The Swiss Knife of MP3 Players

Right after my daughter was born, my husband gave me a RCA Lyra 2780 MP3/Video player. He found it for about $120 on Woot! and got it for the following reasons:

*20 GB is nothing to sneeze at.

*I can store all kinds of files on it - I have a whole folder of pictures to show off to friends, it has videos, I play songs, I'm sure there's even more I can do, and options are nice!

*There's a TV out and TV in capability. I can play things on the TV if I connect my Lyra to it - but I can also record videos on it STRAIGHT FROM THE TV.

So, he loaded some of my favorite TV shows on it and I would watch it in the middle of the night as I fed my daughter. It was such a great gift and I loved it. Now, I listen to music on it, but a few months ago I started a-thinking... I plugged it into my VCR and recorded a Baby Einsten on it. Just watching the hypnotizing video would calm my daughter anywhere, anytime! I didn't put the headphones on her of course - she's just 1! But a few months ago, I found a small set of speakers at the Dollar Tree that I plug right into the headphone jack and I can play it for her with the sound any time. Heck, I recorded some episodes of Sesame Street onto it from the TV and tied a string around the headrest of the seat in front of her in the car, hung it on it (there's a clip in the back on the cover of the player) and it's a really portable, really handy video player for her that I can take anywhere since all I need is the player and the mini speakers!

Last night she was going crazy at the restaurant we were at, and we sat it up on the table in front of her (it has a stand built in of the back so it can stand up) with the sound low so only our table could hear, and she sat peacefully for 40 minutes while we all ate dinner together! We still talked to us, ate and played, but when we wanted to watch and get a distraction it was there and my hubby and I enjoyed a conversation together:)

Cons: The battery life isn't great, but I just keep it plugged in with the car adapter that comes with it and the rest of the time is fine. Also, I don't know if the software that comes with it works with Vista yet, so I saved it on my older desktop. It can also be tricky to load some video files from your computer, but it's pretty easy usually.

SO I say, go find one! There are places on the internet to get deals on 'em, and it was TOTALLY worth it. I love it for a mazillion of reasons, mostly now a easy baby distracter, but I also get to use it myself as often as I can.

Flash for less cash!

Um, so holy crap, just after I typed up the last post I saw this deal at spoofee.com:

Buy.com has the 4GB Sandisk Cruzer for $18.69 shipped after rebate.
Item has
a rating of 4.5/5.0 from 34 reviews.
Pricegrabber Price : $40 ~ $115 Shipped
1. Click here and click on "Redeem Coupon"
2. Search and Add
SDCZ6-4096-A10 ( Price : $51.25 )
3. Rebate Price : -$30.00 ( Exp : 06/10/07 )
Final Price :
$18.69 Shipped After Rebate

Less than $20 for a 4 Gig flash drive????

Why are you still here???

Microcenter is sooo dreamy.

Your camera needs SD cards, you need a flash drive to take info all over, these are just normal everyday needs. How much have YOU paid for one of these handy dandy little items? I have a fiend that was soo excited for getting a 1GB flash drive for $25. Ha! laughs the MissCheapskate. You call that a deal?? I shall show you a deal!

Microcenter is just about the chepest and best store to get your tech-type stuff, and they have 1 GB flash drives for a cool $9.99, and I've gotten 2GB SD cards there for $14.99. If you are lucky enough to live near one, go check the store out - I'm typing this on a laptop I bought there! They do ship though, so search away.

Now don't you look geeky smart.

Involves Chocolate.

Holy crap, Amazon.com has a 2LB capacity chocolate fountain for the low low price of $10.99! That's 78% off the original price! It comes with 8 fondue skewers and serving tray and has dishwasher-safe parts (wow, I already have one but it makes me want ANOTHER!) Plus if you need to get anything else on Amazon, get it all at the same time because any orders over $25 are free shipping. Throw a party just because you scored this!!

::EDIT::
Sorry, Chelsea, apparently the deal was for a short time, I'm so sorry!!! I did search around and the best price I found was here at $28.99 with an additional 5% off for St. Pats Day. Gotta snag that early worm!

Do you Woot?

So, one of my husband's very first web visits of the day is to Woot.com. An insane little website, it only sells one thing a day, and when it's sold out, it's gone. All technology stuffs, all over the place, it's fun and you can get lucky. I have a fabulous mp4 player (video, music, pictures, records off TV, plays onto TV, so freaking awesome) he got me for a cool $120 on the site. My parents got their Roomba there too. You have to check it every day, the descriptions and comments can be hilarious, but all in all, it's a total trip. Today there's an mp3 player for $17.99 that is mighty serviceable.

It's the kind of place that when you get a deal, you really do want to say WOOT!, y'know??

The robots are taking over and I love it!

So you've seen the pictures of those crazy robot vaccums and thought "must be nice to be the ultra-rich and be able to afford such fancy schmancy technological advances," right? Well if you didn't, it's okay. Not many people say the wrds "fancy schmancy," let alone think of them. Truth is, the iRobot Roombas are a lot more affordable than you might think. The basic vaccums have come down in price as they've added newer ones to the mix.

We have a Roomba Red, and we didn't buy it, we got it free with a Home Depot promotion when you had them install new carpet (we were going todshop around on installers and then I saw that beautiful RED, RED Roomba an my husband couldn't talk me out of it!). It's one of the basic models, but for what it does, I'm crazy about it. I just turn it on and walk away (if I can, it's hypnotizing to watch - and if you press any button on your TV remote while it's on, it changes direction heehee!) and when it's done, the carpet looks nice and fluffy. I still need to give it a good regular vacuum every now and then, but in between it maintains the wear of the floor well and I have to do it less. I like less:)

So when we found out his elderly grandmother was having trouble vacuuming her house, he popped on ebay and got one for around $100 shipped to her place and she adored it. Heck, we even found a deal on their new Scooba and bought it because all our floors here are tile, but right after we bought it we got a housekeeper and now we're moving, so we'll have to get a new place to make good use of it:)

Check out ebay and see how doggone cheap they can be. You don't need all the fancy doodads like extra virtual walls or docking stations, and if you do decide you want them later, you can get bargains on them on ebay as well.

Hey, if robots are going to be infiltrating our world, at least we can be the masters for a little while!

Tunes anyone?

Want an mp3 player but you don't gots the dough? Try this puppy out - an EMPREX MP-1003 MP3 Personal MP3 Player for $9.99 at Frys.com. It doesn't come with any memory, but it has a slot for an SD card. A 512MB SD card at Microcenter costs $14.99, although if you watch the sales there, you can get 1GB for about $10. It has aUSB slot, so all you gots to do is put the card in, plug it in to your computer and stick some tunes on it. If you're looking for something cheap and easy, it don't get much cheaper than this!