Now I can take my fine-tuned station with me with the Slacker G2 Personal Radio Player – Yesss!

So I’m sitting in the home office, doing some work and I think to myself – “this place needs some music”. The problem I have is not only that I wanted music, I wanted my unique genres and artists, I wanted an online source – not a bunch of mp3s I’ve gotta make playlists for, I wanted to be able to use it on both my mac or my PC, I wanted it all.

Slacker.com is what I found. I’ve seen the light! Well, for the most part.

Here’s the deal, slacker.com allows users to sign-up for an account for free. Free accounts in the beginning were only limited by # of skips a user had to cycle through music. Quick tip: If you use the service and a song comes on that you hate, don’t use a skip, use the BAN* song feature. It’ll save your skips for songs you might not want to hear right now, but possibly later. Now Free accounts also get to listen to crappy commercials between songs. It doesn’t happen often, every 25 or so songs, but it’s still a bummer.

This is what I did, I signed up, created a few stations for my moods. I have a station for my speedmetal/industrial mood & another for my country mood. Ok, no I don’t – but if I wanted to I could. The service is founded on the principal of users choosing the music they like and listening to it. Simple. With every account Free or Paid, you’re able to ban artists, mark favorites, adjust settings like artist discovery or “just hits”, giving every user lots of control over their station.

More tips: (if you signup)

• If you like a song, use the favorite button to tell slacker.com, the favorites help not only in the frequency for that song, but also the artist, genre and similar bands out there slacker will recommend to you in the artist discovery section.

• Make your own station, listening to the presets is fine… but with the tools all accounts get you’re able to tell slacker exactly what artists you like, making the station truly your own.

• Share! Once you’re confident in your artist selection and ratings (something established over time) let others hear your station and share it through slacker.

• Download the desktop version… If you are a PC user (windows), slacker has made a software player available in their support/download section of the site. All the tools from the site in a simple, media player-esqe application.

• Browse the “options” & “edit station” features of slacker. Go through every tab and try the features for yourself. It will make your station better, sooner.

• If you really hate what you’re hearing, BAN can also be used for the whole artists library – all their music goes byebye, never to be heard again! I love this feature… in the beginning, as my station was taking form, I was only banning songs… after noticing I really hated everything from the same artists over and over again, the BAN artist feature became my best friend.

News from slacker… Now they’ve gone wireless.

If you make a station you’d like to take with you, without taking your laptop, the new Slacker G2 player does everything the website does and you can take it with you! Fabulous!

Slacker.com Quick Review:

Purchased: I didn’t since Slacker.com is a free service. There is a premium upgrade and you can also purchase the G2 portable radio player in different storage capacities.

Slacker.com Benefits:

• Lots of control over music

• Free & Paid subscriptions
• You’re not purchasing music, you’re selecting music preferences

Slacker.com Drawbacks:

• Free service limits, advertising

• No software player for Mac

The Mr. gives slacker.com 4/5 – Everyone hates radio commercials and that’s the only reason I gave it a 4 instead of a 5. When the service started there were no commercials even on the free version, but the free version now has commercials. That’s what I get for being cheap, but even with commercials I still use slacker.com all the time. The paid version has more features without the commercials so I would likely give the paid service a 5/5.

I look forward to waking up ever since buying the Cuisinart Coffee-on-Demand 12-cup Coffeemaker!

Ok maybe that’s a bit over-zealous of me; I mean I have 3 great kids and an amazing husband to wake up to each morning, but I have to say this coffee maker is awwwesome! It’s like having a 7-11 in my kitchen, where I can push the lever and get me some java-love in a hurry-like.

The Mr. and I got this coffeemaker as a gift about 6 months ago and what a fantastic gift it has been! We have used it everyday since tearing the box open like kids at Christmas as soon as we could make out the word “coffee” through the wrapping paper. We tore it open so fast that we lost the directions and still managed to set it up and figure out how to set the timer without a problem.

What’s great about this Cuisinart coffeemaker is the design.

The fact that the coffee is made up top and stored in an insulated bin in the same space just makes sense. A coffeepot that allows you to press the lever and get coffee whenever you want is ingenious.

In comparison, we owned a $150 Krups coffeemaker that was no where near as easy to use as the Coffee-on-demand coffeemaker and used the standard auto-drip / carafe design whereas coffee was regularly wasted due to getting cold. Cold coffee isn’t a problem with this coffeemaker because the coffee stays nice and toasty in the confines of the bin up top.

This coffeemaker uses the standard drip technique to brew the coffee in a removable plastic bin which is easy to take out and clean. It also comes with a metal mesh basket, so you can forego filters should you so choose. We are cheap, so needless to say, we never buy coffee filters any more.

The only minor issue I have with this coffeemaker is the fact that the area where the water goes into the coffeemaker is pretty small, so I have to keep a small pitcher with a spout near by for pouring water into it. I still manage to drip water down the sides and have to wipe the stainless steel surface quickly so it doesn’t get water streaks on the side.

