If you were a child of the 1980′s like I was, then you probably either had one or had a friend who owned a Speak & Spell toy from Texas Instruments. It was probably most popular after it’s role in the film, “E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial” as one of the components used in the communicator built for E.T. to “phone home.”

In probably the first time I’ve actually turned my television to see anything being broadcast in over a year, I passed by either MTV or VH1 and caught sight of a Speak & Spell unit in the video for “Fireflies” by Owl City. This sparked a Google search and I read about the history of the device on the Wikipedia page for the Speak & Spell units. And probably a highlight of my search was an online emulator.

According to the website for the emulator, the flash program was inspired by an eBay purchase of an old Speak & Spell unit, which unfortunately wasn’t in a working state when he obtained it. So his emulator is able to recreate the sounds and some basic functionality but not all the various modes of the device. The Speak & Spell was a revolutionary toy at the time as it was the first time an educational toy utilized speech that was not recorded on a tape or phonograph, it was built into the solid state electronics of the device.

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Now that 2009 is now upon us, it seems that it would be good to take a few minutes to highlight what made high points for me in 2008. Taking a quick glance at the list of items that made the list this year, it seems that the very early 1980′s seem to be related to almost all of the items that make the list for this year. The influence of the 1980′s will be readily apparent as you check out the list. And I’ll point those out along the way for those who might not quite see the influence.

Without further ado, I now present My 9 Most Incredible Things of 2008, in no particular order… (more…)

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As a dealer in a casino, I get to see people win and lose money on a daily basis. I often get asked advice on how to play many of the games that I deal and more often I get asked how to win. In Blackjack in particular, I get asked constantly how to win. Well I don’t have a foolproof way to win every time, I do have advice that will help you cut your losses tremendously. Don’t play the game for money without understanding the game.

The city of Las Vegas, especially the Las Vegas strip, is a shrine to the power of gambling without strategy. What do you think builds those exciting casino resorts? Its the people who go there, don’t understand the games they’re playing and walk away with empty wallets.

Most people walk up to the game of blackjack and think it’s basically 50/50 odds, you basically win or lose. While technically on each hand, that is true, your bet will either, win or lose or tie, but it’s the rules of the game that alter the odds and give the casino (called the “house”) over you as the player. For example, you must always play out your hand before the house plays out its own hand. If you bust, you automatically lose and the house doesn’t have to play out its hand.

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I’ve recently been trying out new software by Vertus called “Bling! It” which is a simple program that removes backgrounds from photos and allows you to replace the backgrounds to jazz up the photos for things like improving eBay auctions to profile pictures.

Granted, I am a user of Corel’s Paint Shop Pro and could literally do all this with the software I already have, but Bling! It is so quick and easy to use, and it automatically makes the output files the perfect size for putting up online that it’s a big saver of time that I could be done with a picture and on to the next one before I’ve finished removing the background in Paint Shop Pro. Don’t get me wrong, I love Paint Shop Pro, but generally when I’m looking to sell some of my stuff on eBay, I’m doing a batch of items at once and I don’t need such a robust program to do the images for my eBay auctions. The time savings I get by using Bling! It, translate into the ability to put up more items on eBay in less time and as they say time is money.

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Sirius Satellite Radio’s Channel 77, Broadway’s Best, regularly runs a daily program called “Showtime!” where they play cast recordings from start to finish or as they call it, from Overture to Finale. They run the shows nightly Mondays through Saturdays at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific) and special “matinee” shows on Wednesdays, Saturdays, and Sundays at 2pm Eastern (11 am Pacific). This is a great chance to listen to cast albums from various shows to see if they might be ones you want to buy or shows you might want to try and see. And thanks to the Sirius 3-Day Free Trials, you can experience a couple days worth of shows for free.

On Wednesday, August 13th, 2008, Broadway’s Best on Sirius Channel 77 will be featuring the movie cast album of Mamma Mia! featuring Meryl Streep, Amanda Seyfried, and Pierce Brosnan. They will be running it for both the matinee presentation at 2pm Eastern (11am Pacific) as well as the evening broadcast at 8pm Eastern (5pm Pacific). It’s a great chance to hear the song from the movie as they appear on the cast album (which are different from the performances in the movie.) Even the newly added song to Mamma Mia!, “When All Is Said And Done” features some new lyrics that were not featured in the version used in the movie. You’ll be able to hear here at no cost with a free Sirius trial.

Click here or the Sirius Logo above to sign up for a free Sirius Satellite Radio trial, just don’t do it until just before or on August 13th to ensure your free trial encompasses the “Mamma Mia!” Movie soundtrack broadcast. And if you decide you like the soundtrack album and want to get a copy of it, click here to get it from Amazon.com. Or check out the auctions on eBay below for the Mamma Mia! Movie soundtracks below. (more…)

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How many exclusive bonus tracks is enough? Dolly Parton’s latest album, “Backwoods Barbie” For Dolly’s first “mainstream” country album in well over a decade, she’s back with a vengence, and she’s after her fans wallets in ways only topped by Garth Brooks who’s so ego driven to outsell the Beatles and Elvis Presley that he releases all albums with mutiple discs, multiple covers, and several other tactics to get his diehard fans to purchase several copies of the same album or box set. Apparently he can’t do it on talent, so he has to employ clever marketing tricks, too bad Prince beat him to the idea of selling a CD as part of a concert ticket package, and that methodology has been ruled out not to count ever again for album sales.

Anyway, back to Dolly, what’s a loyal fan to do? (more…)

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