Mega Bookstores

Over the weekend, Heimlich and I went to Crocker Park [crockerpark.com], which is one of those new trendy malls that is trying to be more of a stand-alone village than a mall. Not only does it have stores, but it has it's own internal street system, complete with traffic lights and crosswalks. There's no internal part of the mall -- you have to walk on the streets outside to get to the storefronts. So, I kind of hate it, because you have to walk a long distance outside to get from your car to any of the stores.

Anyway, they also have their own condos and supermarkets and all kinds of stuff. So, you could live there, but I don't know why you would want to. Like any mall, the traffic would be ridiculous if you had to deal with it on a daily basis.

We went there, because they have a huge Borders bookstore and a huge Barnes and Noble bookstore. And they are probably about a block away from each other. Both were also packed with people, so neither was apparently struggling with business.

We ended up spending a few hours looking at books at one store, then walking to the other store, and comparing prices and selection, etc. Aside from the very popular books (which neither of us were interested in anyway), we found that in general, there was very little overlap between the selections in both stores, which made things a little easier.

I ended up selecting Led Zeppelin: 1968-1980 [amazon.com] by Keith Shadwick, which is a beautiful book. My taste in music runs in cycles, and you can tell what kind of cycle I am in now...

Honda SH-AWD

A friend recently sent me a link to a Honda video [honda.com] regarding relatively new technology in the Acura RL [acura.com] (which is their flagship model).

They call the new technology "SH-AWD", which stands for Super Handling All-Wheel Drive. The video is fairly long (almost 12 minutes), but it goes into a significant amount of detail on how the system works. It seems that there is a actively-controlled rear differential, which is able to distribute power to individual wheels, based on the direction that the driver is trying to make the car go into.

For instance, if you are accelerating through a turn, the differential transfers power to the outside rear wheel, which creates a yawing moment and prevents the car from understeering (see below picture). Similarly, when you remove your foot from the gas pedal in a turn, the engine braking torque can be distributed appropriately, as to prevent oversteer.



This is different from the open differential [wikipedia.org] that most passenger cars have, where the differential's job is to make sure that the thrust generated by each drive wheel is even. It is also different from a limited-slip differential [wikipedia.org], where the distribution of power to the outside wheels in a turn is not controlled actively.

That is very cool technology, and I would *love* to take one of those cars out for a spin.

Almost Queen

So, last week was actually a big week for us with live music performances. On Friday night, we went to see a band called Almost Queen [almostqueen.com], which is a Queen tribute band.

They had a very entertaining show, and a song list that was a mile long. It just kept going and going... On the whole, they were very good. The lead singer sounded *exactly* like Freddie Mercury (although he seemed to have difficulty hitting the really, really high notes). The drummer was also very entertaining -- lots of flair and he was constantly breaking or flinging drumsticks everywhere.

About the only thing that I could complain about is that the singing ability of the other band members was lacking, so the multiple part harmonies didn't really sound like Queen. Still, a very enjoyable show.

On the other end of the spectrum, we also attended the Case Concert Celebration [case.edu], where we heard the Cleveland Symphony Orchestra perform Tchaikovsky's Romeo and Juliet (which was definitely the highlight), Falla's Suite from Three-Cornered Hat, and one of Tchaikovsky's piano concertos.

I'm not really qualified to critique that performance in detail, but I thought it was very enjoyable. I haven't had many opportunities in the past year to attend musical performances, but that is something that I would like to do more often.

Wedding Guests

So, I'm already starting to line up the travel plans for this year's wedding season. Every time someone tells me that they are getting married, I have to force myself not to offer them any unsolicited advice, because we were baraged by unsolicited advice while we were engaged.

One of the biggest surprises during our whole wedding process was how bitter some people were about not getting an invitation. Imagine this... the phone rings and:

"Terence, I haven't gotten an invitation to your wedding."
"Uh, well, uh... you know... we could only invite so many people, and we had to draw the line somewhere..."
"So, you cut ME!?!?"
"Dude, the extent of our relationship is that I loaned you my big wheel when we were in the 2nd grade. This is the first time I've heard from you in 10 years. Did you seriously think that you were going to get an invite? How the hell did you get my phone number, anyway?"

