On my Blackberry, I have this little indicator light towards the top right of the device.  Whenever I have a voicemail, email, text-message, etc, it will blink a red light.  When I first got the phone, I didn’t think much of it.  But once my use with the device increased, I realized I rely heavily on the indicator.  It allows me to know if I have any form of messages pending without having to turn the screen on — thus saving on battery usage. 

Why doesn’t the iPhone have this?  Apple uses their trademark glowing light on many of their devices.  My Mac Mini has it, my AppleTV has it.  Why isn’t it implemented into the iPhone?  The iPhone should have the glowing light whenever there is a message waiting to be retrieved.  Why they left this out is beyond me. 

I didn’t want to really comment on the MacBook Air.  At first, I was like every other Apple fanboy — OMGZ! APPLE MACBOOK AIRZ~! SO TINY, SO NICE!  And then I came to my senses.

Excuse my language once more, but who the fuck is this thing designed for?

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The fiance got me the HD-DVD add-on for the XBox 360 as my Christmas gift.  It was a breeze to set up — plug in the ac-adapter to an outlet, the usb cord with the XBox, and power up.  A few software updates later, and the drive was working flawlessly. 

I haven’t really had the chance to view HD content on the drive.  I briefly watched the included King Kong movie, and it did look great.  I just haven’t had the chance to really purchase some HD content that I wanted.

But what I have noticed is that standard DVD looks far better when played on the drive.  The upconverting really improves the quality, and while watching season two of Grey’s Anatomy last night, I thought I was watching it in high definition. 

It appears, brick-and-mortar wise, that Blu-ray content is more readily available.  Bestbuy and Target both carry more of a selection for Blu-ray than HD-DVD.  However, their HD-DVD racks were always empty compared to the Blu-ray racks.  We’ll see how this race plays out, but I think we have a year or two until something happens. 

Microsoft is deliberately feeding into the HD disc formwat wars to ensure that its own downloads succeed where physical copies fail. (electronista)

This is the feeling that a movie director, Michael Bay, is pushing throughout the community and is ultimately trying to stop.  Yet, how can you blame Microsoft for planning for the future?  Lets face it, HD content is our future.  And high speed available bandwidth is right there along side it.  So, how can you say that HD content, via high speed bandwidth, isn’t our future?  Physical movies are doomed to fail eventually, quite like physical music compact discs.  It’s enivatable. 

However, we are still a few years away from being an all-download society that pushes the HD content to our televisions and media centers.  Currently, under current broadband specs, it can take up to a few hours to download a full-length HD movie.  I’m sorry, but this wouldn’t be acceptable to my mom or dad — they want access right away. 

So until we’re presented with a high speed bandwidth option, we’re going to be using either Blu-Ray or HD-DVD.  Deal with it, Michael Bay. 

I’ve yet to decide which route to take.  I love HD content, and I’m thinking of committing to an HD player add-on for my 360 (I’ve asked Santa to bring it).  I’m willing to purchase new movies on this format as well, but I’m quite excited for the day when I can purchase a movie, and download it almost instantly to my media center. 

Before the wood floors were installed, I had two speaker wires running underneath the carpet to two speakers mounted within the wall behind the couch.  It provided a faux-surround-sound-like environment (hey, my receiver decided to quit doing the surround sound thing for me a few years ago).  With the new floors installed, I couldn’t run any form of speaker wires in my condo.  The attic space is out of the question — my condo association is like Nazi Germany, so it’s too much of a hassle to get permission to run two-freaking-speaker-wires in the attic space. 

Today, I stumbled on a wireless module made by Kenwood (love the Kenwood products, too!) which would allow me to, one again, connect the speakers behind my couch to my television, stereo, etc.  Reviews, on Amazon and CNet, are rather good — most are very happy with the sound, but do mention that the typical wireless ‘hissing’ with wireless-speakers is present at times.  But for a price tag of $150 on Amazon?  I might as well pick it up after Christmas (or even ask for it as a Christmas or birthday gift) to solve my surround sound issues. 

Eventually, I’d like to purchase a nice new receiver, too, but that’s down the road when I have a nice new house with a nice entertainment room. 

But until then, what to do…what to do…