As someone who commutes on public transit (lots) and is often out and about on the streets of the City, I find being plugged into music a huge salvation from nagging chatter, particularly from folks on the SkyTrain and/or bus who seem to think they're riding transit alone. I don't really want to hear about your great hookup last night. Yuk.

Over two years ago, I picked up a set of Panasonic headphones at, of all places, Walmart, which I absolutely loved. They looked great (a wicked retro sort of look), fit fantastic and sounded good too but after two years of nearly daily wear, they needed to be replaced. They still work great but the leather (likely synthetic) on the ear cups started to peel away so that every time I put them on, I was left with an ear full of black bits.

A few weeks ago, I purchased a set of Roxy headphones on sale and what a mistake that was. They're cute but too small and sit on my ears rather than hugging them which makes wearing them for extended periods of time really uncomfortable and to boot, I had forgotten what a pain it was to have cables coming out of both sides of you headphones, I felt like I was choking. I hated them so much, I put them aside and started using my ear buds which also have great sound but which I don't like wearing for more than a few days at a time.

Walking to the Skytrain on Tuesday after a great hot dog stop at Dougie Dog (Go there. It's awesome), I spotted something in the window of Urban Outfitters that looked remarkably like the headphones I so love. So after much searching and wishing I could find a pair of replacement headphones, my dream came true. I popped into the shop last night and picked up a pair of Panasonic RP HTX7-K1, simply put, the best headphone I've ever had.

There was a bit of a markup on these now nearly 3 year old headphones but when you find something you love as much as I loved my headphones, you're willing to pay a little bit extra. I am very, very happy with my purchase. While at Urban Outfitters, I discovered something else, they have a cool assortment of electronics, mostly imported cameras, a few of which I wouldn't mind getting my hands on. They have a great selection on their website and a smaller selection at their shop. I'm particularly interested in the Diana Dreamer and the Instax (which is like a Polaroid - prints credit card size pictures) is awesome! Definitely going to have to check these out in more detail.

Good things are not a-brewing. According to a recent story at Podcasting News, it looks like sooner rather than later the Zune will no longer be “just” a Zune. Looks like Microsoft could be unveiling a new product which would combine the Zune music player with the Danger Sidekick phones. The result? A device that would act more like a iPod than a Zune. On the one hand, I’m happy to see the competition but on the other, I love my Zune too much to even bare the idea of not being able to replace it down the line.

I’m hopeful that by the time I do need a replacement, the price on this fancy new device has lowered significantly or even better, that Microsoft follows Apple and provides a version of the player which doesn’t have the phone capability (I love my N95 thank-you-very-much).

It’ll be interesting to see how this unfolds. For now, you can read all of the speculation over at Podcasting News and then maybe even head over to Zunescene for some concept art. At least we don’t have long to wait. The announcement, if there is one, will be made at the Consumer Electronics Show on January 7th.

It was a great, if overly busy weekend and as a result, I'm not fully on the ball today. I managed to get my full 8 hours of sleep but am still feeling a bit rundown.

I had the opportunity to share "The King of Kong" with a few friends on Friday night and I think everyone enjoyed themselves which is always good. I'm constantly amazed at how great that little film is. There are few documentaries out there that I can throw into the DVD player just for the heck of it but this is certainly one of them. If you haven't seen it yet, I urge you to track it down on DVD because chances are, you won't be disappointed.

Saturday was spent with friends and fellow podcasters Dale and Colleen at the Bridging Media conference. It was a fascinating and enjoyable day and from it came a load of interesting talking points which we felt deserved some attention so on Sunday, we recorded a short podcast on the subject and I must admit that listening to a bit of it yesterday, I was surprised to find I sounded a bit cross. I'm not, really. It's just a subject that I feel passionately about. If you have some time and have some thoughts on film (and other forms of creative en devours) financing and distribution, I urge you to check out the post over on Row Three which has the podcast, links to the event and links to more coverage of the event (including blogging coverage and audio of the various sessions).

The day wrapped up with a bit of a surprise when on the drive home I spoke to hubby and he mentioned that Future Shop was having a sale on televisions and after months of searching and humming and hawing about upgrading our TV to something more modern, we finally bit the bullet. The result was the purchase of a 42" true HD (1080p) LG LCD.


Yes, it's gorgeous and I love it but setting up the components took a few hours and Sunday was so busy I didn't get much of a chance to enjoy it. I look forward to sitting down with "The Matrix" to really get the feel for it. The next investment will be a Blu-Ray player though I think we'll hold off on that until the prices come down.

A great, if busy weekend which has turned into a crazy Monday. I look forward to going home tonight and curling up with the new TV and maybe a game or two of Super Mario 3.

So I upgraded the firmware on my mp3 player over the weekend and wow, what a freakin' nightmare. The new firmware reads ID tags all wonky and so 90% of my music goes into the "unknown" category and displays no song title, artist or album. Pain in the ass I say! Now I have to go back and edit all those tags manually. Pisses me right off.

This week is exam week. I'm feeling prepared and pretty confident for most of the stuff except the English exam. Prof said he would give us a study guide last week but he didn't send it out until Sunday afternoon and to boot, is was extremely vague. I think it'll be ok but I'm still a bit worried about it because he tends to brings things in out of left field.

Back to work. Tons of stuff to deal with before lunch.