It’s been a while since I updated this, so I thought I’d take a few minutes and get it done.

By now you should have seen the new iPod Shuffle from Apple. Nice little flash based iPod for $99 for 512MB. That’s around 120 songs. The 1GB model is around 240 songs. What would make this attractive to me is that it is also a flash drive. I just bought a 256MB USB drive for somewhere around $30, so having a USB drive that also just happened to be an iPod for a little more isn’t too bad.

The other cool thing that came out was the Mac Mini. 6.5″ x 6.5″ x 2″ and it comes with everything you need except keyboard, monitor, and mouse. I bought one for my parents and hooked it up today. This will be a big test since they have always used Windows. Although I didn’t need one for myself, I am planning something pretty big that would allow the Mini to fit right in. If you read about the TV I have been looking at that I call the Widow Maker, you know it is a 60″ Sony LCD TV, which also means that it can function as a computer monitor, which is what I am now planning.

If all the planets fall in to perfect alignment, I think I just might do something like this:

Sony 60″ LCD TV. Mac Mini with bluetooth and wireless 802.11g. Bluetooth wireless keyboard and mouse. External connection to 5.1 audio device. iSight.

This would create a ridiculously large screen that we could use to watch DVDs or iPhoto, or iTunes, or do some web surfing. I hope to be able to use it with the iSight camera when I travel to video conference with the kids. I do this now with a flat panel iMac, but it would be incredible on a 60″ screen.

As soon as someone comes up with good PVR software for it, it would complete the deal for me. Firewire lets me bring in additional, faster storage for video.

We’ll see how this one plays out, but there are a lot of people that think the Mac Mini will be Apple’s foot in the door to the living room. I am one of them.

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And away we go! Sunday night will be the first official weigh in, and I am ready. Many of us have actually been “bulking up” for this contest over the Holiday, so we are ready to get this thing started.

I put up a page where we will track everything going on for the contest. We have 4 official contestants in the neighborhood that all are in on a friendly wager. So far, I expect that I will be the only one that puts my numbers up on the Internet for the world (or at least my 8 loyal readers) to see, but we’ll see if I can’t convince the others to let me post their stats under aliases.

So, if you are out there and want to join in the fun but not be a part of our friendly neighborhood wager, follow the link to the site and send me your numbers each week and I’ll post them. Let me know if you are OK with your name going up. If not, send me an alias to use for your stats.

Follow the link HERE and may the best neighbor win!

( http://www.blindsquirrel.org/tbl )

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