I have been using my Zune for a few months now, and it has impressed me so much that I need to make a small commentary.
The first and most important thing I have to say is that once you get used to the Zune version 3.0 software, you will never go back to itunes. Microsoft has created an interface that is so much clearer and easier to use than that mess of boxes that Apple sticks with. Here I refer mostly to the respective marketplaces, but the main music user interface on Zune 3.0 still seems much more user-friendly. You can arrange your music how you like it – by genre, artist, playlist, and so on. Then you can sort artists, songs, and anything else, to your liking. And it’s all so much easier than on itunes.
When you get into the marketplace to buy songs, Zune really outshines itunes. Especially if you take advantage of Zune Pass, which I decided to do a few weeks ago. The itunes store is a jumbled mess of information, in my opinion. Zune marketplace breaks down genres, popular artists, and new releases in a nice clean format. When you go to buy, Zune shows you the albums of the artist along the bottom of the screen and the songs in the center. No mess to wade through.
Zune Pass has its detractors, but I love it so far. You can now keep 10 songs per month and download as many as you like as long as you pay the monthly fee of 15 bucks. I’ve found some great artists already that I either didn’t know existed, or just never got around to buying their album. Zune is an awesome tool to discover new music and Zune Pass makes it even better.
So while I’m on the subject of new artists, I have to share a few I have discovered that I’ve taken an immediate liking to.
Conspirare: Beautiful choral music. If you like a real choir and really nice compositions, you really must check them out.
Anna Netrebko (with or without Rolando Villazon): Amazing pipes on this woman. She’s done a few things with Villazon which are also truly amazing, but she’s still very good on her own.
Army of Anyone: I had no idea that a few guys from STP teamed up with Filter’s lead singer to form a supergroup. Got to love the second song “Goodbye”- it’s a repeat listener for sure.
Kyuss: I started listening to some of their stuff and wondered why I wasn’t listening years ago. Good guitars, good vocals, and just different in a really good way.
Lacuna Coil: Love them. First heard their two songs on two Guitar Hero games and checked out their other stuff on Zune. I could do without the guy screaming at times, but for the most part they have great melodies and guitar riffs.
Paramore: I think their song on the Twilight soundtrack came up on the front page of marketplace one day and I liked it so I downloaded their album. Surprisingly, not disappointing at all.
And finally, Shinedown: These guys rock. Heavy guitars and amazing vocals are a surefire recipe for success. It’s so fun discovering all these new artists that I never knew I liked.
The moral of this story is that Zune 3.0 and Marketplace are much better than itunes. I know most people will scoff since they are attached at the hip to their iphones or their microscopic ipods that talk, but can you really justify using crappy software for a device you like? I mean besides touchscreen, which is great if you don’t need any space to store your music, Zune offers players that are better than ipods. (Again, in my opinion) I’d say try out a buddy’s new Zune and see if you like it, but more importantly, download the software and play with it for a few days. You just might become hooked.
I can’t even say how long I’ve been waiting for this. Finally, X-Men Origins: Wolverine is close enough that a preview has been released. It looks amazing. Gambit is there, satisfying my desire to see him play a prominent role in an X-movie (at least I hope I’ll be satisfied), the pre-weapon X story is there, and Sabretooth is there looking pretty cool himself. I’m also glad that they’re giving cameos to some other mutants that we’ve wanted to see for a long time now. Hopefully this is the beginning of something that could lead to sequels and possibly even a Gambit series. Too bad they ruined the Gambit/Rogue story with that whole Iceman thing in the X-movies. Oh well.
I’ve embedded the preview here for your viewing pleasure. Try not to get too excited. It’s still a few months away.
Every so often I’ll see this advertisement floating around on conservative news sites, showing a picture of Ben Stein and a movie called “Expelled: No Intelligence Allowed“. I stopped to read a little about it once, and the prospect of a movie about the intelligent design vs. Darwinism debate seemed very interesting to me. I saw the movie a few nights ago at Blockbuster and decided to rent it.
This one goes right to my list of recommended movies. Ben Stein (he’s the teacher on Ferris Beuler’s Day Off who calls Beuler over and over in his monotone voice) narrates this movie about how intelligent design has come under attack in the academic community. He interviews a few academics who were either denied tenure or forced out of their schools for daring to even mention ID in their scholarly work. He also interviews some atheists and proponents of Darwinism, asking questions about their beliefs. Ben Steins question is why, if the theories of Darwinism are pushed so much in universities, can’t ID receive the same chance to be analyzed in the classroom. A legitimate question, I believe, since a university education should be about discussion, debate, and critical thinking.
The problem that exists now is that we are only allowed to think critically about Darwinism when inside the classroom. The “well educated” apparently fear that the mentioning of the words intelligent design to a student would be the same as imposing a religious ideology on him or her. Students are not given the credit that they can think for themselves and decide which theory makes the most sense. Instead anything that even remotely insinuates God is kept as far from campus as legally possible.
What it comes down to for me is this: there are two sides to every argument. In this case, the Darwinists may be right, or the proponents of ID might be right. The important thing is that each side be given a voice, especially at a university. Darwinists will say that there is no evidence of ID therefore they cannot teach it. That’s nice until you ask any Darwinist to prove that ID didn’t happen. They cannot do it. That alone means that there is a base for discussion.
I am a religious person so I believe in God as the Creator. No matter what I say to a Darwinist, they will not take scripture as proof. That is fine with me. But on the other hand, not one of them can show me that God did not create the heavens and the earth. They must live with that. Whether you believe God was the intelligent designer, or you don’t know who or what designed all things, the fact remains that it cannot be discounted and should not be excluded from scholarly discussion.
The prominent atheist in the movie said it best when he first suggested that life began on the backs of crystals but then conceded it was possible that somebody could have created those piggy-backing organisms. Even this big bad atheist couldn’t look Ben Stein in the eye and tell him how life started. Why? Because he doesn’t know.
When you don’t know, you can’t attempt to silence the other side for proposing their ideas.
Disney’s Halloween Treat is what made Halloween great when I was a kid. The trick-or-treating too of course, but this old collection of the scarier moments of Disney is something that I have always remembered and wanted to share with my kids, when I have them. I don’t think Disney has released this program in DVD format because all I can find on Amazon is a VHS copy that somebody is trying to sell for $145. I guess they know they can get that price for a movie so loved by previous generations.
Luckily enough, even though not on DVD, somebody has posted the whole show on YouTube in nine parts. I’m reposting it here for everyones viewing pleasure. Enjoy.
