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So yesterday I took advantage of the newer lower iPod Shuffle pricing. I wanted a Shuffle because I wanted something smaller to either listen to some random music, or to listen to podcasts download on my laptop without having to mess with adding them to my iPod which is synced to my desktop.

The way podcasts are handled on the Shuffle and iTunes is messed up. First, podcasts in playlists don’t automatically sync. WFT? If music can sync why not Podcasts? Not syncing isn’t too bad though. You just have to drag and drop and they are there. The thing that drove me nuts is you can’t control the order the podcasts are played, and the default order is backwards. You have to listen to the newest stuff first. I, like most people, like to listen to podcasts in the order that they are released. Why would I want to hear today’s episodes if I haven’t heard yesterdays yet?

There were a few workarounds, but they all seemed like a pain in the ass to me. My workaround was to use a different podcatcher. It’s crazy how iTunes is totally dominating the podcatching market. I remember when there were tons of podcatchers, and they were all better than iTunes. I settled on NetNewsWire. NetNewsWire downloads my podcasts and drops them right into iTunes old school style. I can now sync my Shuffle to a playlist that contains my newest podcasts.

Why can’t this be done in iTunes? It would be so simple. Hasn’t anybody at Apple ever tried to listen to podcasts on a Shuffle?

I really need a haircut. I have been putting it off because it has been too cold to want to go anywhere, and the extra hair keeps my head warm too. We seem to be out of our deep freeze now, so today is haircut day.

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So there is this somewhat big TV show called Dancing with the Stars. I don’t really get it. I saw it on once and it bored me to tears in thirty seconds. This season Penn Gillette is going to be on it. I am almost tempted to watch it. I am a huge fan of Penn. I love everything he does. His Showtime show Bullshit! is one of my favorites. He recently starting a little vlog on Crackle.com that I love too. The only reason I would want to go to Vegas would be to see his magic show. I am not sure I could stand watching Dancing with the Stars though. The only reason I would watch it would be to see how big Penn is. Teller isn’t a short guy. I hear he is 5’10” or so. Next to Penn, Teller looks three feet tall. I Might have to catch it once just to see how ginormous he looks dancing.

Today is a busy day in space news. First space shuttle Atlantis landed this morning. I usually try to watch shuttle takeoffs and landings, but I worked late last night and missed the landing this morning.

Second I am sure you all have heard about the US shooting down a spy satellite today. Phil Plait over at Bad Astronomy.com has a great little video about why we are shooting down the satellite.

Thirdly, there will be a total lunar eclipse tonight. This will be the last lunar eclipse until 2010. I will try to brave the cold tonight to see it. We will see.

Today would have been Kurt Cobain’s 41st birthday. It’s weird trying to imagine a 40 year old Kurt Cobain. He is stuck at 27 in my head. I was a hugh Nirvana fan. My wife wasn’t. I think Nirvana was one of those bands that you either “got”, or you didn’t understand at all. I still listen to Nevermind at least once a month. That is still my all time favorite album. I can never get sick of it. It is so good all the way through. Not many albums don’t have a bad song on them. Nevermind doesn’t even have a mediocre song on it.

I am kind of a dork. I still make sure I listen to Nirvana on February 20th and on April 5th. Just my little tribute to a band that changed the music I listen to. I think today it will be In Utero.

I was just outside and yes, it does feel like -47º. Fun stuff!

So I was at my Mom’s house all weekend. We had a little birthday get together since both my Brother and I have February birthdays. We also got our cruise all planned out. It’s hard to believe that two weeks from now I will be on Grand Cayman Island. When we are at Grand Cayman, we are taking little inflatable boats out to “stingray city” and going to swim with the stingrays. After feeding stingrays at Sea World last year, the wife really like stingrays. It should be fun as long as we are not Steve Irwined. Actually what happened to Steve Irwin is very rare. Stingrays are pretty harmless.

On our stop in Mexico we are going to see Tulum. It looks pretty cool, plus the wife and I always like to check out historic things when we are on vacation. We are not beach people. We want to see things and learn. We have learned so much from all our vacations. We will have plenty of time to sit and relax on the cruise.

One thing I was surprised about was that the ship has free wifi. I wasn’t planning on bringing my laptop, but now I am. They have an Internet cafe that you have to pay for, but if you bring your own computer the internet is free. Who knows home much time I will get on the Internet, but I might be able to twitter from time to time.

I am also so looking forward to the warmer temps. It is -1ºF here right now, and 84ºF in Grand Cayman right now. That will feel so nice.

Netflix has had the option to watch movies streaming from their site for some time now. They don’t have everything watchable that way though. It’s kind of hit and miss. Now they have added a play button to your queue. Now I know if I can watch movies that are in my queue now. That makes it way easier to find movies you might want to watch on your computer. I am a sucker for a good documentary. I watch them about anything. I am not a Scrabble player, but I found Word Wars very good. I have a feeling I am going to watch a lot of my documentaries online this way. I don’t think I would watch a full blown movie though. I would prefer to watch “movies” on my big screen with the surround sound, but I can handle watching TV shows or Documentaries on the computer. Now they just have to come out with Mac support. Or maybe better yet, XBox 360 support.

I don’t know if I mentioned it on here or not, but at the end of the month we are going on a cruise. It seemed so far off when we booked it, but it’s almost here now. It’s a five day cruise leaving from Tampa with day stops at Grand Cayman Island and Calica Mexico. It should be fun. It will be our first cruise. We are going with my Mom, Brother, and his Wife. It should be a good time.

We will learn more about the cruise this weekend. My Mom is having a little birthday get together with me and my Brother. We both have February birthdays. I will have my usual computer work to do also. My Mom just bought a digital camera, so I am sure I am going to have to show her how to use it and how to work with the pictures on her computer.

So I have a busy week and busy weekend coming up. I can’t wait to sit back and relax on that cruise ship. It will also feel good to feel temps that are out of the single digits.