Tech, Gadgets, Gaming, Celebrity and Music Blog

Living legend Brian Wilson from the Beach Boys fame was here at J&R earlier today to sign copies of his latest album, That Lucky Old Sun.

Despite the bitter cold, fans began lining up as early a seven in the morning for the opportunity to get an autograph. By ten, the line was a full block long.

Check out a few snapshots in the Flickr slideshow below.

Folks, history has been made. Aren’t you glad you were around to witness it?

Blizzard’s highly anticipated World of Warcraft expansion pack, The Wrath of The Lich King has sold an unprecedented 2.8 million copies in 24 hours. This makes it the fastest selling PC game of all time. The previous best selling PC title was the World of Warcraft expansion title, The Burning Crusade. You can read the full press release here.

For those of you who don’t have a copy of Wrath of The Lich King, what are you waiting for? Get on the MMORPG bandwagon and order your copy here.

I know you’ve all been longing for the day when you could connect a USB-powered microscope to your PC. OK, maybe not, but it doesn’t make it any less remarkable.

The Veho VMS-001 is a USB-powered microscope. At a mere 4.4 x 1.3 inches, the small footprint allows it to rest comfortably on your desk.

Don’t let the diminutive size fool you however, it’s a very capable device. It has a magnification range of 20x-200x. The VMS-001 also allows you to record video in AVI format at a resolution of 1280×960. How cool is that? This enables you to record and store your findings as photos and videos. The videos record at 30 frames per second, so playback is nice and smooth. The 1.3 megapixel sensor allows for crisp snapshots. A white LED illuminates the objects you observe so that every minuscule detail is seen.

The Veho-VMS-001 is a fantastic product. I can’t speak for anyone else, but as a science geek growing up, I would have been in heaven if I had one of these.

Four time Grammy nominated singer Musiq Soulchild will be stopping by J&R Music World on Tuesday, December 9th to sign autographs of his upcoming CD, On My Radio.

The signing will begin at 12:30pm.

If you want to talk about influential American musicians, then without a shadow of a doubt, Jimi Hendrix should be on the list. Born Johnny Allen Hendrix in Seattle, Washington, Hendrix had gotten into trouble for joyriding in stolen cars. He was given the choice of going to prison for two years, or joining the Army. He chose to join the Army.

It was while he was in the Army he met fellow soldier and bassist Billy Cox. Hendrix and Cox teamed up with Buddy Miles after they left the military to record the legendary live album Band of Gypsys.

Band of Gypsys is unique because it is the only complete official live Jimi Hendrix album. The band rehearsed for only ten days and performed four concerts at the Filmore East in the span of two days. Two concerts were performed on New Years eve, and two on New Years day. Despite the haste at which the material was performed, the LP has gone down in history as one of the finest for good live rock music.

The latest Band of Gypsys LP surpasses every other version ever released. To begin with, it’s now a 180gram vinyl edition. In addition, it is also a special red color edition, so if you are a collector of rare vinyl, now is the time to get on board. Any fan of rock music should definitely check out this LP, it’s quality through and through.

Keep spinning.

Most modern films are full of dialog. A film today is expected to contain dialog from beginning to end. Silent movies are a thing of the past. However, a lot can be conveyed without words. Excitement, disdain, fright, happiness, sadness, anxiety and a host of other emotions can be conveyed through motion and facial expressions. Daniel Day Lewis did this in his hit movie There Will Be Blood. Nothing was said for the first ten minutes of the movie, but nothing had to be said to get the gist of the story. His performance was so engaging and powerful, he didn’t have to say a word.

In that same vein, the first act of the latest animation movie from PIXAR titled Wall-E is told without words for the most part, but it did not take anything away from the movie. In fact, it made me more conscious of what was happening in the movie.