Ok, that might have been a mild exaggeration, but not by much. And it wasn't just one or two people. Several people were obviously very bitter. Every single one of those was a shock to me, because for every person that was bitter about not getting invited, there were probably 20 people that I considered to be a closer friend that didn't get invited either. And I don't think that our invite list was that small.

For that reason, I will never be upset if someone decides not to invite me to their wedding, because I know how hard it is to draw up that list.

That being said, sometimes it's shocking who DOES decide to invite you to their wedding. Almost every time I receive an invitation in the mail, I open it and think to myself:

• "Wow, they invited ME? They must have no friends!"
• "Huh, the invite list must be huge if they are inviting me."
• "Holy crap! How did that guy find anyone to marry him?!?!"
• "Wait, who are these people..."

I guess that I need to be cognizant that often two people view their friendship differently.

Jet Man

A friend recently sent me a link to an incredible video [jet-man.com].

Basically, a guy straps a miniature set of airplane wings to his back, along with some small jet engines. And then jumps out of a plane...

The video is amazing, because you see him cruising along, at roughly the same speed as the airplane he jumped out of. It looked like it would have been an incredible experience.

I would love to know how they were developed. And in particular, I would like to know how they performed the first test of the system! "Ok, we've never tested them before, but strap these jet engines to your back." "You want me to do what?!? Why don't you strap them to YOUR back?"

I am a Coffee Hazard

So, I don't really drink coffee. I mean, I'll occasionally order it when getting together with friends at a coffee shop or something. But I don't drink it every morning. One of my numerous oddities is the ability to wake up at any arbitrary time of the morning without using an alarm clock. I've just never needed anything to wake me up (including caffeine).

Heimlich doesn't really drink coffee either, so we, in effect, are a coffee-free household. I do have a coffeemaker (ironically, it's a pretty nice one). But I don't really know how to use it. I mean, I know the mechanics of making coffee. But in my experience, the taste is highly sensitive to the amount of coffee grounds you put into the filter. And since neither of us really drink coffee, we really have no idea what it's really supposed to taste like (and therefore don't really know what volume of grounds to use).

A few months ago, some friends of ours stayed over at our house for the weekend. And in the morning, we cooked a bunch of things to eat for breakfast, as we usually do when we have guests. But since we don't drink coffee, it just never occurs to me to actually make any in the morning (and even if I did, it would probably taste horrible, for the reasons stated previously).

I didn't know this at the time, but I recently found out that when they got up in the morning and discovered that we hadn't made any coffee, they were stricken with a level of terror that they probably haven't experienced since they were children. As it turns out, we had separate plans for the rest of the day, and they were able to discretely book it to the nearest coffeeshop before they hit the particularly painful parts of caffeine withdrawal.

Maybe we should be emailing disclaimers to people looking to crash at our place from now on...

Archos 504 Review, Part 3

Previously (Part 1 and Part 2), I had posted parts of a review of my new Archos 504 [archos.com] personal media player (PMP). This is the third and final portion of the review.


Transferring mp3s, video, or pictures to the device couldn't be easier. Just hook up the included data cable to the port on the bottom of the unit (see above), and plug the other end into a USB port on your computer.


You will then be prompted by a menu, asking you what mode you want to transfer data to it (or if you just want to charge the device). You can change the default option on this menu, but you will still have to confirm every time you connect it (which is kind of annoying, but I understand why). If you choose "PC Hard Drive mode" or "Windows Media Device mode", you will not be able to use the controls on the player itself until you disconnect the unit.


If you choose "PC Hard Drive mode" (which is what I always do), it'll show up as a drive in Windows Explorer, just like a USB stick would (see above image). There are separate directories for music, pictures, and movies, and you can create subdirectories in any of those. To transfer, you can just copy files to it, with whatever technique you usually use to copy files. When you disconnect the player from the computer, it will scan for new files and add them to the appropriate playlist. That's it! No special software needed. No drivers to install in WinXP. And it should work on anyone else's computer, and in any OS that supports Mass Storage Class devices (WinXP, OS X, Linux, etc).

