AppleTV Goodness

"Your TV will love you for it"
That is Apple's marketing tag line for the. AppleTV .
After much wrangling and returning Christmas gifts for store credit (no it wasn't your gift I returned) I was finally able to pick up my long awaited AppleTV this past Friday.
I don't know about my TV but I absolutely love this piece of equipment. I think Apple has just hit another home run. I'm gonna place this gadget right square in the middle of the place my first DVR captured. The "I can't live without this" space. It's really that good.
For years now most of my family's music and photo libraries have existed on our computer in our office. A year ago I wrangled an Apple AirTunes device and was able to start listening to my music library on my main home theatre system without burning CD's etc. Problem there was I had to control the music from the computer and not from my theatre system. It was a pain. There really wasn't an easy way to view any of our family pics on our home theatre system unless I took the significant time hit to create a slideshow DVD. I never did it.
Now, I can control my full music library from my couch and I can view any of my photos from there as well. It is the photo feature that sold the wife as she over and over for the last few weeks was saying she didn't get why I wanted an Apple TV. Within 24 hours she was hooked and would get the device just for the photo feature. This isn't even the cool part!
Last week due to some miscommunication we missed the latest episode of Survivor on TV. We didn't have it scheduled on our DVR. What to do? Enter Apple TV. Literally within minutes of hooking up the unit I had purchased the missed episode and we were watching it as a family. On our TV. Nice. Fast forward 24 hours. Saturday night and we hadn't gotten out to Hollywood video. No problem. I flipped the AppleTV on and within minutes we were ready to watch a movie we had chosen to rent for the evening. No driving. No standing in the video store looking at the empty shelves wishing we had come earlier. No returning the video days later after forgetting about it. $2.99. Done. Beautiful. The AppleTV performed flawless. We watched the movie and then turned off the TV.
I can't imagine why everyone wouldn't want one of these things. That's where I get sad. I know there are many people out there including some of my dearest friends and co-workers that have an 'anything Apple must not be good' issue. I really feel sorry for them. They are missing out and most likely will miss out on this opportunity unless it catches on like the iPod. These same friends will sit and fiddle with their Windows Media Center PC boxes trying desperately to get the same functionality that I have and they will never quite get there. And, the kicker is that I know the AppleTV will continue to get better and better. It already rocks! What else could they possibly do? And I haven't even used all the features yet!
So, that is my review and my testimony and my soap box.

Japanese Pimples

Leave it to the Japanese to come up with the weird gadgets. HERE is the latest. It is an MP3 player that helps get rid of acne. Wow! It releases "negative and positive" charged ions when you hold the player next to your pimples. Next time I'm in Tokyo town I'm gonna pick up a few of these for my favorite teenagers.

Songerize

Ran across this today. It's pretty cool. It's called "Songerize" Just enter a song title and artist and it will find the song and play it. It got about 8 of the 10 I threw at it. Not sure how it does it but it's one of those simple things you think, "Why didn't somebody think of this before?"

Electile Dysfunction

Another funny attributable to Dear Old Dad.

Electile Dysfunction : the inability to become aroused over any of the choices for president put forth by either party in the 2008 election year.

On Politics and Profundity

Oh boy. I really have tried to just ignore politics this go around. However, with Mitt Romney being in the race until today when he 'stepped aside' I just couldn't ignore it altogether. If I wrote here what I really feel about Mitt and the last couple of weeks I would probably get arrested for making threats against presidential candidates over the internet. Yeah, I feel that strongly about some of what went on.
So, why am I writing about it? Well, my 'dear old Dad' said something very profound yesterday. I don't think he realizes how deeply profound it was. I'm seriously thinking about taking his advice.
Here it is:

"That's it, I'm not voting. It will just encourage the SOB's"

Now, I do somewhat adhere to the idea of being a good citizen and being involved in the 'process'. So, I'm not 100% sure I'm going to follow Dad's advice and not vote but here is my dilemma. If your choices are such that there is no one left to choose from that has any morals, is not a complete and utter lier or a low down religious bigot, then how in the world do you make your choice? Do I just try to figure out who 'sucks least'?

What the heck maybe I'll just vote for Billary and try to bring on the apocalypse just that much sooner. Then I won't have to worry about being in this situation again.
Hmmmmm.