check out this link.

at what point do consumers start to think that apple just updates their product lines way too frequently? i only have an iPod shuffle and i'm a bit annoyed by this. the rumor is that 2 and 4gb models of the shuffle will be released, but i really don't see the point. the smaller mini's have 4gb drives, but that makes sense when it has a proper display and menu system. the shuffle's just a simple stick that plays either a selected or random selection of tracks, nothing more nothing less. i've got the half-gig model, and in my experience i can fit about 90 tracks (~6.5 hours) on it, which are mostly 192kbps mp3s. i mean the shuffle is really meant for small trips or working out, why the hell would you need to put 50 hours of music on it?

i could have easily used a HD-based iPod if i hadn't preferred the features of the one i ended up buying instead, but i'd like to think i'd constantly be annoyed if i had an iPod and several times a year superior models were released.

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apple also released iTunes 4.9, now with podcasting [wiki] support. thus far i'm kinda ho-hum about the entire concept of podcasting, really. it's kind of a neat idea, but i think it's a little overhyped. the theory is that it's supposed to match other current tech trends, namely timeshifting, and fit into our "digital lifestyle." that's all well and good, but i still don't see the best application for podcasts, at least not in their current form. okay, so i can download some podcasts covering the latest world or tech news, or a certain guy's daily rants, so? in my personal daily life, i can really only listen to those at work, and i usually prefer not listening to spoken word type stuff while i'm bangin out line after line of code.

it would make a lot more sense to me if the vast majority of daily commuters took the train to work or something, but so far i see mp3 players in the car to be an entirely clunky process. until someone like apple puts more effort into getting easily portable music in & out of our cars, podcasts will probably go underutilized.

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i think podcasts fall into one of those internet-fad-of-the-year categories. in the late 90's it was the personal web page, then in the early 00's it was the blog, now we've moved on to podcasts, which are basically audio blogs. they're all essentially a way of trying to get our own opinions and interests into the public eye. i see the worth of all of them, i've had webpages since the 90's, lost interest because they were a dime a dozen, now i maintain a blog, and admittedly at times sure i lost a little interest. i don't have any interest in creating an audio feed to distribute to others. the problem is that too many other people do have an interest, which just makes for plenty of crap to wade through.

i guess time will tell if they're really useful enough for mass consumption or not. even big companies like ABC/ESPN are jumping on the bandwagon, so some quality content should be available. the funny thing is, the more popular this stuff gets, the less popular live radio seems. i'm all for anything that pushes old FM radio out of popularity.

anyway, enough of a post for now. just felt like a quick semi-rant.

--j

tonight i'm forced to deal with my rabid spurs fan native san antonian girlfriend, who oddly enough reminds me of my ups & downs from stars teams of the late 90's.

i price-matched target vs. walmart vs. best buy for some dvd's to see if they were anywhere near deepdiscount and figured they were close enough, but oddly enough target seems to consistently have better prices than best buy, my former promise land. so i picked up reno 911! season 2 and home movies season 2. can't really say what prompts to buy certain shows on dvd and pass other ones up... for example i collect episodes of things like scrubs and chappelle's show, but thus far don't feel the need to pick them up on dvd. can't wait for a dvd of the american office, i'm all over that one. just gotta find the 4th season of coupling.

lately we rarely branch out and watch anything but big brother australia, since they actually broadcast 10 shows a week. takes up a ton of time. only other stuff we've bothered with lately is some curb your enthusiasm season 3. other random tivo'd shit has been stuff like cheap seats, family guy, etc.

i got a glimpse at some of this past week's tv ratings and i was a little embarrassed to see that dancing with the stars crap at the top. kinda sad that stuff like that does better than the NBA finals. also thought it was interesting that a family guy movie is slated to come out straight to dvd in september. i'm thinking i'll await the rip, but it'll be interesting to see how well it does.

i think it's actually kinda good that these reports are popping up that show the american movie industry is kinda plummeting lately. while dvd boxsets are making a killing, less and less people are actually bothering to go to the movies. kinda makes you realize how popular buying movies/shows as well as renting through places like netflix really are, when it's obviously stealing away from theater business like that.

we'll try to help them out and see batman begins tomorrow night. it's the least we could do, right?

