Paul's Blog

In an evening of wandering the floors at Target - while waiting for my wife to do her shopping - I find myself drawn to the electronics section, just to see what's there. It's the usual stuff that they carry, but I'm always interested in what's on that "end cap" with the super-sale pricing on the side of the package. You know what I mean, when there's a little red tag that has a price that you can't believe would pay for the packaging of the product, let alone what's inside.

Last night, I found this tiny little thing (...and I'm sure it's been out there forever, along with the other 8000 iPod accessories), called the iFM. It's made my Griffen (a well known manufacturer of iPod stuff). Basically, it's not a mystery that it's an FM tuner for the iPod. One cool thing, to me, is the fact that it's also a remote for the iPod, too. It hooks into the doc connector and draws its power from there, and then provides pause/play and next/previous track functionality. Along with that, it has its own headphone jack - which you need for the FM output. Now, you're thinking, "huh? that's dumb!" But it's not... with this headphone out, you also get something in the range of a +4db boost in volume on your output to your 3mm jack. To me, this is a significant plus when I'm in the mood to perferate my eardrums.

All in all, kind of a whimsical device, but serves its purpose of giving me a small FM tuner I can use with my iPod, and then quickly switch to a remote for controlling it, while I'm out for a run, or a some cycling.

The best part?... well... that's really the fact that I got this $30 device for just $7. You can't beat that with a stick!

As I read so many blogs, I rarely find anything that I want to report (I've said this a million times before, I know). Well, sometimes you have to think about what other people think.

Here's a concept idea, of which all geeks have prayed to the their respective gods and pointed their tinfoil hats towards. This guy has come up with a concept for the universal ubiquitous tool for everything. Admittedly, wouldn't this be nice? He's managed to combine the functionality of keys, credit cards, discount cards, phones, MP3 players and the rest of it.

It's only taken about 48 hours worth of HD TV for me to become a junkie. I have to admit, years ago being able to watch TV in stereo was cool. Being able to watch TV in Dolby Digital 5.1 surround, with a digital widescreen picture and superior sharpness totally rocks!

I couldn't really grasp the super-enjoyment that so many (like my friend Kevin, of HDBEAT and Engadget) talked about so much. But, wow! You try it for a little while and you're all disappointed when you don't have the quality and sound of the HD broadcast. As Kevin and Barb call it, you become an HD-Snob.

Well, guys, I guess my nose is in the air, too. I seriously love my new Dish VIP211.


Nothing like the new MPEG-4 functionality and the awesome new interface screens. I am particularlly thrilled with the look of the PIP on the screen, as well.

Here's to HDTV!!

When it comes to "Things that will likely get you sent to Hell," the Jesus Dress-Up Kit is probably pretty close to the top of the list, or at least is the 8th deadly sin.