About the Success of Lady GaGa
Only 23 years old, Lady GaGa is a huge success blending music, fashion, and controversy. The Wall Street Journal takes a look at the Lessons of Lady GaGa.
Passion
Help Humanity. Bid for Evangeline Lilly
LOST actress and humanitarian, Evangeline Lilly, is putting herself up for auction to raise funds to support the GO Campaign. Winning bidders will have lunch with Evangeline in Hawaii, Los Angeles, or Canada (there are three auctions, one for each locale).
The auctions end on February 4, 2010 and the leading bids are around $2500. Go to http://tiny.cc/evangeline for more info.
If these luncheon auctions are price prohibitive, Evangeline is also raising funds with her own intimate collections line to support Task Brazil which provides for street children of Brazil. Costs for these auctioned items start at $10.
Passing on the iPad (for Now)
So Apple finally unleashed its tablet with the iPad. Despite it’s funky name, the device is very cool and is set to revolutionize this developing mobile space. At an aggressive price point starting at $499, who’s not getting an iPad?
That would be me. Although an Apple fan boy at heart, I’m not totally convinced I need an iPad just yet. Yes, I was slow on the iPhone bandwagon, waiting for the 3G to hit the street before succumbing. And now, I can’t imagine life without my iPhone. Perhaps the iPad will have a similar arc where using it will validate its need.
But I’ll wait. Looking at my wants from a Netbook, the iPad comes very close but misses a key mark in what I’m looking for, and that’s the ability to offload digital pictures. While this might be a small gripe for what the iPad can actually do, it’s something I think is important. Looking at the iPad accessories, there is a Camera Connection Kit which adds a SD memory card reader or USB port to the iPad so you can connect a digital camera to import pictures and videos. But with the low end iPad model with 16 GB of storage, how many times can you offload pictures from your 8-GB SD card? Eight gigs of photos and videos is actually a lot but for an extended vacation trip, it’s a possibility.
Why not just get a larger capacity iPad with 64 GB of storage? And that’s why I’m waiting. You know the cost for capacity will be better in the next version. And maybe the cloud computing power of MobileMe will mature where pictures imported to the iPad are then safely synced in my MobileMe Gallery or iDisk. Or someone will cleverly figure out yet another way of fixing this need.
So I’ll pass on the iPad, for now, anyways.
Footlocker Friends & Family Sale
Footlocker is having a Friends & Family sale from January 28-30, 2010. 25% off mostly everything with some exceptions, in store or online.
Watch or Wait?
In a few minutes, Apple’s special event is going to start with Steve Jobs announcing the McGraw-Hill announced tablet. Biggest question for me is do I “watch” the event unfold online or simply wait. Many, many sites offer live updates and tweets covering the event, but it’s maddening refreshing a bunch of web sites or catching 140-character tweets of news. And really, as the event happens in real time, how much updates can you expect every minute?
It’s almost a time saver to wait to the end or at least near the end of the event then catch up on sites like Gizmodo or Engadget. You probably can read all the live posted information in 10 minutes versus staying tuned for 60 minutes.
Adding to the time sink is actually watching the QuickTime video of the event. This is a must, more so with the introduction of a new Apple product. You heard about augmented reality with regards to iPhone apps? Watching Steve Jobs preside over an event is the definition of augmented reality!
So do I watch or wait?
Reading The View from Space
Checking out a new local kine blog called The View from Space (… the one between my ears). Give it a read; yeah only three posts so far but it’s a good start.
Update: Fear not if the URL didn’t work for you since it’s been changed to http://www.theviewfromspace.net/
I Like “Canvas”
Macworld has a list of potential names for Apple’s forthcoming tablet. From their list, I like “Canvas”.
It’s already spreading around the Net about the CEO of McGraw-Hill spilling some beans about Apple’s product announcement tomorrow.
I’m still hoping for some kind of tethering or MiFi-like wireless sharing for the iPhone and Canvas combo. I really don’t want to pay yet another wireless bill for the Canvas.
Feasting on GaGa
So the verdict is there cannot be too much GaGa. Lady GaGa is simply ubiquitous and cannot be denied. So if you’re a converted fan, you can feast on the popular music of GaGa at Amazon’s MP3 Store. For a limited time, Amazon is offering The Fame for only $5.
You’re talking Just Dance, LoveGame, Paparazzi, Poker Face, and all other The Fame tracks for one Abe Lincoln.
If that’s not enough GaGa to feast on, how about munching on these GaGa inspired cookies? Oops, it appears that too many like munching on GaGa since the server is currently offline. 🙁
Break Out Your iTunes Gift Cards
You know all those iTunes gift cards you received for Christmas? It’s time to break them out, redeem them, and start shopping! This week in the iTunes Store features a ton of great new stuff.
- Hope for Haiti Now
- The Sea, Ooooh that voice! Corinne Baily Rae’s second album is here.
- Ultra Dance 11 featuring 24 tracks for only $8
- Under the Milky Way covered by Sia
- I’m Beamin by Lupe Fiasco
- Michael Jackson’s This Is It soundtrack
- NOW That’s What I Call the 90’s, 70(!!) favorites from a good decade for $35.
- On the video front, Twilight’s New Moon can now be pre-ordered for release on March 20, 2010.
Support Hope for Haiti Now
Have you made your pledge to help the disaster in Haiti? Go to Hope for Haiti Now to make a donation.
You can also support the cause by purchasing the Hope for Haiti Now album. All proceeds go to organizations aiding Haiti. The cost of the album is $7.99 and features somber, emotional performances by Alicia Keys, Coldplay, The Boss, Shakira, John Legend, Taylor Swift, Sting, Beyonce, Madonna, Justin Timberlake, Jay-Z, Bono, and much more.Â
This is another great way to support hope for Haiti now. You can get the album on 
.
Throwing Back a Throwback Throwback
I’m throwing back Mountain Dew’s new old Throwback made with real sugar. This is probably the same recipe for the original Mountain Dew Throwback, but this Throwback has a throwback can design.
The flavor of this Throwback is the same as the previous Throwback, smooth and flat, but when opening the can, it actually fizzled with dew spewing out.
And just for fun, some additional pictures of the new Mountain Dew Throwback.
