I mean honestly what are they smoking up there at Amazon? Have you seen this thing? Sure, the feature set rocks — EVDO, Web browsing, read blogs, subscribe to newspapers, buy books over the air. But good God this thing is ugly. I mean if my dog looked like this I would shave its ass and teach it to walk backwards. Amazonians, remember this: people have to put these things in their homes! It’s called design. Have you heard of it? Apparently my dear friend Jeff Bezos hasn’t. Nevertheless this didn’t stop Newsweek’s Steven Levy from doing a big slurpy cover story about this damn thing. Apparently Levy was just so glad to get the drop on Goatberg for once that he promised the sun, moon and stars in order to get the exclusive. But come on. The cover of Newsweek? For a new book reader that isn’t even decent looking? Jaysus, as Bono would say. I smell a sweetheart deal. (Katie says the same thing.) Attention, editors of Newsweek: You can open your eyes and get up off your knees now. Mr. Bezos has zipped up and left the room. And yeah, you got some in your hair.

All I can say is that between this device and the Sony Reader you almost have the making of what you want. The Sony has a nice form factor and the gorgeous buttery soft faux leather case. The Kindle has better features. I know what you’re thinking. Wouldn’t it be just kick-ass super duper if, say, Apple came along and finally delivered the ultimate product in this category? Because you just know if we did it the thing would look gorgeous and have a beautiful feature set and would just kick everyone’s ass. What if we could get it done by January and announce it at Macworld? Gee whiz. I’ll have to mention this to Jony at lunchtime.