Without giving too much away, Wall-E tells the story of a lone cleanup robot who’s task is too clean up Earth in the 22nd century. Earth has become so polluted, it can no longer support life. Humans now live on starliners for many generations. They have become lazy and morbidly obese, so much so that they have to rely on robots for everything. Wall-E one day finds a plant growing from trash, and places it in a shoe for safekeeping. A spaceship lands on Earth and drops a female robot named EVE. Her task is to locate plant life on Earth if any exists. A budding romance develops between Wall-E and Eve, and that’s where I’ll stop.

The movie was one of the best that I’ve seen all year. Despite the fact that it is animated, adults will still appreciate Wall-E for its earnest charm. The picture quality on this blu-ray release is exceptional. The audio quality is out of this world. It’s a DTS-HD MA lossless track that just rocks the house. This one is a no brainer, A must own title.

Who doesn’t like zombies?

OK, it would be pretty dreadful if zombies were running around in real life, but hey that’s what horror films and videogames are for. Thank goodness. Without it, where would one release their urges to violently beat brain hungry zombies senseless?

So if you want to get your survival horror on, Left 4 Dead fits the bill. Essentially, you and three other survivors are left in an apocalyptic setting. You get to face aggressive hordes of zombies in a cinematic backdrop in which the players star as each character in a fictional movie. The Survivors’ goal is to help each other make it through various to safety. You have to rely on the other survivors to make it.

Check out the IGN video review below. Looks pretty sweet.

Last month, Apple unveiled the new Macbooks at the “Spotlight turns to notebooks” event, which I blogged about here. The other product announced was not available for purchase immediately. That other product being the new LED Cinema Display.

The display is a 24″ widescreen panel, with a native resolution of 1920×1200. It’s LED backlit, so it’s environmentally smart, and will save you money in electricity bills. The display itself is stunning. The striking design is reminiscent of the most recent iMAC line, except thinner. It’s made of aluminum and glass, giving it a sleek, modern look. A look perfected by Apple it seems. Perhaps, other LCD manufacturers need to take a look at Apple’s designs and adopt the phrase of the great Architect and Mid-Century Modern designer Ludwig Mies van der Rohe, ‘less is more’.

The display comes with a DisplayPort connector making attaching Macbooks a piece of cake. A USB connector provides access to three USB 2.0 ports. You can also charge your Macbook while it’s connected to the display. Rounding it off, there’s also a built-in iSight camera, microphone, and speaker system that provide a complete desktop experience.

Keep checking back with us. We will update this blogpost when the LED Cinema Display becomes available.

So, the first Razer contest giveaway we ran went extremely well. So well that we decided to give it another go. Those of you who missed the opportunity before, now is your chance at redemption.

It’s simple really. Just tell us in a few sentences just why you’d want to win some kick ass Razer gear. Does it get easier than that? No it doesn’t. The lucky winner will win a Deathadder gaming mouse and Piranha headset courtesy of Razer.

To participate in this contest, PLEASE CLICK HERE.

ALL ENTRIES SUBMITTED ON THE BLOG WILL NOT BE ELIGIBLE FOR THE CONTEST.

Panasonic has been very committed to Blu-ray since its inception. Two months ago at the CEDIA trade show, they announced two new Blu-ray players, which I blogged about here.

We’ll be taking a closer look at one of the players, the DMP-BD35K.

The player is the real deal. It is profile 2.0, so it’s BD-Live capable. In terms of capabilities, this player does it all. It internally decodes the lossless audio codecs Dolby TrueHD and DTS-HD Master Audio. However, for those who have modern day receivers or processors, you also have the option to bit-stream the lossless audio codecs for the receiver or processor to decode.

An SD Card memory slot is also built into the player, allowing it to become your virtual gallery. Playback of blu-ray films is at 1080p/24, so you get picture quality that is unrivaled by anything commercially available today. It will also upconvert your standard DVD movies, making them look as good as they can possibly look.

Without a shadow of a doubt, the Panasonic DMP-BD35K is a workhorse of a player. The fact that it is significantly cheaper than the Playstation 3 makes it a viable option for people who want blu-ray playback without having to buy a game console. It’s a no brainer to me, and the fact that it’s selling like hotcakes proves that it’s a no brainer to many others as well.