Sky Mall: A bag of laughs

On the way back from a business trip, I couldn't resist scanning through the holiday edition of the Sky Mall magazine. You know the one I'm talking about. It's the catalogue they put in the seat pocket along with the evacuation directions and the barf bag.

For your reading enjoyment, I picked a few of my favorite items that really made me laugh and snapped some photos with my handy dandy iPhone 4S (the lady sitting next to me thought I was a weirdo--so true).

You can click on the photos to view an enlarged version. Why? Because I care. :-)

Here goes:

1.   Vintage Express:
For just $99 (what a bargain) wine lovers can use this device to age wine by years in just 10 seconds. Apparently, powerful magnets can turn Welch's Grape Juice into finely aged wine. Just don't sit your credit cards or computer down next to this puppy, or they will get aged right out of usefulness. I'm no connoisseur of wine, but I'm pretty sure this one fails to pass the smell test. Epic fail. And no, this is not how Jesus turned water into wine. :-P

2. MythBuster Bobble heads

Now I'll admit, I'm fond of the show MythBusters on the Discovery Channel, but my passion must not run as deep as die hard fans.  I saw these and they automatically made by 21st century knick knack list.

3. Wristband iPhone holder
Now Myth Busters may not be your thing. And you may not be a purveyor of fine wine, but you have an iPhone or a smart phone, don't you? Wouldn't it be great if you could lock that iPhone or Android phone to your wrist for ease of use (just don't high five anyone...or no more phoney). This is insane. My favorite value proposition: Never misplace your smartphone again. If you do invest and you are a man, also invest in shirts with much larger cuffs on the sleeves. Better yet. Wear your Wristband iPhone holder with that trendy button-up short-sleeve Oxford. Nice.

4. Spiked hair hat
Forget those "Just Hair For Men" products. I also skipped over the LED baldness treatment helmet (really!) to share this dandy solution for the folliclely (is that a word?) challenged. Ladies, get him that Spike Hair Hat for Christmas. It'll make him look.....different. Wow! Take a look....

5. The Brobdingnagian Sports Chair

The B..... Chair. Wha-huh???
Really, Gulliver?
$150!!!??
If you want to know what it is like to be a Hobbit at a "Picnic of Man"...this is for you.

6. The Slanket

Look out Snuggie. The Slanket is creeping up on you. Welcome to the "white elephant" gift of 2011. This one just made me shake my head. Click the pic and take a good hard look! My favorite is the Siamese version.  Awwww.....

These are all real and available on SkyMall.com apparently.

All signs of a decaying society.

Which one is your favorite?

P.S. I have no connection at all to SkyMall. I couldn't resist the silly factor here.

Taking the Punge with iPhone 4S

I've made my choice.

On impulse, I have taken the plunge with iPhone 4S.

I did not pre-order as millions did. I did not get up early and stand in line.

Nope. I got home from work Friday evening at 5:30. I ate dinner. I decided to drop by McDonalds for a sweet iced tea, and there was the Verizon store.

On a whim, I decided to go inside and see how long it would take receive delivery of an iPhone on order. Of course they'd have sold out by now.

But to my surprise, they still had phones in stock. It was 6:05 p.m  After picking the white 32GB model, I was out the door with within 30 minutes (it took a little longer than expected to transfer my contacts).

All I can say is, "Wow, what a great phone."  It was definitely one of the smoothest upgrades I've encountered...and I've upgraded many times (Let's face it, my Verizon buddy Kailyn knows me by name! :-) )

After bringing the phone home and doing an initial tether sync with my Macbook Pro, I was set to go.

Super Speed
So far, this phone is FAST. It is faster and smoother than any smartphone I have ever owned. My wife has an iPhone 4 and this phone is noticeably smoother and faster than hers.

Camera
The camera on the phone produces super fine pictures. I'll take some video and share soon.

Battery
The battery life blows my Samsung Fascinate away. The Fascinate with Froyo was a power suck. You could watch the battery charge go down as soon as you turn on GPS or BlueTooth. Not so with the iPhone 4S. I'll keep you posted on battery life.

Siri
The "cool" factor for iPhone 4S is Siri. Like the demonstrations and the reviews, Siri is pretty convenient to check the weather or to find a nearby restaurant. But beyond that, I haven't found additional uses. I hope that changes over time.  I didn't buy the phone for Siri, and I'm glad I didn't because it feels kind of overblown.

Twitter Integration
The other thing I want to explore a little bit more is the "deep Twitter" integration built into iPhone's iOS5. I own an iPad, and iPad2 and a MacBook Pro. So far, I'm not seeing the value of the "deep Twitter integration", but I'm willing to give it time.

Retina Display
The Retina display on iPhone 4s (like iPhone 4) is spectacular. I was reading a book on the Kindle app while waiting to get my hair cut this morning and the letters on the screen were as rich and clear as on my wife's Kindle app. When the iPad get's Retina display, it will be like going from regular to HD TV.

Phone Call Quality
I've made a few brief phone calls on the iPhone 4S. Funny, you don't hear much about phone call quality in the reviews. It's OK, but I'll have to admit that the Fascinate is on par, maybe better. The iPhone 4S has a better speaker phone than the Fascinate.

Speakers
The speakers built in to iPhone 4S provide rich sound. They are located on the bottom of the phone and it actually has better sound quality than the iPad 2. I don't like the speaker on the back of the beveled side of the iPad 2. You have to cup your hand around the speaker or set it next to a solid backdrop to get rich sound while watching the screen (but that's a different review, right?).

My one bit of advice for anyone considering a purchase of the iPhone 4S: if you can afford it, go for the 32GB version. My experience with iPod Touch, and iPad is that 16GB is just not enough when you load apps, video, music and photos together. Go bigger. You will be disappointed if you don't.

So far so good on iPhone 4S. I'm simply delighted by the speed and responsiveness of the device. I'm also delighted to be entirely on the Apple platform with my devices. iCloud and wireless synching seem to be very natural. More on both of these coming soon.

Update: Here are some pictures I took with the iPhone 4S camera:

iPhone 4S: The Choice

So, here we are.

Tim Cook announces the iPhone 4S to the world today and I've got a decision to make. Do I dive in and take the iPhone plunge? Or should I stick with my Samsung Fascinate and save my pennies for  the iPhone 5?

From reviewing the stories posted on blogs and across the internet, it appears that most of the folks anticipating Apple's big announcement today were not impressed. All of the rumor mills were predicting a new iPhone 5 and Apple didn't deliver.

Should we blame Apple? Not really. Today they delivered another fabulous product (probably the best smart phone on the market).

We have blame the gadflies who gin up bogus rumors and get the market so excited that it actually impacts the mindsets of investors. Fortunately, most analysts believe that while Apple under-impressed with iPhone 4S that the company will still sell millions of units of the updated device.

So that brings me to my choice? Take the dive on 4S? Or stick with the Fascinate for another year?

iPhone 4S looks pretty impressive, especially with iCloud and iOS update. I'll have to sleep on this one.

Choices, choices.....

What are you going to do?