Pnambic

Trouble is, if you try to go cheap on a gaming laptop, you may end up with an expensive laptop that doesn't game well... Tell the uncle to build another gaming rig for visitors. Problem solved. Haha Actually, if driving, bringing a gaming computer isn't hard. It's the animals who handle checked luggage that you have to watch out for...

Man, when I travel for work, there is never time for gaming... Up at 6am and if I'm lucky, back in bed by midnight... But somehow I suspect that most people shopping for gaming laptops for their sons aren't doing it so their sons can game while traveling for work.

I've never understood the desire for a "gaming laptop". Its just silly. It costs twice as much, scrunched keyboard, please don't tell me you're using the touchpad or red nub, you have a screen half as big and you'd be lucky if the battery lasts an hour while gaming. If you want to game, really, why on Earth would you want to do it on a laptop? 22 inch monitors are $85 all day long. Get two or three. They make awesome gaming cases these days that even have handles so you can take them with you when you want. And they're not that expensive. I just bought one with placements for 9 case fans with slide out air filters even (currently using 4 not counting the PSU fan). $50 at TigerDirect.

Hey folks, you might remember my comments from last year about 4K media being pretty darn rare and there not really being any hard plans for it in the future. I dare say so far I was right... Even DirecTV, which proudly claims to be the, "the first multi-channel video provider in our industry to provide it." has little to offer in actual material. At the bottom of their page here:, one of their FAQ's asks, "How many 4K movies does DirecTV have?" - Their answer, I KID YOU NOT, is, "The number of 4K movies varies from week to week, but there are always at least two 4K movies..." TWO Couple more things to be aware of: 1.) 4K is a completely different measurement from 1080P. - 4K is NOT 4 times wider and 4 times taller than 1080P, so it is NOT 16 times better. - 1080P measures out to 1920 pixels wide by 1080 pixels tall. - The current standard for Ultra HD (UHD) is actually 3840 x 2160, but could change... See the problem so far? This is like when HD first came out and everyone jumped on 720P screens, only to realize a few months later that 1080i screens were going to be an HD standard. And then a year after that, 1080P comes along... And then BluRay and HDDVD began battling. That took a couple years to be settled. THE SAME THING IS GOING ON RIGHT NOW WITH HDR IMPLEMENTATION FOR 4K TV's. Investing in a 4K TV right now may not actually make you as "future-proof" as you think it will. Until media is being produced in overwhelming quantities in some new 4K derived format, its a crapshoot as to what UHD format will actually be adopted. 2.) 4K is probably too many pixels for your existing setup. - HDMI cables up through 1.4 (which is 99.999999% of HDMI cables out there) cannot transmit the volume of data that is 4K at 60fps. So you will need HDMI 2.0 cables. (More money) - HDMI ports up through 1.4 (which are 99.999999% of HDMI ports out there) cannot receive or transmit the volume of data that is 4K at 60fps. These ports are on the backs of TV's, and home theater receivers that you plug the HDMI cables in to. That means if you have a home theater, chances are you won't be able to run a 4K 60fps peripheral through your receiver and then to your new 4K TV. So you will likely need a new home theater receiver, or wire things in a strange way to hopefully get around this. (More money) - If you have an 80hr DVR, that would be used up in less than 20 hours of 4K media. You'll need to be better about keeping up with your shows, or buy bigger Hard Drive DVR's (More money) 3.) 4K is probably too much bandwidth for you to stream. - Netflix recommends at least 5Mbits download speed to stream HD material. And this is with NOTHING else going on in your network. If you have kids browsing the Internet, watching YouTube, playing games online, etc, that's all on top of this. - Netflix recommends at least 25MBits download speed to stream UHD material. That's TWENTY FIVE Megabits. Plus all the other regular usage. Two people streaming UHD all by itself is probably exceeding the capabilities of pretty much every wireless G home network right there. - What does this mean? More bandwidth is more money. 4.) And then of course, there's this: http://s3.carltonbale.com/resolution_chart.png Do you really intend to be sitting between 3 and 5 feet away from your new 50 inch 4K TV so that you can notice the difference? Be honest now. Being future-proof is more than buying the TV, it's buying the infrastructure to get the media to the TV as well. And I doubt many people have actually calculated what this cost will be for them specifically. But hey, if you still want a 4K TV, don't let me stop you. That means more 1080P deals available for me. Actually, there is one thing that you may be able to get out of a 4K TV....if you can find one that has it. That's Quantum Dot. But Quantum Dot has nothing to do with 4K and everything to do with improving color depth, so Quantum Dot on a 1080P would be the best option. Now, 4K computer monitors are a different matter, as we are almost always much closer to these screens, so we actually CAN tell the difference.

Interested in more info on Amazon Firestick & Kodi... Anyone have experience?

http://mashable.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/07/Monty-Python.gif So excited!

There's always Kirby if you don't mind the initial outlay. Those things appear to be built like tanks. I'll always remember being ticked off when my parents wouldn't lend me a dollar to buy my first car, but they had the gall to spend $1200 (back in '92) on a freaking vacuum cleaner. Well, that vacuum still runs like new more than 22 years later... My first car...not so much...

The problem is the blind desperation for "that toy", not the reselling of Black Friday deals. If you get a deal on Black Friday, great. But come on people, toys aren't the end all be all of Christmas. Kinda missing the point, aren't we? I'm on the entrepreneurial side of this argument. Of course, if the company selling the product is PR wise, they'll try to make as many people happy as possible and limit the number of items per purchaser, but that's a different argument.

