Update: I couldn’t resist, click play to listen. 
The loveable Vince of Sham-Wow fame has returned, and this time he is slanging the Slap Chop. I have seen the Sham-Wow commercial so many times, when it comes on I actually greet Vince with a warm hello. He is nearly part of the family in our house. 

So the Slap Chop seems to be the same crappy $9.99 chopper i had years ago with a new name and the backing of the best salesman in the world; Vince. Though Vince is quick to explain that is definitely not like the one I used to have, and then “sinks” the most unlikely of behind the back shots ever! I only made it 37 seconds into the commercial before I felt like a substandard piece of shit for not owning 3 Slap Chops. Vince made it very clear that my life is boring, and that it has no chance of being exciting until I am Slap Chop-ing my troubles away.

He had me on the hook, I was reaching for my credit card, and then he said it. “YOU’RE GONNA LOVE MY NUTS”.

Holy Shit. It was right then I thought maybe this is a parody? Is this just a joke? No, Vince was deadly serious about how much you will love his nuts. I can imagine the 25 takes it took to get that right, because Vince sounds quite sincere about his nuts. Your gonna love my nuts, your gonna love my nuts, Your gonna love my nuts.

And it is true, his nuts are uniformly chopped and lovely.

Well played Vince. 

This is how media viewing was supposed to be all along, local files and internet media living together in 1080i (mostly). I think that the Apple TV should be free, and Boxee should be $250; because the Apple TV is pretty much a doorstop until you install it. The ATV fulfills almost none of my media viewing needs until this beautiful application is introduced.

This makes me want to get rid of my cable service, but who knows what will happen if and when Apple releases a new update? Let’s not think about that now. This is indeed a major step forward in integrating all the media you would ever want into one place. And as far as installation and usability, I have no complaints. I mean it is still in alpha and it is this good! The install was not bad at all as long as you follow the instructions on the Giz, and make sure that you update all the components of Boxee before running it. So take a look at the video below, as I detail the install and the usage of Boxee on the Apple TV.

I have had a few complaints about the quality of some of my videos, so I am going to try to do a bit better.

So as you might have heard Circuit City is not doing too well. And though I prefer them to Best Buy, it looks like the time for CC might be coming to an end. Last week they announced they would be closing 20% of their stores, just days before announcing that they would be filing for bankruptcy. Ouch.

Well one of the stores being closed is the one near me, and they have 10% to 30% off of most things, so I thought I would go and see what kind of open box goodness I could enjoy. A few weeks back I reviewed the Flip Video Mino camera, take a look here. I love that little camera, and the video quality is pretty nice for something that fits in your pocket. The downside? It can’t read displays or text off of my computer or iphone or anything printed at all. It just won’t focus on it. So that is the only disappointment in a pocket sized video camera, fine with me. But still I had a gap to fill. 

I walked into circuit city and it was a mad house. I saw a nice little flash based camera that would be fine for recording short blurbs and it would certainly be able to zoom in on small text of all kinds. It was open box and was going for around $150. It still had the battery, charger and manual; just no box. I thought about what a great deal I was getting as I took it up to the counter…

Anyway, I paid and I was on my way. Once home I pulled out the manual to check out the functions, and noticed a second battery in the plastic bag. Score! Free spare battery! Then I saw something wasn’t right, the model number on the manual did not match the model number on my camera.

It turns out they had this camera grouped with the wrong set of cameras. They were trying to keep all the same model open boxes together, however a lot of the Samsungs use the same casing, and you have to check the model number on the inside of the screen to tell the difference. Well I paid about $150 for a $400+ HD (720p w/ HDMI) Camera. Not the top of the line by any means, but way above what I paid for!

I thought this was a nice change after years of being over-charged by retail, now it is my turn to taste a little victory.

Thank You Veterans!

Great news everyone, it’s my lucky day!! Someone nice was listening, and I was able to get a Boxee Alpha invite. I can’t tell you how exited I am about this! I just went out and purchased my Apple TV; I have been waiting for something like Boxee to make it worth it to own one. Anyway, I have hacked my ATV and installed Boxee and I will post a full review of it tomorrow in the next day or two! So far it is amazing! I am watching Starship Troopers on Hulu as I type this.

(Thank you)

 

Click here for an update!

I decided in my article ‘Apple TV or Western Digital TV or Windows Media Center‘ that I would go with the Apple TV. I went with the ATV because of the recent ability to hack it into playing all formats, and files over the network or external USB. That sounds like exactly what I need, and without the crappy interface of WMC to piss me off!

Well in order to live the dream with my ATV I need to first hack it with Boxee. With the addition of Boxee to my ATV I will be able to use a multitude of online video sites, such as Hulu. That in itself is amazingly cool, and add that to the reasons I mentioned above and I am sold! 