Playing a video is almost identical to playing music, so I won't overload this review with specifics.


The photo browser is pretty nice. Thumbnails are displayed, and as you navigate through them, the one selected will be displayed larger than the others (see above image). You can choose to display them in a slideshow mode, or show them individually.


Once you are displaying a particular picture, you can hit the Menu button which will give you several options. You can zoom in, rotate, set the picture as your wallpaper, start a slideshow, etc. The screen is very bright, so in general, it is very easy for people to see detail in pictures.

Navigation through the photo browser (or any other menu, for that matter) is very quick, and there are seldom any slowdowns in navigation.

Overall, it is a very good unit. About the only things you could really complain about are the accessories, which are either not included or are not available. I've been happy with it so far, and are not bothered by its size.

Snow!

I was going to post Part 3 of my review of the Archos 504 today, but I'm going to push that off until Monday. Everyone's probably bored with it anyway.

Birch posted pictures of near his house [livejournal.com] after the big snowstorm that we had this week.

I haven't had much time to do anything this week, because I have spent hours after work trying to dig ourselves out. Here's a picture that I took of Heimlich after we finished shoveling on Wednesday night (after spending a romantic Valentine's Day by shoveling for 4 hours):


Brutal. I am so glad that the forecast looks better for the next few days.

Valentine's Day Gifts

Hehehehehe...

Did all of you get lots of phat l00t for Valentine's Day? I happened to get some really great gifts this year for Valentine's Day from Heimlich. Lots of guys would hope for tickets to a football game, the latest horror/slasher movie on DVD, or a six pack of Guinness (yummy!). But Heimlich shocked me this year, by finding stuff that I really wanted, without me having to even give her any hints.

So, what were they? What are these perfect gifts that I speak of?



I received the Dungeons & Dragons Spell Compendium (Hardcover) [amazon.com] along with the Dungeons & Dragons Player's Handbook II (Hardcover) [amazon.com].

See, sometimes when I happen to be playing a chaotic-evil, half-elven mage, and I've just fumbled my +1 Wand of Greater Nerdiness, I need to be able to quickly look up a spell that will make my pocket protector extra huge, to ward off the Indelible Pen of Therella. It used to take forever to try to figure out the right spell to use. But now I can have all of my favorite spells bookmarked in my own hardbound edition of the Spell Compendium. Oh yes!

Archos 504 Review, Part 2

On Monday, I posted Part 1 of my review of the Archos 504 [archos.com] personal media player (PMP). This is Part 2. [Go to Part 3.]

I primarily wanted a device to replace my MP3 player, with additional function as a video player, etc. So, the most important features to me were the ones related to music.


In the above image, you can see the default screen that is displayed when playing music. It tells you the previous track that was playing, the song title, artist and genre of the current track, how many tracks are in the current playlist, and the next track that will be played. Along the bottom, meters tell you progress through the current track, and volume level.


Each button on the front of the player is actually two buttons. If you push the left part of the button, it performs one function, and if you push the right part of the button, it performs a different function. From top to bottom, in the music mode, the functions are:

1. (left) 30 second forward skip, (right) increase volume
2. (left) skip to previous track/rewind, (right) skip to next track/fast-forward
3. (left) 30 second backwards skip, (right) decrease volume
4. (left) stop, (right) play/pause
5. (left) switch to alternate screen, (right) display menu

Each button has a great tactile feel when you push it -- you definitely know if it was pushed or not (lack of tactile feedback with the click-wheel is one thing I really don't like about iPod). The buttons do feel a little different, but it is very difficult to easily figure out what button you have your finger on without looking at the player.

Immediately below button 5 is an external speaker. The speaker is weak, as a lot of reviewers have complained about. But it's better than nothing.

The different fast-forward/rewind buttons are what really sold me on this line of PMPs. The 30-second-forward-skip button reminds me of a Tivo. It allows an almost instant skip 30 seconds forward into the file (which is convenient for skipping over commercials). If you hold down the 30-second-forward-skip button, you can really fly through a long mp3. There is also a "normal" fast-forward button, which advances slower, with more precision. One thing I liked about my Rio Karma is that when you fast-forwarded, you would hear little blips from the file you were playing, which allowed you to know when you had fast-forwarded enough. With the Archos 504, you don't get any audio output when fast-forwarding or rewinding. That forces you to look at the display (not practical when driving), or to just hit the 30-second-skip button a bunch of times, instead of holding it down. I wish they would fix that.


