Recently I had the opportunity to try XyloSweet and found it to be a very good Xylitol brand of sugar substitute. I had seen Amazon.com offers the XyloSweet in a great price for a 5 pound bag, but I wasn’t willing to commit to that big a bag without trying it first.

I had purchased a two pound bag at one of the local natural foods stores and made a batch of my sugar free Nanaimo Bars with it and my almost sugar free Black Forest cake for my birthday. I found the Xylitol to be really good. So it made sense to get the 5 pound bag from Amazon as it’s $23.99 plus tax and shipping as it’s a third party sale from the Vitamin Shoppe and not directly carried by Amazon. So with the tax and 99 cents for shipping, it was less than $28 that I was able to get the Xylitol in the five pound bag. This sure beats paying $8-$10 a bag for one pound bags as I have done with other brands in the past. It also nice to have it delivered to as it was there in just a couple of days by UPS delivery.

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One of my favorite local bands, Roxy Monoxide, announced they were going to have a pre-release party for the CD entitled “Another Day, Another Episode” at San Diego’s Beauty Bar located near the intersection of El Cajon Blvd. and Euclid Ave.

Having never been to the Beauty Bar, I looked them up online and comes to find out they are a chain of locations with Beauty Bar’s in a variety of cities, including Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Las Vegas, Austin, and Brooklyn. They seem to have quite the concept. In style reminiscent of a 1950′s or 1960′s style beauty salon, it’s a full service bar. Think “Beauty School Dropout” from Grease crossed with alcohol and you’ll get the idea. Go to the bar and get your martini and sit under an old style salon hair dryer. Let’s just say, the B-52′s would never look out of place here. (Check out the photos of the venue here.)

San Diego’s Beauty Bar consists of a main bar area and a tented performance space in behind the bar that is connected via a roll door. It definitely wasn’t the most modern looking venue, but I liked the them of it. You have to appreciate the double meaning of calling the place the Beauty Bar, as it was certainly a bar in the alcohol sense of the world, and wouldn’t have been out of place with bar as in bar of soap. Personally I’m surprised the venue isn’t in Hillcrest.

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One of the cast albums I’ve most been looking forward to has finally been released – sort of. Last week, the cast album for “9 To 5″ got released digitally, next week it gets released on CD. It seems a little unprecedented to stagger the releases for a Broadway show, but it seems to allow the label to double dip where the gotta-have-it-now crowd can get their instant gratification and those that prefer to have the physical product can wait a couple weeks longer or get both.

In the case of “9 To 5″ I fall into the crowd that will double dip. I saw the stage production last September when it premiered in Los Angeles for it’s Pre-Broadway trial run. The show written by Patricia Resnick, the original screenwriter of the classic film, along with songs written by one of the original film’s stars, Dolly Parton, have come together to bring the classic to life in a new form. One of the disadvantages of seeing the show early is that the cast album wasn’t readily available to purchase following seeing the show, so I’ve had to wait from September until now. So the early digital release version, was a no brainer for me, and because I will want the physical edition, I’ll be getting that too.

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Amazon Kindle Owners can now take Ryan’s Incredible World with them to read on their Kindle devices. Amazon recently approved the publishing of this blog in a format compliant with their Kindle devices. All that’s needed is an Amazon Kindle and a monthly subscription. Amazon currently has my blog priced at a monthly subscription price of 99 cents, a great bargain to cover the wireless delivery of every new blog entry as they become available. Click here to sign up for Ryan’s Incredible World, the Kindle Edition.

Unfortunately, at this time, the Kindle version only works on Kindle devices, the Kindle applications for iPhone and iPod Touch do not yet work with blog subscriptions. If you’re interested in purchasing an Amazon Kindle, they’ve recently had a price reduction to $299.00 for the regular size model and $489.00 for the DX (larger sized) model. Click here to visit Amazon’s Kindle Store. (more…)

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Amazon has recently expanded the usability of their Amazon Kindle devices. The Kindle device is best known for being a reader for electronic books and the ability to subscribe to newspapers and other regularly updating content sources. Well Amazon has expanded this subscription option to now include blogs. For blog site owners who choose to participate, giving their site’s visitors an additional avenue to read the blog on the go.

The service will not be free, as Amazon will charge approximately 99 cents or $1.99. It hasn’t yet been determined what prices they will charge but essentially consider the cost as covering the Kindle WhisperNet wireless delivery system. I have gone through the process of applying for Ryan’s Incredible World to be carried by Amazon’s Kindle Blog service, but it will be Amazon that determines the price, I have no say in the matter. This site should be listed in the next couple of days and I’ll post an update when that occurs.

Unfortunately, the subscription content is not yet available through the Apple iPhone or iPod Touch Amazon Kindle Applications, so it’s strictly for actual Amazon Kindle users initially. It’s nice to have an additional avenue for people to find and enjoy this blog. If you’re interested in purchasing an Amazon Kindle, they’ve recently had a price reduction to $299.00 for the regular size model and $489.00 for the DX (larger sized) model. Click here to visit Amazon’s Kindle Store.

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Who knew the Bee Gees song “Stayin’ Alive” really can help people stay alive? Well apparently it can, in a procedure known as “Hands Only CPR” which instead of using a more traditional mouth to mouth recussitation requires pressing hard and fast on the chest of the victim of cardiac arrest (or heart attack). This has been proven to be equally as effective as traditional CPR according to the American Heart Association and can double the vitim’s chances of survival.