Cuisinart DCC-2000 Coffee-on-Demand Quick Review:

Purchased: Well we didn’t because it was a gift, but we eyeballed it at Bed Bath and Beyond for a good long time. It was going for $110 bucks at the time.

Cuisinart DCC-2000 Coffee-on-Demand 12-cup Programmable Coffeemaker Benefits:

• Coffee doesn’t get cold because it’s stored in a mostly-sealed container at the top of the coffeemaker
• Easy to use timer and clock settings
• Ability to use paper filters or the mesh basket that’s included
• No glass carafe or easily-breakable parts
• Getting coffee by pressing a lever = priceless!

Cuisinart DCC-2000 Coffee-on-Demand 12-cup Programmable Coffeemaker Drawbacks:

• The area where water goes into the coffeemaker is pretty small and causes spills
• Stainless steel is a pain to clean if you spill water on it

The Mrs. gives the Cuisinart DCC-2000 Coffee-on-Demand 12-cup Programmable Coffeemaker 5/5
Because this is by and large the most used kitchen appliance we own. We use it each day, sometimes more than once and it never lets us down. Somebody with smarts designed this product!

If you need replacement filter basket for the Cuisinart DCC-2000 Coffee-on-Demand 12-cup Programmable Coffeemaker: You can get the Cuisinart GTF-B Gold Tone Coffee Filter on Amazon pretty easily. Mine is still going strong after daily use – so they hold up pretty well!

Additional notes: We also have the Cuisinart burr-mill coffee grinder that kicks some major arse too! Make sure to check out that review if you need a coffee maker and grinder combo – look no further!

I’ve owned the Panasonic TH-42PX60U 42″ Plasma HDTV for about a year now – I’m no TV-o-phile, so I am reviewing this as an average person with average intelligence and a nack for electronics.

I did my homework when I bought this TV; I poured over the geekiest of TV geek forums for reviews, comments and ratings. For the price – I found this TV to fit my budget and even more so when I scored it with a major DirecTv rebate from Best Buy. Being I needed a new Satellite setup anyways, I made the switch from Dish Network and was soon enjoying my new HDTV setup for under $1200.

The Mr. & I skipped the ridiculous in home setup at Best Buy and opted to buy the hanging hardware at Costco for about $80 and did the install ourselves. The DirecTv dude ran the cables and we hooked it up easily without looking at the instructions (who needs stinking instructions anyways?). I did however print out some setup instructions from the local TV nerd forum that were super easy and I lo-and-behold we were watching the Discovery channel in all of its HDTV glory. I swore those antelope were going to jump out of the TV at us Here are the settings I use:

Picture Mode: Standard
Picture: +22
Brightness: +8
Color: -1
Tint: -4
Sharpness: -14
Color Temperature: Warm

I have to say that over the past year we have watched this TV it has been good to us. We haven’t had to go out of our way to do any calibration (like the old rear projection big screens) or change any settings really. The initial setup was the only time we realy ever messed with the menus. I would say that the average person would find this TV as maintenance free as we did. Obviously this isn’t a review from someone who sits around reviewing TVs all day, but from a mom that watches TV in the evenings after running a business and chasing 3 kids all day.

Before I bought this TV I was told over and over by friends and family to buy an LCD instead of a plasma TV because they last longer; I threw caution to the wind on this purchase because the price was right. After a year of daily use it is still as good as it was the day we bought it. If anything changes, I will certainly update this post – but for now I love this TV and I believe it was a great buy. I read about a hundred reviews from others that said this TV gave the most bang for the buck in its price range.

Panasonic makes some great TV’s and the predecessors to this one are no exception from what I’ve read. When it’s time to ditch the 65″ rear projection TV in the living room – We will likely go with another Panasonic; They know TV’s.

Panasonic TH-42PX60U 42″ Plasma TV Quick Review:

Purchased: Best Buy

Panasonic TH-42PX60U 42″ Plasma HDTV Benefits:

• Great picture quality and contrast
• Easy to navigate menus
• Intuitive setup
• Good feature set for the money
• SD card slot in the front of the TV is easy to access and use

Panasonic TH-42PX60U 42″ Plasma HDTV Drawbacks:

• Out of the box the picture is nasty. Be sure to use the settings listed above for the best picture on this TV

The Mrs. gives Panasonic TH-42PX60U 42″ Plasma HDTV 5/5
Because for the price this TV is a good buy and has held up well over the past year (despite know-it-all friend’s recommendations).

Additional notes: If you own one of these and ever need parts for TH-42PX60U 42″ Plasma HDTV (just in case!) You can get them for really good prices on ebay. Here are some links to various Panasonic TV parts for this model:

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60U Replacement Remote Control

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60U Infrared Remote Sensor TNPA3762AG

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60U Key Control Board TNPA3965AC

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60U Power Supply TNPA3911

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60U Replacement Speakers

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60USD Card Reader TNPA3853

Ebay search for Panasonic TH-42PX60USD Wall mount kit

With all of the links above you could practically re-build your TV if you needed to. Gotta love ebay!