The browser (see above image) is adequate. You can sort by genre, etc. If you tell it to play a bunch of files that are stored in a directory, and then you upload more files into that directory, the new files will automatically be added to the playlist (this is one feature that I wish my Rio Karma had). Unlike many players on the market right now, you can play music while you are browsing through a list of videos, displaying pictures, or browsing through a list of mp3s.


When you are playing music, if you hit the menu button, a menu appears on the right (see above image). You can set bookmarks (this works in video mode, too), rate your music (which you can later use to sort music and make playlists), etc.


The Settings option (see above image) in the menu allows you to toggle shuffle and repeat modes.


The Sound option (see above image) in the menu allows you to adjust the bass boost, graphic equalizer (either manually, or by choosing presets), and adjust the balance.

The layout and navigation are pretty good. After the first two days, I no longer had to search around to remember how to get to a particular option.

The little icons around the border of the screen are pretty much always visible, no matter where you navigate to. They tell you whether there are other screens available, options that you can select by hitting the Menu button, the volume, the battery level, etc.

Go to Part 3.

My Bio

So, back at Case [case.edu] where I used to work, my former co-workers are submitting another journal article. Part of the research that performed there supports a conclusion that they are trying to assert in a journal article, so they added me as an author (5th or 6th in a list) to the journal article so that they could use some of my research. And that's totally fine, because it doesn't really matter to me either way -- I'm actually happy that they're getting more mileage out of that research.

Anyway, then I found out that I was going to have to submit a bio... Ugh. They just wanted to have these short blurbs at the end of each article, with a picture of each author, so that the readers would have some idea of whether the authors were qualified to make the conclusions they are making, etc.

I find it very difficult to write a summary of my life or accomplishments. I mean, I usually go out of my way to make sure that I don't sound like I am bragging about myself. And writing a bio about yourself just seems to close to bragging, I guess. Anyway, it makes me very uncomfortable. Here is what I ended up submitting:

Terence Wei received his Ph.D. in Mechanical Engineering from Case Western Reserve University in 2005. While performing research at the Biologically Inspired Robotics Laboratory at Case, he developed many types of vehicles, including single-legged hopping robots and six-legged walking robots. He has specially designed dynamic simulations for the purposes of optimizing robotic design and robot-ground interaction. He has also created several specialized apparatus for the purposes of obtaining insect locomotion and climbing behavior data, as well as novel feeding mechanisms for robotic manufacturing workcells. After finishing his Ph.D., he received an Intelligence Community (IC) Postdoctoral Fellowship. As a postdoctoral fellow, he worked on the design and integration of insect-inspired attachment mechanisms for climbing robots. His other interests include mechanism design and vehicle dynamics.

Now that I've finished writing it, I'm not sure what is weirder -- trying to figure out what accomplishments in my very short career are really worth writing about, or seeing my entire life summarized in a few sentences.

Archos 504 Review, Part 1

Last week, I mentioned just receiving an Archos 504 [archos.com] personal media player (PMP). This is Part 1 of the review of the device. [Go to Part 2 or Part 3.]

When you receive the device, you get the player, a data cable (which doubles as the charger), a set of headphones, and a half-decent case.


A lot of people have written reviews complaining about the lack of accesories that come with the device. For instance, you don't get an A/C adapter. To charge it, you have to use the included data cable, and charge the player via your computer's USB port. It's true that it would have been nice if they would have included an A/C adapter (since where I want to charge it isn't near a computer, and I don't have USB ports in my car), but the iPod doesn't come with an A/C adapter either (and that hasn't stopped iPod from crushing all of its competition).