--j

lemme do the usual "omg i haven't posted since [x] date." hey, at least i've actually been out of town and shit so i've got a good reason.

me & laynie took up dad's offer of free AA tickets and chose to go to NYC. 4 night stay, cost us a grand. which basically means we ain't doin that every other month.

we had a good time, and it was pretty successful for our first real vacation together. we had to do our best to avoid burnout, cuz all the walking and the godawful heat really exhausted us, so i had to kinda push to make sure we were out enjoying our time there as much as possible. it's almost impossible to leave a place like new york and not feel like there was more you could have done, but we achieved plenty.

we didn't really wanna be all touristy, but it kinda ended up that way. you can check my photo page linked to the right for all the details, basically so i don't have to go into all the details about everything we did everyday, heh.

some tidbits about NYC --

i had looked forward to hittin up the nintendo world store, but it was kind of a letdown. the gamecube section isn't all that impressive, and they obviously care more about showing off the DS than anything. i've always kinda found the DS to have a really sharp learning curve, so it's not exactly fun to pick one up and fuck around with it. i got a $6 beanie as a souvenir, and deemed it as a bit overhyped.

another letdown... central park. i'm sorry, but central park's kind of just a shithole of a park. i think it's just overhyped cuz NY is basically nothing but buildings, so any open space is a big deal. it looks alright from overheard cuz it's encouraging that the city has at least *some* greenery, but walking through the park just ain't that impressive. washington square park and battery park were also kinda letdowns.

i thought it was kinda fun to see just how rampant iPods are in NYC. i couldn't believe how many we saw on the streets and subway. it's at least encouraging how quickly mp3 players have been adopted in one of the largest urban areas of the world. they even had little ads on the subways telling people to mind their headphone cord since they're giving away that they have a valuable little gadget on them. you couldn't swing a dead cat without seeing iPod ads all over the place.

it was cool to see that each neighborhood/area of manhattan actually had differences in things like the people and buildings. it's strange to think that just a mile away the streets are just absolutely packed (think midtown) whereas there's plenty of open air on the southern tip near battery park.

continuing with the high-tech theme, it was sweet to see all the NYU kids in one of the 10,000 starbucks (we went to this one!) they have. apple notebooks everywhere. even people meditating and shit, we were giggling.

check out my photos link to the right to get a sense of what we did.

time to hit the gym...

--j

well i dunno who reads these anymore, since my diminishing reliance on AIM prevents me from advertising this URL, but i figured i'd post for my own sake, heh.

alayna's finally moved in, go read her blog to read about that. it's been working out well so far.

we've got our NYC trip travel arrangements all ready for next week, just gotta nail down how we wanna spend our time. as long as we can stop off at rockefeller center and hit the nintendo world store at some point, right?

it's been kinda nice that june doesn't really have much tv on. it's given us plenty of time to keep up with bb5au. i should prolly start trying to go back and watch the earlier seasons of alias and 24 while i have some free time.

i'm trying to find some kinda game that alayna and i can both get into, something a little more substantial that a couple rounds of mario kart. we tried the 2P pikmin 2 last night, but we didn't really understand what to do and little laynie got frustrated quick. a lauren-style controller heave was quickly prevented. whether it's ps2, cube or pc i just wanna find something we can both play and enjoy, even if not at the same time.

as soon as alayna started copying some files over into her own iTunes database to throw on her shuffle, i knew we'd have to come up with some kinda better solution. so i'm gonna hafta figure out how to integrate all the pc's in the house to make our music management much cleaner. i'm actually starting to wonder if i shouldn't just link all our music to iTunes and just use some crafty smart playlists to sort out what we actually wanna play. the way i'm doing it now, i use winamp-happy m3u playlists to push to iTunes and only grab certain songs from an album.

however i do it, the whole thing seems to end up a big nightmare...

time to leave work, so i stop here. ;)

--j