Ray Ozzie sent me and Irish podcaster Tom Raftery some email at 6 a.m. on Christmas eve. Was that a way to tell those kids over at Google that “we can work even longer hours than you do?” Heheh.

Then he wrote a blog post. Turns out he’s testing the new Treo. Being CTO of Microsoft does have its privileges!

When showing my phone around I actually get a lot of questions about whether or not to go with a keyboard-style phone. Here’s why I don’t: I used to have a Blackberry (back when I worked at Fawcette) and I used it so much that my hands hurt. Really hurt. I lost my Blackberry in a cab in New Orleans and my pain went away. I realized then that it was the thumb keyboard that was causing my hands to hurt. Let’s face it, I was addicted to that thing (and this was before blogging, imagine if I could post from my phone!)

So, now, I avoid any device that has a mini keyboard. Why? Because it’s too hard to use T9 to type emails or blog posts. I can read them just fine, but replying is hard so I wait until I’m on my Tablet PC and have a wifi connection.

Here’s a tip, though. If you want me to call you back make sure you put your phone number on your email post. Make sure, also, to put hyphens to connect the numbers, like this: 1-425-205-1921. Outlook on SmartPhones automatically turns that number into a clickable one, so it’s very easy to call you.

Sometimes I write a post just for a couple of people. This is one of those times. Shel and Paula Israel, thank you so much for an awesome dinner last night! What a feast! I’m still recovering. And, thanks to Jeff Clavier for the wine. It’s the first time I’ve had a 30-year-old wine. Damn, now I can’t go back to my two-buck-chuck. Sigh.

And, yes, Shel, I do have ThinkPad envy. Your new toy is so light! Not like the desert we had. What a log! I showed Jeff Windows Vista and Office 12 too. Jeff liked it a lot.

Me too, after switching half of my life over to Windows Vista and Office 12 it’s really hard to go back to XP and Office 2003.

One thing I’ve noticed is that Office 12’s new UI feels a lot more “Web like.” Why? No menus. I think this is going to be a suprise hit. Steve Gillmor is counting Office out, saying it’s dead, but, sorry, I sure like using Office 12 a lot more than, say, Writely (which I’ve also been playing with).

Steve Garfield brings us 100,000 Christmas lights from Boston on his vlog.