You also can't buy an A/C adapter that connects directly to the player. You can buy an A/C adapter, but it plugs into a dock (which is yet another accessory that you will need to buy). You can't buy another data cable directly from Archos either. I will probably buy a 3rd part data cable, and then buy a USB Power Adapter [amazon.com] to turn that data cable into an A/C adapter. It's annoying enough that you have to buy extra accessories, but the fact that you can't buy the ones you want (such as an A/C adapter or another data cable) directly from Archos is even more annoying.

It is marketed as a DVR, but you can't record video (or display video on an external source) without an optional accessory (a special cable). This is fine with me, because I am not intending to use it as a DVR. The list goes on and on. I wanted a device that would primarily be used to play MP3s, and occasionally play video that I have ripped from a DVD. Everything that I need for these jobs is included.


There seems to be a feature on the device that detects shock, and parks the hard drive to protect it from damage. If you shake the device too much, the screen will fade out (telling you that it has parked the hard drive), and then after a few seconds, it will restart automatically. Unfortunately, this is a feature that is undocumented. And not a lot of people were too specific about it in their reviews (although enough alluded to it to give me confidence that it is not a defect). I can tell you that the feature was overly sensitive when I first received the unit. When I had it in my car, every time I hit a large bump, the hard drive would get parked. It was pretty annoying. However, after I upgraded the firmware, the sensitivity shifted to more reasonable levels. I carry it around hooked to my belt all of the time (where it is constantly shaken), and it almost never detects too much shock anymore.


The device is large, as you can see from the pictures. It is quite a bit larger than the iPod both in facial area, and in thickness (obviously, the protective case on the iPod is going to make it look a lot thicker than it actually is). Although I do carry it around in my pants pockets when I'm around the house, it is not really comfortable to do so, and I can't imagine anyone doing it on a regular basis. The tradeoff for the large size is, of course, the huge screen. The screen is not only large and bright, but it can be viewed from any angle (see above and below). The beautiful screen makes it easy to show movies or pictures to friends. It also is nice, because if you put the player down, you can still easily read anything on the screen, even when it is sitting at an odd angle.


Go to Part 2 or Part 3.

Kathy Griffin

I saw Kathy Griffin [wikipedia.org] perform at a sold-out Allen Theater in Playhouse Square (here in Cleveland) last night. And I laughed my ass off. That was a great show.

I have never seen her perform her comedy routine before. And I knew that she is kind of known for trashing other celebrities, but I didn't know that she did impressions too. So, while she was telling these hilarious stories about other people, she's doing impressions of them. Comedy gold. She did impressions of all kinds of people, from Barbara Walters, to Star Jones, to Clay Aiken, to Paula Abdul... It was a straight hour and a half of her trashing everyone.

It was also totally a totally irreverent act. I mean, she was calling Catholics "kid-fuckers", and talking about how her mother is always drunk and passed out on the couch... I haven't seen that many people get offended and leave in the middle of a show since I saw Eyes Wide Shut [imdb.com] in the theater. It was awesome.

I would love to know what those people were thinking. Why would you buy tickets to a comedy show if you clearly don't have a sense of humor? And it's not like we were at a small comedy shop, where the comedians are mostly unknown. She headlines at big theaters, so it should be easy to find out what her act is going to be like beforehand.

Archos 504

The MP3 player that I have been using for the past 4 years is the Rio Karma [amazon.com]. I have loved this player because:

• All of the controls are near the top of the device. This layout makes it easy to control when it is in a case, hooked to your belt (almost all players now have buttons all over the front).
• It is capable of gapless playback [wikipedia.org], which was unheard of at the time I bought it, and is a feature that, shockingly, is not standard even today.
• It has the beloved jog wheel, which allows you to fast-forward/rewind as fast or slowly as you want (none but iPod have this feature today, and it is implemented in a poor way on the iPod, IMHO).
• Dedicated volume buttons (not standard on most players today).
• 5-way controller allows you to perform any functions without looking at the device (which is handy when you are driving).

Unfortunately, the quality of the hardware is not so great (which is why I am now forced to replace it [fluggart.com]). It always suffered from frequent lockups, and I'm certainly not the only person to complain about problems. Hardware quality was the primary reason I decided not to buy another one to replace the one I have now. Since they aren't being manufactured anymore, eBay is one of the only places you can buy them. A secondary reason that I didn't buy another Karma is because I am becoming increasingly nervous about buying anything on eBay, due to problems with our last few transactions.


