Got to go to dinner with Alan Cooper tonight, then watch him speak at the first ever East Bay CHI meeting.

It's always interesting hearing Alan speak. I like how he always seems to walk the edge between being immensely knowledgeable about interaction design and being full of hot air. Most of the talk was about what interaction design isn't, and what they don't deliver. I almost expected him to keep whittling it down until he admitted that all a new client gets for their $half-million is a Cooper Interactive keychain.

It was a good show though, and a packed house. This April we'll be continuing the just-started Easy Bay tradition of great HCI speakers with a talk by Jef Raskin, one of a handful of people often labeled "Father of the Macintosh." Woo hoo!