The reason “Stayin’ Alive” by the Bee Gees song is effective is because it has over 100 beats per minute and Hands Only CPR is most effective at 100 beats per minute. The American Heart Association still encourages traditional CPR if you’re knowledgeable in how to do it, but the Hands Only CPR method is better than not doing anything at all, which is unfortunately, what happens in a lot of cases because people panic and fearing doing anything might make the situation worse for the victim. Sadly it’s the inaction that ultimately causes more death because people fear you need formal CPR training to help someone having a heart attack.

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As I originally wrote about Zevia in my June 15th Blog post (click here to read it) I had only been able to try four of the six Zevia flavors. At long last I finally found a local store that carries the Ginger Ale and Black Cherry Flavors of Zevia’s natually sugar and calorie free diet sodas. My mother had tipped me off that her local natural foods store, Frazier Farms, had them when I was visiting my folks for Father’s Day. So on my way home, I took a quick trip over to Frazier Farms to see, and sure enough, they had some Black Cherry flavor and the Ginger Ale flavor, the two flavors that have been so elusive to me when looking for Zevia.

Unfortunately, there was only one six-pack of the Black Cherry, so I made sure to grab that one before anyone else did. Then I also picked up three of the Ginger Ale flavors. Since Ginger Ale is one of my favorite flavors of soda and Frazier Farms is way out of the way for me, I thought it best to stock up on the flavor. And the good part was they had the same low sale price that Henry’s Farmers Market stores have for the Zevia at $4.99 a six pack.

Well it was going to be a few hours before I’d take the chance to sample one, I didn’t want to spoil the experience by pouring warm soda over ice, I quickly got some of the new Black Cherry and Ginger Ale cans into the refrigerator to chill. Normally I would have waited to try them the next day after work, but because these flavors had been so elusive in trying to find them, I decided to take a can of the Black Cherry with me to work and drink it on the way. Again, I am absolutely gob smacked at how much flavor is packed into a single can of Zevia. The cherry flavor is very robust and the soda tasted to me a lot like Dr. Pepper (which I do like) but with a lot more cherry flavor. The fact the Black Cherry has no calories and no sugar, it’s a no-brainer as to which soda I’ll be happily buying in the future.

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Before I got a chance to write my strongly worded follow-up e-mail to Warner Bros. to let them know hoe dissatisfied I have been with their customer service, I actually received a response to my previous inquiry. As you may recall, I did a pre-order for CHESS IN CONCERT that was supposed to include MP3 recordings released on June 16th. My order did not come with the links and I was less than happy. (For full details, click here.)

Apparently they’ve had more than a few issues for orders placed directly through their site as opposed to linking in through the webshops on both Josh Groban’s and Idina Menzel’s websites. So they cancelled my order and requested that I go through the process again using a link they provided to Josh Groban’s webshop and I would have access to my instant downloads.

Sure enough, this time it worked like it was supposed to and I had my downloads within a few minutes. Thanks to Warner Bros., for finally following up, even though their poor timing left much to be desired, they at least responded and provided the information necessary to solve the problem I was having.

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Warner Bros., normally the producer of great entertainment in everything from movies to music releases, has royally annoyed me when I elected to purchase the CHESS IN CONCERT Deluxe Edition, available exclusively from them at Chess.WarnerBrosRecords.com. Warner Bros. is also selling the sets through the stores on official webpages for both Josh Groban and Idina Menzel (both are powered by WarnerBrosRecords.com). The exclusive version of the “Chess In Concert” set in addition to packaging together the 2-CD version of the recording with the DVD version of the show in a special package and includes as bonuses sheet music for the songs “Anthem” and “I Know Him So Well” and the deluxe set is limited to 3,000 copies world wide.

As the set was not originally scheduled to be released until June 30th, well after the June 16th release date of the standard versions, Warner Bros. also is including as part of the package, the ability to download the 2 CDs digitally on the June 16th release date. However, just prior to the 16th, the release date for the deluxe package has been shifted to July 21st, with Warner Bros claiming that the materials won’t be fully ready to meet the original release date.

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Last year, Roku introduced to the market the Netflix Player, a small “box” that gets connected directly to a television and with either a wired Internet connection or using the built in Wi-Fi access capability, the box instantly enables the connected television to have access to Netflix‘s entire catalogue of Instantly Viewable movies and television shows. Initially the selection seemed mostly limited to older title movies and television shows, but a partnership with Starz, Netflix has been able to offer considerably more current material. Also Roku and Netflix have enhanced the capabilities of the player by allowing for High Definition content to be streamed through the player. And more recently Roku has additionally partnered with Amazon On-Demand to further expand the capabilities of the Netflix Box, that it truly has become the best value for enhancing a home entertainment system.

For a one-time fee, the Netflix Box costs $99.99 (and is available to purchase through Amazon.com by clicking here). The allows instant access to an already existing Netflix account. If you don’t have a Netflix account, then you’ll love hearing what an incredible bargain the system is. For as little as $8.99 a month, you get unlimited access to any program Netflix features for instant viewing. Technically, the $8.99 fee is for a one month subscription to the DVD rental service, where you’re allowed one DVD at a time, as many as want in a month, just send the disc back and as soon as they get it, they send you the next disc on your list. The instant viewing is included free with your subscription. If you want additional discs at a time, then the subscription fee increases depending on how many discs you want to be able to have out at one time. Netflix allows up to 8 discs to be out at one time.

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