The device I have chosen (after painstakingly reviewing all of the competitors) is the Archos 504 [archos.com], which is pictured above. I ordered the 40gig version (it is available with a 160gig HDD!). I have always liked Archos products (probably because they are geared towards geeks like me). Archos is a French company; unlike their competitors who primarily market devices towards the American market, their devices aren't tied to once piece of software (usually iTunes or Windows Media Player). There were plenty of reviews of the device from people who are fellow Linux-dorks.

Anyway, all of the controls are located on one edge (I'll buy a case that will put that edge near the top, so that it'll be like my Karma). It has fast-forward/reverse buttons as well as 30 second skip forward and backward buttons. I figured that this would be the closest I would get to the variable fast-forward/rewind speed that I used to get with the jog wheel on my Karma.

I'm at the point now where my 20gig player was full, so I figured that replacing it with a 40gig device would be a nice increase. That should hold me over for quite a few years (seeing as how I don't really use my MP3 player to play music). And the heavily feature-laden Archos (USB host port, gapless playback, removable battery, etc.) will definitely prevent me from wanting to replace it anytime soon.

I just received it. I will be posting a full review after I have played around with it for a while, although there are already a professional CNET review, as well as an overview video by geekanoids.co.uk [youtube.com]. (By the way, I paid much less for a new one than the price on their website. Buying direct isn't the cheapest option.)

Remaindered Vista Links

I can't imagine being more underwhelmed than I am by the Windows Vista campaign right now. Let me get this straight... You want me to pay money to upgrade my hardware so that I can get software that is bloated with features I don't want?

Adam [livejournal.com] linked to someone complaining about the usability of Vista [intelliadmin.com], and I thought that it was right on:

"I absolutely hate it when my 5000 file copy gets killed half way through because 1 single file can't be opened. Or better yet, how about when I start a copy to a remote file share that is not responding - and all of explorer locks up. Yes it still does this in Vista."

Amen. Vista seems like more of a cosmetic upgrade than an actual improvement over XP.

A couple of people sent me a link to a video of the New York Times' David Pogue [youtube.com] discussing whether Vista is just a rip off of Mac OS X or not. It's really hilarious.

Ugh. At least all of those people who have been in a holding pattern over buying a new Windows computer can finally buy something.

Selecting Electronics

Last weekend, there was an interesting piece on 60 Minutes [cbsnews.com] about the increasing number of people who are unable to program or setup electronic devices on the market today (HDTVs, etc). And it worries me that I may become one of those people one day...

I am constantly amazed at how fast the process of selecting electronics changes. Back when I bought my first laptop (which is 10 years ago now), we had the web, but there weren't 50 million electronics review sites out there. If you wanted fair comparisons between competing products, you had to buy magazines. Not only was that expensive, but it was incredibly time-consuming. And in retrospect, the quality of the reviews wasn't as good as what you can find today.

Of course, most people (ok, a lot of people) use the web to look for reviews of consumer electronics that they are interested in buying. For instance, if you are looking to buy a digital camera, you can find information like shutter lag and barrel distortion that you wouldn't be able to 1)find on the manufacturer's website, 2)determine by looking at a floor model in a store, or 3)find in the manual (assuming you can find one of those). These days, I wouldn't consider making any kind of major purchase without reading reviews on the web. I mean, why would you? They're free. And numerous. In addition to being of generally high-quality.

A few years ago, I remember finding it difficult to find all of the manuals on-line for all of the devices that I was trying to compare. Sometimes, finding the manual is important, especially if you want to know exactly how to execute a certain advertised feature. For instance, I have seen fairly new (non-low-end) point-and-shoot digital cameras where you have to go through a menu to set the self-timer. I was shocked that on a new point-and-shoot, that there wouldn't be a dedicated button for the self-timer, like I have seen on countless other models. That is the type of thing I would want to read in the manual before I bought it (and it might be missed in the reviews). Luckily, manuals for any new device are generally easy to find on the web.

