The other day our very own Corman dropped me a link to a great deal from NEC on an eval kit for one of their 32-bit microcontrollers. It comes with a USB-based flash programmer, some emulation and debugging software, and of course the MCU itself - for a grand total of around $60. Quite a good bargain. Here's el linky for anyone in the market for good hardware.

I haven't had a chance to rig it up and play with it yet, since I'm making a valiant effort at drowning myself in work. But it looks really cool, which as we all know is the most important thing.