Friday Foccacia
I thought Raven-Symone was pretty much done when she passed on actually being part of the Chetah Girls, but apparently not. It seem she is on a 55 city “Pajama Party” tour with the child band Clique Girls (the Clique Girls are 8, 9 and 10 years old, making them the youngest pop group in music history. How cool is that?)
Whenever I am in a store like Best Buy, Circuit City, etc. I almost always wind up helping or explaining something to another customer. Either because the sales associate doesn’t know the information, or is trying to push something on a customer that isn’t really quite right for them. I guess now I had better be careful, because there have been times that I have badmouthed a product, or spoken about how overpriced it was at a given establishment. When somebody did that at Best Buy recently however, apparently they called the cops on him.
When I first read about a new study that says teens don’t worry about losing their hearing. My first reaction was, “Duh… Ya think?” But as I thought about it a little more, I seem to remember hearing and reading about such thing when I was a teen (yes… all those years ago), because of the sudden popularity of the Walkman. Now I don’t doubt that the damage that can be done with today’s stronger earphones, especially with noise cancellation. But I don’t see “everybody” being deaf from those Walkan’s now, so I am kind of thinking that these studies are overstating things, just a tad.
Being a father of a little girl, I was quite outraged by the message presented at the website missbimbo.com. But Tracee from So Sioux Me has done such a good job, and expressed exactly what I was thinking, it would probably be best if you just read her post.
How funny is THAT Department - The RIAA who has no problems with suing and attempting to collect a $220,000 award in the one (and only) file-sharing suit they have won, from a woman that allegedly shared 24 songs. But now they are mad and think it is excessive that they have been ordered to pay $298,000 in attorney’s fees on a case they didn’t win.
A worm in the Apple - I am sure there are plenty of Apple Fan-boys that thought nothing about Apple trying to sneak Safari onto iTunes users machines, but if you think you are safer using Safari, you are sadly mistaken.
Friday Focaccia
Who the heck is still voting for McCain? - apparently McCain is so senile, he needs Joe Lieberman constantly behind him correcting him. First he made it clear that qualifications (as he sees it) to be a “War President” and picking up the torch from Bush does not mean he needs to know the difference between Sunni and Shiite. And now he is showing off his International Relations skills by going into Israel and during a speech calling Purim, “their Halloween.” Now, to be honest I do not know squat about Purim, but I am not in Israel as a representative of the United States and making reference to it. Maybe before he opens his mouth next time, Lieberman could teach him how to use The Google 
, and get some information out of the series of tubes.
Glib Gibson - Gibson Guitars started out suing Activision for Guitar Hero claiming a patent infringement issue. Now they are apparently trying to get their way by suing retailers for selling the game! What next, will they sue you for buying the game?
Just another reason I hate Apple - Be careful the next time you update your iTunes software, apparently Apple is trying to broaden their market for their inferior Safari browser by making it part of an iTunes update. Remember when Microsoft tried to include IE7 as part of a Windows Update? Yeah, well the same outrage should be applied here. At least with IE it could be argued that by trying to move people from IE6 to IE7 Microsoft was just trying to rectify security issues (since IE6 is used throughout the OS whether it is your “browser” or not), but there is no valid reason to include Safari with iTunes. But this is Apple we are talking about, who would dare question the “Great And Powerful Jobs?”
Just another reason I love Starbucks - Things need to be changed… not so much new, but changed back to the way they were before, when Starbucks was mostly about coffee. Well it seems that Starbucks got the message, and is promising a number of changes to get back to their coffee basics. There is only one thing that would make me happier about this announcement. They did mention that there would be new espresso machines “designed to give a more consistent …” beverage. But to me, that only means another version of those automated espresso machines they installed. I would love to see them go back to grinding the beans and pouring shots from a real espresso machine. But I guess you can’t have everything.
Just wait until Bill O’Reilly gets a hold of this - I couldn’t help but laugh when I saw this Jeff Parker cartoon, about the overcommercialization of Easter. Of course I probably didn’t laugh for the reasons it was intended. Here we have a holiday, where the symbols of the holiday in no way resemble the reason for the holiday. For this reason, either for a joke or not really understanding you always have people ask the question of what does the bunny and eggs have to do with Easter? Of course we know this is because the Christians stole the symbols of the Spring Holiday from the Pagans in order to “sell” their religion to try and convert people. Now you complain about its commercialization? I really just don’t want to see or hear about a “War On Easter” I really really don’t.
For the Record
Yes, I know I never posted my review of the first Zune, and already version 2 is out. But I am still going to come out with a new review. Why? Well, for the one of the reasons that I picked a Microsoft product over following the crowd and buying an iPod. Because the product gets support.
You see, today when the Zune 2 was released, the firmware that will be on the new players, also became available for my old version 1 Zune (now known as the Zune 30) as well. I get all the new software features without having to buy a new device. Just try and get that from Apple.
I am not a Microsoft “fanboy” by any stretch of the imagination. I have no qualms about complaining about the mistakes they make (and there are plenty) or how they try to at times flex their muscles and change things just for the sake of change (for example the awful new Office 2007). But what they lack in upfront agility, they do often make up for… eventually. And with products that I do not upgrade at every turn (prior to this my last MP3 player was a 32MB Rio), I want that kind of stand behind your product mentality.
Decisions made easy
Well, as I continue to ponder whether or not to allow LatteGirl to get wired for music, it seems she has already taken steps in an effort to make the decision for me.
This weekend she confiscated my Zune, and made it her own to listen and bop around the house. I must admit, I enjoyed both the floor show as she danced about, and was more than happy that she got her fill of music, while I did not have to listen to the High School Musical 2 soundtrack another thousand times this weekend.
Of course now this tempts me to let her just have the Zune, which would of course give me an excuse to get the new 80 GB Zune player which coincidentally just happens to have a release date a mere two days before my birthday. That would be an excellent gift to myself I think. Of course the wife just might hand my head to me if I did that. And that could be a problem. It is tough to make use of earbuds, when you head is missing.
The Digital Audio Player Dilemma
I am the proud owner of a ZUNE (more on that soon). However, when I purchased a Digital Audio Player (DAP) for TheWife, Zune did not yet offer a flash based player, the style she wanted for workouts and running. So much to my chagrin, a swallowed hard and bought her an iPod Nano.
Here we are, a year later, and now thanks to my neice having gotten an iPod from her father (my brother in law) last year, LatteGirl has begun hinting that she would like a music player of her own. Since LatteGirl and I have been doing walks on the days that TheWife has been doing her 5K runs, this has only increased her desires to have the ability to listen to music like mommy does during her runs.
Which brings me to the two part dilemma. First, TheWife and I are both feel unsure about giving a 7 year old(and a half… sorry honey) a DAP of her own. TheWife feels it is too indulgent at that age, I am more willing to give into it, so long as she sticks with over the head style headphones and not earbuds. So question one, how old is old enough for such a thing? And if it is OK, do we have to start her out with one of those cheesy kid style ones (i.e. Disney Tunes) or do we just go with a normal DAP?
Assuming we go with a normal DAP, that presents dilema number 2. Most of the music thus far that has been purchased for LatteGirl was done on TheWife’s account… meaning the ever evil iTunes. Sure we can get around that by burning the songs to disk and then ripping them back onto the computer. And next month (November) Zune will now be offering a Flash based DAP as well. My inclination of course is to stay away from anything and everything Apple. But I was the one that bought the Nano for TheWife to begin with, so it is really my fault she is “stuck” with it. So, do I go with my heart and pick a ZUNE or do I take the easy way out and go the iPod route? (Just another reason why DRM sucks)
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