With me, selecting a piece of electronics to buy is really a tortuous experience. I can't just pick something and buy it. I have to figure out what the top choices are, read 10s of reviews on each of those choices, narrow them down, and then read all of their manuals. And unfortunately, I agonize over the decision (if you haven't figured that out by now). "Well, this one is $20 less. But it doesn't have this one feature. So, can I live without that, or is it worth 10% of the cost?" Multiply that by 1000, and you have my life. I'm amazed that everyone who knows me hasn't tried to murder me because I'm so annoying in that mode.

I discovered during my latest search that there is a new tool that is gaining maturity -- video reviews. You can go to YouTube [youtube.com] and search for the electronics device, and there will probably be at least one review. There are tons of features that are hard to evaluate by reading reviews or manuals. For instance, if you want to know how quickly an MP3 player powers up, you can see it in the video.

You just can't get that from reading a review. For one thing, if the device takes longer than average to power up, most reviewers will just say, "takes forever to boot up" instead of an objective measurement. Ok, how long is forever? And even you find a professional review where power up is measured in seconds, it's hard to determine if you can live with that delay, or if it is worse than on the device it is replacing. Can I live with a 3-second power up sequence, and 4 seconds is just way too long? Or is it 5 seconds where it really starts to get annoying? Whereas if you watch video of the device powering up, you'll immediately know.

Anyway, I still agonize over my choices in electronics (more on this later), but at least with videos, I'm having fun while doing it.

Superbowl Comments

Is it just me, or do the commercials during the Superbowl seem to get worse and worse every year? I remember when the commercials used to be unique and funny. Whereas I don't think there was a single commercial over the past two Superbowls that has made me even chuckle. Instead, we got GPSs that apparently can turn you into a Power Ranger. What the hell? Coca-cola in a bottle? A commercial featuring Robert Goulet [wikipedia.org]? How many people who are watching the Superbowl even know who Robert Goulet is, anyway? And just to punctuate how little he is recognized, they had to say his name, which they didn't with virtually ever other celebrity in the commercials.

Ok, I'll admit the ads for careerbuilder.com featuring office workers who were using 3 ring binders as armor plating and beating the crap out of each other out in the forest were pretty amusing. But that was about it.

And there were way too many commercials for crappy CBS TV shows that I would never even consider watching. Maybe if there were more slots open for other advertisers, there would have been a higher chance to see something enjoyable. I'm pretty sure that next year, I'm going to time-shift the game (like I do with every other show), so that I can skip the commercials entirely.

At least the game was exciting to watch. And the half-time show was actually pretty good. Even though Prince is now a total sellout [tv.com], he is still a great guitarist and song-writer. Some of those guitar riffs are really incredible. When I listen to those guitar solos, they make me want to actually go out and start learning how to playy the guitar. Very few songs make me feel that way (ok, hearing Jimi Hendrix makes me want to go out and learn how to play guitar too).

MP3 Players

So, apparently, I'm having a bad week.

A couple of months ago, I wrote a few posts evaluating a bunch of the MP3 players on the market, because I was debating about what I was going to replace my current MP3 player with. What I have right now is about 4 years old, which in electronics, is ancient. But it has a jog-wheel, which is a must-have feature for me, that isn't offered on any current MP3 player.

The landscape in players hasn't changed much in the past 6 months. iPod is still the king, and nothing on the market has a jog-wheel. iPod definitely has the best fast-forward/rewind flexibility, but they unfortunately implemented it in a way that I couldn't possibly use in a car, without looking at the player (I want a device that I can easily operate without having to look at it, so that I can use it while I am driving -- that ends up meaning that it should have dedicated volume buttons, too).

A little while ago, I dropped my MP3 player, and the jog-wheel broke, but I decided to try to limp along with it for another few months. Now, the power button is flaky. So, I can only turn it on or off by pushing it about 100 times, and hoping that one of them takes. So, my temporary solution is to leave it on all of the time and carry around my A/C adapter everywhere I go, so that I can keep the battery charged. Obviously, this is a problem that I'm going to have to solve soon, so I guess that I am going to have to buy something in the very near future.