget: picked up a Sprint EVDO Palm Centro yesterday, on the theory that it would be easier than hunting down hotspots, and I could return it at the end of the remorse period. Problem is that I’ve already fallen in love with the speed boost over EDGE, so this might be a permanent addition to my telecom mix.

Which means, that once again I am that guy who carries around two cell phones. I hate being that guy.

My article for TidBITS will be focused on stuff of interest to the Mac community, but I’m actively looking for other things to write about. If any faithful VJW Conspiracy readers have any requests on interesting-looking things I should check out here, let me know.

Day zero conference swag award: Toshiba, who gave me a backpack made of enough ballistic nylon to build a fabric howitzer.