I've polished my most comfortable shoes, charged up my rechargeable batteries, gotten my computer ready and cleared my audio and video recorders in preparation for filling them up again. I even went to the local Goodwill and scored a $5 fishing vest to help organize and carry my current collection of reporting gadgets.

Bring in on, CES, you big beast. Bring it on.

This will be my seventh year covering the International Consumer Electronics Show, and if you've attended before in any capacity, you're probably familiar with something like the preparatory ritual described above. At its best, CES is heaven for the technology nerds who travel to Las Vegas hoping for a glimpse of the next big thing. But it's also a giant show, with exhibits and activities spread across the city -- and tens of thousands of attendees competing for cabs, shuttles and every last square inch on the monorail.

Even if you prepare well and stay for several days, it can be tough to take in everything you want to see.

With that in mind, I'll be trying a new approach this year in an attempt to keep up. In addition to filing posts for the TechFlash home page, I'll be sending raw images, video and text directly from my phone to this standing page we've created: TechFlash @ CES 2010. Bookmark it and check back regularly for some extra content from the show. It's an experiment, but I'm hoping to find time to post some good stuff there.

I'm arriving in Vegas two days before the official start of the show to attend as many advance press briefings and demonstrations as I can. With a little cooperation from the Gods of Mobile Internet Connections and Power Supplies, I'll be filing posts for TechFlash as much as I can during the week, including video from the CES show floor whenever I see something cool, interesting or otherwise worthwhile sharing.

I'm particularly interested in the way the line is continuing to blur between phones, netbooks and personal computers. For example, Lenovo this morning announced a new "smartbook," a cross between a smartphone and a netbook that uses the ARM architecture popular in mobile phones. Expect more of that as the show gets underway later this week. Reuters has more on the overall ARM trend.

Internet content on televisions will be another big CES trend, as evidenced by our post yesterday about the PlayOn media service from Seattle-based MediaMall Technologies. Competing in the same arena, D-Link will be showing its new Boxee Box at the show. Veteran industry analyst Tim Bajarin has more on the Internet-to-TV trend as part of this broader CES preview for PC Magazine.

With some remote guidance from my colleague Eric Engleman, I'll be checking out new e-reader devices in search of a potential Kindle killer. Plastic Logic is showing its new QUE reader on Thursday morning, and I'm planning to check that out, in addition to Hearst's new Skiff Reader later in the day.

Among other areas, I'm going to make a point of seeing these new 3D television systems that everyone is buzzing about. I'll also be checking out the latest generation of in-car technology, to see if the automakers are making major advances there or more incremental gains. Ford CEO Alan Mulally is one of the keynoters at CES again this year, and automakers including General Motors and Kia also have a presence.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer's opening keynote is Wednesday night at the show. I'm planning to be in the audience for that, as well. See this preview for more on what's at stake for Microsoft at CES this year.

Of course, that's just a small slice of what will be at the show, and I'll be roaming the floor as much as I can in hopes of being surprised by something cool. If there's anything you're particularly interested in seeing or hearing about on TechFlash during CES, drop me a note at toddbishop@bizjournals.com or @toddbishop.