With all this shark talk, check it out: https://meh.com Today only. Expired

Nice! That's how it's done.

The decision to price match ultimately falls on the store managers. They are the one responsible for the important numbers regarding store performance (revenue/margin/etc.) and wield the authority to say yes or no. Your mileage will vary. It's kinda like the speed limit. Technically, I'm obliged to obey this posted limit. But ultimately, it is up to my discretion when and where to do so, with the knowledge that I may be called to task for not doing so. If the manager creates enough of a stir and makes a PR blunder, Walmart corporate *can* call them to task, but so long as the store numbers look good and there isn't any (or very little) noise being made, that's unlikely to happen. I was also told no to a price match request by Walmart last week. On 11/25, when Toys R Us first put the Disney Infinity 2.0 Marvel set at $39.99, I made the online request to have Walmart match it (since $39.99 wasn't enough for free shipping and TRU's price was online only so I couldn't pick it up in store). Walmart took 2.5 days to respond and ultimately tell me no for a bogus, nonsensical reason - they claimed it was a "bundled deal", which clearly it's not. I can provide the email response for scrutiny if someone would like to verify my "clue". I ended up buying it at BestBuy instead.

+1 for the Dysons

What a mess. These experiences are all with their website. I wanted the Disney Infinity Marvel set so I put one in the cart on 11/25 when they first marked it down to $39. But you need $50 to get free shipping, so I threw on a $15 Cap figure and checked out. AFTER hitting the final button to place the order, I was shown a page apologizing for not having the Infinity set and advising me that I would not be charged for it. Trouble is, now my order wasn't $50 so my already overpriced $15 figure was going to cost me $22!!! I cancelled immediately. But the hold on my account stayed. Went about the rest of my Black Friday shopping Wednesday evening and into Thanksgiving. Eventually got back to the quad copter that TRU was cutting to $19 yesterday and tried to buy it. This one was available for store pickup, so I didn't need $50. Placed the order. Received confirmation. Ten minutes later, got an email apologizing for not being able to follow through on my order due to stock discrepancies, advising me that the order had been cancelled and that I wouldn't be charged. But again, the hold remains. Why even bother if they're not going to honor what I order? Tell you what, I won't bother. I ended up getting the Infinity set from Best Buy and am still shopping around for the quad copter. I didn't have any troubles ordering online from Wamart, Bestbuy, Club Nabi or nomorerack.

Yea, I heard they were pretty awesome.

I think I read that windows 8 takes up about 20gb all by itself on these netbooks.

Nabi 2 Nickelodeon was marked down to $99 like the ad said but saying check your local store. Then Nabi 2S (improved screen) got marked down to $99 and was available to order online. Score!

Just scored the Disney Infinity Marvel Starter pack for the WiiU for $39.99.

I know you asked Len, but in my experience using quite a few HPs and Lenovos (and others) over the years, I've had better luck with the Lenovo line. What processors are in the laptops you're looking at?

HAHA! This is a very good question. - If I'm buying for myself, I go for quality over name brand every time. - My wife? Image, definitely. - My 14 yr old probably prefers image. - My 12 yr old is like me and would prefer the better quality. - My 7 yr old is probably all about the image. - The 4 yr old? So long as it has Mickey Mouse, he's happy, so he's probably image as well...

Well, sound waves are sound waves, whether they come from the pipes of the Harleys or from the music player. If you want to hear the music better, your choices are: - diminish the sound of the pipes in relation to the music - increase the sound of the music in relation to the pipes But increasing the sound of the music runs the risk of damaging your hearing. You have several options for diminishing the sound of the pipes: - in-ear earbuds that are properly fit can go a long way toward blocking outside noise. There are some memory foam tips made by Comply that are pretty good. I like 'em. And you can buy them to use with most ear buds out there. - over the ear closed cup design headphones do their best to physically block the sound waves from reaching your ears. - head phones/earbuds with active noise cancelling technology sample the sounds around you and insert the exact opposite sound wave into your music to cancel out the outside noise. - get quieter pipes....HAHAHA

If you bought it with a credit card, check to see if you're covered with an extended warranty from that angle. I know my Cap One card does that.

$20 Bluetooth transmitter --> http://www.monoprice.com/Product?c_id=108&cp_id=10823&cs_id=1082703&p_id=9722&seq=1&format=2 And it uses USB power - most HDTV's have a powered USB port on the back panel somewhere which makes it easy to run off the power already going to the TV. And I'm probably over-thinking it trying to get a speaker on either side of their head. If there's a side table near the seat, any old Bluetooth brick speaker will do and he would be able to move it to any spot he wanted if necessary.

Yeah, the 32in for $98 is a good deal. The 40in for $119 is a better deal. But in my opinion, that 50in for $199 is the pick of the litter.

When my sons were younger, I bought some $10 computer speakers and installed them in the head side bolsters of their carseat. Plug them into the headphone jack of the DVD player and waalaa, they can listen to whatever movie they want to and I don't have to hear it or worry about the headphones falling off their head. Perhaps if your dad has a favorite seat (lazyboy), you can mount some small speakers to it and accomplish something similar. ...I wonder if this idea has been copyrighted... With today's technology, a Bluetooth speaker attached to the rear of the seat (mounted upside down to get proper left/right panning of the sound) may get the job done...I wonder what that would sound like. May have to try it.