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I’ve always been a fan of Sheryl Crow’s music, but I had to read this article twice to make sure it wasn’t some kind of joke. She is coming out with a detachable “dining sleeve” for wiping your mouth to help reduce the amount of paper napkins used.

“The sleeve is detachable and can be replaced with another “dining sleeve” after the diner has used it to wipe their mouth.”

She’d also like us to use less toilet paper, which is admirable, but you have to wonder if that one will gain much traction.

I put in the time.  I watched the entire thing.  I’m just missing the whole time travel thing.  They were always two years apart, so how in the world did they end up in the same time?  I realize that by him not getting hit by the bus the future would change, but they should still be two years apart!  Wouldn’t he need to gain two years or her relive two years?

If anyone actually understands what they were thinking with that ending, please let me know via the Comments.

Back on February 7th, I asked “Would you pay more for DRM-free music?” Looks like I finally got one right as EMI announced they would be selling DRM-free music on iTunes for a premium price. Full albums will remain the same price, so they are clearly trying to get us to purchase more albums than singles.

I’ll let you guys do the Google searching yourselves as it is probably harder to avoid this story than find information on it.

Yesterday DirecTV came out and installed everything we needed to switch from Comcast to satellite. I was a DirecTV customer for over 9 years in the past, but moved to Comcast when DirecTV was unable to offer my local channels in HD. Now they can, so I went back.

I forgot how much better the regular channels look from the satellite, as Comcast still has a ton of analog channels. The only thing I am still waiting on is the HD DVR. DirecTV had to postpone my installation once because they have no HD DVRs. When they finally did come out they were able to take care of everything except for our main TV - the only one that handles HD, so I can’t comment on their HD yet.

Hopefully they will be out tomorrow with a new HD DVR, but I’m not holding my breath. This is the only negative I had with the entire process of returning to DirecTV, but it’s a big one to me.

UPDATE - DirecTV delivered exactly as they said they would and we’ve been using the HD-DVR for the past couple of days.  The nice thing is when we record things we can now control the playback of them.  I haven’t noticed any slowness issues with the hardware yet and the Guide actually scrolls as I press the keys to scroll.  Revolutionary.  Now to make a call to Comcast.

Dear former Microsoft UltimateTV developers,

Things used to be so good between us. I was a happy DirecTV customer using your UltimateTV DVR back when the only real competition was Tivo. I thought you had the product that would take Tivo down from number one, but you guys had other ideas. The small population of UTV users just wasn’t enough for you I guess.

Then came HD and all the amazing picture clarity that I could want. Life was going to be great. But you couldn’t record HD. I hoped, as did many, that you might have an upgrade to support HD, but it never happened. When DirecTV didn’t offer my local channels in HD I had to make a tough decision - either I stayed with DirecTV so I could keep using you at the expense of no HD, or leave DTV and go back to Comcast after 9 1/2 years. I followed the prettier picture, thinking that any DVR can do what you used to do. Boy was I wrong.

The Comcast DVR is a disaster, and the Tivo Series 3 that does HD is pretty expensive and I’m a little nervous about it handling the change in how Comcast may deliver channels later this year. So here I am, hoping that you’ll take me back. I’m sure you guys must have moved your interface somewhere that I can buy? What about the rumors of the XBox360 doing TV recording later this year? That sounds like something right up your alley.

So please former UTV developers. Please. Give me something that I can use that will give me what I had with UTV, but add the ability to handle HD. The shine has worn off the Comcast solution and I’m looking to make a move. Did I mention I make a great beta tester?

The Motorola 6412 DVR that Comcast gives to its customers is the worst piece of technology I have ever used.  It is slow, it hangs, it’s slow, it crashes, it’s slow, it records things and then you can’t watch them.  It is a complete mess and I can’t believe Comcast still offers it to its customers.

This past Thursday was enough for me.  It said it recorded various shows that we like to watch and when we went to watch them all we got was the messages you get when you’re done watching a recorded show - delete or don’t delete.  It did that to 4 out of the 5 shows we had recorded.  The same shows that have recorded successfully as series for months.

On top of that is is so slow that there are time when you press buttons on the remote knowing you told it to change the channel, etc. and nothing happens.  10 seconds later all of the commands you pressed decide to stop queueing up and happen all at once.  It’s a mess.

If the HD Tivo wasn’t so expensive I would have picked one up on Friday at lunch.  Anyone have the new HD Tivo and have any feedback on how well it works?  I have to get rid of this piece of junk Comcast is charging me for.  There have been rumors about Comcast offering a Tivo based solution for a couple of years now, but nothing has come from it.  I’m tired of waiting.  By the time they get around to offering the Tivo either be back with DirecTV (I should have never left, but I really wanted the HD local channels and they didn’t offer them at the time) or FiosTV will be offered in my area.  The biggest minus I see to the FiosTV from Verizon is that they seem to offer the exact same piece of junk Motorola DVR.

Something’s gotta give soon.

Quick show of hands - who *doesn’t* think they fathered Anna Nicole Smith’s daughter?  At least 3 people have now made the claim that they are the father.  That TrimSpa stuff must act as an aphrodisiac.

As we mourn the loss of Anna Nicole Smith, I wonder how many people will panic and stop using TrimSpa for weight loss.  The company was already getting fined from the FTC for false advertising, and now they have lost the main person associated with their brand.  Only time will tell.

Her life always seemed a little sad to me from the outside,  but it will sadden me even more to see her husband, Howard K. Stern (no, not *that* Howard Stern) all over the news.  I’d expect a paternity test to happen now, so I’m sure we’re all in for a good old fashion, down home, white trash circus.

My nephew sent me a link to this video by No More Kings. If you were around for the Karate Kid era you’re going to love this video. The song is stuck in my head now. See how many actors you recognize from the movie.

[youtube]uFlQNtL8F9s[/youtube]

With Steve Jobs’ recent Thoughts On Music article mentioning that Apple would drop DRM in a minute if the record companies would buy in to it, I was wondering if people would be willing to pay more for non DRM’d music.

What if you could buy songs at tierd pricing based on compression quality and DRM preference, like this?

• DRM included and the same level of compression that you see today with online music stores = 89 cents.
• DRM included and a lower level of compression = 99 cents.
• No DRM and today’s compression = $1.09.
• No DRM and no compression $1.19.

Make up your own pricing structure instead of the numbers I made up above.
I’m not sure how I’d feel about that. I’d like having the choice, but if things got too expensive it would probably drive me back to purchasing CDs for most of my music and only using the online stores for the times when I am looking for something and have to have it right now - the “instant gratification” stuff.

I’d love to see not only the DRM dropped, but I’d also like to download everything with no, or lossless, compression.  I’d go as high as $1.09 for non-DRM, no compression music downloads, so for me it would probably all come down to price.