If you live in the Columbia area, then you know how Time Warner advertising is ubiquitous. Well, get ready to be bombarded with TV and radio ads announcing their new service, Start Over. As this story points out, Time Warner, like many other companies, feels digital-video-recording is the future of television. Initially, Start Over, which allows viewers to go back to the beginning of any program on 60 networks, will be free to 10,000 Irmo residents and offered to subscribers in the coming months. But what about pausing live TV, using slow-mo, and recording whole seasons of TV shows? Compared to TiVo, Start Over seems rather lacking. Thanks, but I’ll pass. I’d rather have TiVo so I could record an entire season of Lost to carefully search for symbols on sharks.

Maybe you’ve seen a geek-hipster walking down Main Street writing on a stack of index cards bound by a bull-clip. Several card-carrying members of the I’m-a-geek-I-swear club have ditched their Blackberry, Palm or Windows Mobile devices in favor of the cheaper and, in some ways, more elegant “Hipster PDA.” These things have unlimited memory (500 index cards for $2.79), are ultimately portable and sharing information with a new business contact, spouse or friend is as easy as pulling a card out of the clip. I’ve been using mine for at least 7 months now and rarely leave home without it. It’s never in the way, and even if I lose it, no biggie, right? Give it a shot.

*The Hipster PDA finds itself at home most effectively in David Allen’s GTD system, but that’s a story for another day.

Two Colaspot readers I spoke with this weekend - and yes, we have two readers, thanks - were asking if I could post some info about tomorrow’s release of Star Wars Episode III: Revenge of the Sith on DVD. There’s been some confusion about who is offering the best bet, as several stores have exclusive promotions. Here’s what I’ve been able to find:

Read the rest of this entry »

Remember the announcement from a few weeks ago about Sylvester Stallone reprising his role as Rocky Balboa? As if that wasn’t bad enough, the latest news is he will also be returning to the big screen as John Rambo in Rambo IV. Well, if watching Stallone’s dentures get punched out in Rocky VI isn’t entertaining, at least we can watch him fall down from the kick of a machine gun in Rambo IV. What’s next? Sean Connery playing a nursing home residing Bond? A 25-year-old Macaulay Culkin in another Home Alone sequel? Hollywood, you suck.

In the first two Startup Junkie posts, we discussed some reasons to work for a small company instead of a larger, established one. In this third edition, the Junkie poses the question: if you’re going to take the plunge, should you work directly for a startup — as a full-time employee — or might it be better to sign on as an independent contractor?

Read the rest of this entry »

It’s not often you see a local band go from playing Columbia venues to performing on The Tonight Show to promote their platinum album. Local band Crossfade did just that when Columbia Records signed them in 2003. Their self-titled debut album made a big splash in 2004, with the songs “Cold” and “So Far Away” becoming staples on rock radio stations all across the country.

On Saturday, Crossfade is back in their hometown performing at Fort Jackson Hilton Field. Gates open at 6 p.m., and the show starts at 7 p.m. Advance tickets are on sale for $12 at USC Russell House, local Bi-Lo stores, Sounds Familiar, and the Solomon Center at Fort Jackson. Tickets are also available at the gate for $15. If you’re in the area, go check it out.

Just a quick and friendly reminder: Daylight Savings Time ends this weekend. Make sure you turn back your clocks one hour, as the time changes Sunday at 2 a.m. Don’t forget, otherwise you’ll be an hour early anywhere you go on Sunday. Of course, that’s better than the spring of my senior year in high school when I forgot to turn my clock forward. I was an hour late to our drama team’s performance of You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown, in which I played the part of Peppermint Patty. You can make fun of me for being in an all-male performance troupe, but keep in mind Peppermint Patty was always kinda manly. Fortunately, Gus, our lovable school custodian, knew all our parts by heart and filled in for me. Oh, he pretended to be mopping the floors of the auditorium while we practiced every day, but we knew that behind the gruff exterior was a theater lover.

I’ve never been a big football fan. I can think of several reasons for my pigskin passivity. For starters, I went to a high school that didn’t have a stadium until my senior year. Not that it mattered; our football team was terrible. Perhaps the poor athleticism could be attributed to the zoning: the majority of the student body was comprised of rich, spoiled preppies. Rich, spoiled preppies might be good at drinking games and wrecking the new sports car Daddy bought them, but they tend to play football as well as I breakdance. That’s not entirely true — I’m an excellent breakdancer. I’m just very modest.

Read the rest of this entry »

Do any of you in the Columbia area have kids who love The Wiggles? How would you like to win tickets to their November 17th shows at the Colonial Center? Does asking your child the previous question make him/her foam at the mouth and tremble with excitement? Then get ready for a whole lot of awesome! Get down to WLTX this Saturday from noon to 4 p.m. Once there, you can force your child to color a picture of the creepy quartet or make them sing a Wiggles song until they’re blue in the face. If WLTX deems your child Wiggles-worthy, you’ll be entered into a drawing to win tickets to see four grown men act like six-year-olds with head trauma!

Before entering the contest, however, I thought I’d pass along some Wiggles trivia you can teach your child to impress the WLTX judges:

• The Wiggles real names are Abdul, Chompsy, Laslow, and Ivan Deathstrangle.
• The Wiggles started out in 1989 as a death metal band.
• The Wiggles have sold 4 million copies of their album Torch the House Down.
• All of The Wiggles are heterosexuals except for four of them.
• In 2001, The Wiggles defeated Raffi, another popular childrens’ singer, in a pay-per-view steel cage deathmatch.
• Chompsy, who wears the red shirt, has a stuffed Persian cat collection worth over $40,000.

Hope this trivia helps your child take down the other kids hard. Be sure to let them know winning is everything!

How cool is this? While checking out Joystiq this morning, I ran across this story with a link to Infendo, a Nintendo blog. An awesome guy by the name of Jason Cox has reinterpreted the Super Mario World music with dozens of live instruments. Click here and rock out to classic Nintendo music!