Well Boxee is not for sale. It is currently in alpha, and as much as I want to hack the shit out of my ATV to start enjoying my media again, I am stuck on a waiting list for alpha testers. Which after this article on the Giz, I can only imagine is about a bazillion people long. 

Anyway, Patience is a good thing, so I will wait. But hopefully Boxee won’t make me wait too long. A nice picture to look at while I am waiting…

 

 

Click here to jump to the update

I have a bunch of movies and tv shows, so much it takes up about a Terabyte. Sure I have them, but how do I play them on my beautiful LCD TV? Not just play them, but play them conveniently. Currently I am using an HP media PC I picked up for about $500 a year and a half ago. It is Vista based, and uses Windows Media Center to play video. WMC is alright, but I don’t really find it easy to use. And as far as searching through 400+ movies by icon, not by name, well that just sucks.

As you can see I am not thrilled with the use of WMC, so I want to move on to another option like the Apple TV or the Western Digital TV. But which?

OK first, Apple TV which is already into it’s 2.0. It is small and easy like most Apple products, it can play HD and now with a little hacking (1 or 2) you can play all xvid and divx videos on it. Also you can download movies directly from the apple store for $2.99 and $3.99. There is a 40GB for $229 and a 160GB for $329. However with the same hack you can hook up an external hard drive via usb, so get the 40GB and save some money. Also it seems you can now get Hulu on your Apple TV, that is a major bonus.

OK so next, the Western Digital WD TV. This is a bit of a different take on a media player than the Apple TV. There is no built in storage, it is all provided via your attached USB drive(s). The cost is $129, so you are saving some money, and chances are you already have a usb hard drive around to hook up to it. But here seems to be the catch, in order to play most of your videos you will have to convert them with the included software. Which is kind of the reason I am using the HP still, I can play all formats without any conversion. Something not possible with the Apple TV up until recently via the hacks (1 or 2) I talked about earlier.

They both look good and have slick interfaces, they both do 1080P, both have HDMI, both can accept USB hard drives and I am sure there is or soon will be a rental service for the WD to match the Apple. But when it comes down to it, I don’t want to convert thousands of files over to a proprietary format. I would rather convert the Apple TV to play all of my files just once. I guess that is my answer.

I think I am going to get a 40GB Apple TV and give it a try. I will let you know how it goes.

Today in the App Store I saw Air Mouse by R.P.A. Technology. You can control the mouse on your Mac or PC via the iPhone, and even type remotely? Surely a feat such as this could not be accomplished for a mere $5.99. Alas it is true, it controls your computer, and it does it well. Take a look.

 

Click to purchase in the App Store.

You know I just thought of another use for this. You can install the server software on multiple machines. Now you can hijack someone’s mouse and keyboard with your iPhone. That would be a great joke!

Where to start… Well let me start by saying that I went into this hoping for the best, but expecting the worst. I have been burned so many times in the past by no name electronics companies that promise greatness, and deliver weird dongles and incompatible codecs.

In this case I didn’t even trust my normally trustworthy Amazon ratings which gave it an average score of 4.5 stars out of 5; 234 people surveyed.

With that said, let’s get down to it. (FYI @ 5:10 I start filming with the Mino)

This thing is pretty cool. It shoots clear crisp video, and gets to the task quickly. The buttons and interface are fairly easy to navigate. It shoots 30 frames per second MPEG4, with each minute taking up about 25MB. The verdict: It is well worth the $150 if you have a need for on the go video.
Here are some pictures, and some video shot with it.

Purchase @ Amazon.com

I heart Amazon Prime. The cost is $79 a year. The benefit? Free two day shipping on almost everything, and overnight shipping for only $3.99, for anything. I mean anything. I ordered a 68LB inversion table from Amazon, selected overnight shipping, what did it cost? Huge box on my doorstep the next day for $3.99. It certainly pays for itself if you like stuff to arrive fast.

So what did I order? 

The Flip Mino 60 Minute Camcorder

This thing seems pretty slick. Tiny one piece rechargeable instant USB video camera, there and ready to go when you need it. I am not expecting this to replace my HD camera, but I am expecting it to actually fit in my pocket. I of course ordered it overnight, so I will have it tomorrow.
A review will follow.

 

I used to love bacon. Just check out this cool bacon suitcase! I would eat it every day, sometimes on grilled cheese, sometimes all by itself. I just couldn’t get enough of the pure strips of pork perfection. That all changed last December when I saw the ‘How It’s Made’ on Bacon (see the video below). All I can say is some things are better left without us knowing how they are made. 

Ok now to the point. Crispy bacon from the microwave is not a myth. I have made it with this device, and it is great every time. The problem is it douches the inside of your microwave with bacon juice. You know, your vegetarian girlfriend’s favorite thing to see when she opens up the microwave.

But look what I found, a solution that provides crispy, mess-free microwave bacon cooking. WowBacon. Pretty cool idea. Pretty queer name.

Check out the product website.

 

How It’s Made – Bacon