Remember a while back when I mentioned that I wanted a Zune and a bunch of you wanna-be-hipsters got all rude with me?

Have you heard this?
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"According to online retailers PriceGrabber, Shopping.com, and uber-auctioneer eBay, the Zune player (in both its old Zune 30 guise and new Zune 80 duds) was the second-most purchased item on the web on Black Friday.

"Placing silver right behind the Wii system (which led wish lists for the second year in a row), this could be seen as a huge win for the visibility of Microsoft's digital offerings and the viability of the Zune as an adequate alternative to the iPod behemoth.

"The popularity of the player is credited in part to the affordability of the brown Zune and its new software update. So far, none of the credit is going to the Zune's 'squirting' abilities.

"Other top gadgets noted by the retailers included the Maestro 3100, TomTom ONE, and Garmin's StreetPilot c550 GPS devices, Guitar Hero III, Microsoft's Office 2004 Student and Teacher edition, and a few Canon cameras.

"But before Gates, Allard, and Co. start planning a party, it must be noted that Amazon and other individual company stores (such as Apple's) are not part of these numbers. So we'll wait until all the numbers come in before we crown true Black Friday and Cyber Monday champions– either way, no media player will come anywhere close to the Wii.

"Other Black Friday notes: People spent about $272 million online on Thanksgiving Day in the U.S., and $531 million total on Black Friday. Outside the online world, the early estimate of Black Friday purchases is about 20 billion dollars. "

HT: wired.com
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Okay, Mac nerds, this is the part where you all start whining...

My Dad Is Cooler Than Me...

Some of you noticed in yesterday's post that I was importing songs into my Dad's mp3 player. My mom actually got it for him for Christmas.

It's a Phillips GoGear 6 GB mp3 player, and it's awesome. I know, I know...you all think it's ridiculous that I would like something that only has 6 GB, but let me tell you what's up with this thing. Here's why I love it:

SOUND QUALITY: The buds that came with this thing sound 15 times better than iPod buds. (I know, I know...all of you bought E5 in-ear setups for your iPod and everybody who's anybody knows that the standard buds from Apple are horrible. But for a guy like my dad who barely understands the ideas behind earbuds and who's NOT going to rush out and spend hundreds of dollars on them, these Phillips buds kick tail.

EASE OF USE: Listen, all you with iPods...we got done wrong. After putting songs into this the Phillips mp3 player, importing tunes into an iPod is like trying to reconfigure the orbit path of the space shuttle. Yeah, I said it! You may not dig Media Player, but in my opinion its way easier when it comes to flying tunes into a personal listening device. Sure, iTunes is slicker and smoother to operate as a player, but for importing, my money's on the Windows stuff. In addition, this Phillips thing is a bit easier to navigate once you're holding it. Granted, my experience with the iPod helped out here - it took my Dad about thirty minutes to figure out how to scroll, change tunes, etc., but the Phillips GoGear has a few actual buttons on it. For a guy like my father, it's nice to know there's an actual volume control on the side that's much more familiar to him.

It may seem like I'm on an anti-Apple kick. I promise I'm not. I've just been really surprised at how easy and nice its been using Windows for an mp3 player. For the past three or four years, the culture's been telling me that Windows is out of date, not made for "artists" and that Apple knows what the hip, young consumer wants.

Is it possible that culture has been lying to me?