[quote name='VioletArrows']*sneaks out of lurky exile for a moment* I'm stuck between deciding on getting the hard drive now or grinding out the rest of the tickets for the eReader. I just got to 13000, and I guess I sort of need the hard drive, but I'd much rather have the eReader.
The EHD I'm using now is getting up in years (I think it's 6 years old now), but I greatly miss reading. Reading off my laptop hurts my eyes, and the library has nothing good I haven't already read. It just seems like the eReader would be really popular since those things are stupidly expensive and adding another two weeks on to the month it would take me to afford it would be a bad idea.[/QUOTE]
My advice would be to go for the e-reader, since it sounds like that's what you want, but to keep in mind that you may end up with neither it nor the HD while you attempt to accumulate enough tickets. Myself, I was 80 tickets away from getting a Zune the day they took it down, and they've yet to put it back up. I was upset, but when they put up the Sony camera and GPS, I had more than enough to get both. Bottom line: something will come along sooner or later that you want.
So I'd say it's worth a shot. The e-reader retails for $299 ($270 on Amazon), and you can get a bigger external hard drive than 160GB for a very reasonable price at any number of places. I bought a terabyte last year from NewEgg for I think $80, for example.
Good luck. I hope you get enough tickets for the e-reader in time if that's what you decide to aim for.