From the AP via Yahoo: Oscar Mayer Wienermobile crashes into Wis. home

From the article: “Police said the driver was trying to turn the Wienermobile around in the driveway and thought she was moving in reverse. But she instead went forward and hit the home. It sat in the driveway as if it were stuck in the garage Friday afternoon.”

A few years ago, we bumped into a Wienermobile, only not like this - we were just surprised to find one where we were vacationing. Prescient comments, though, about the carnage of running into the garage…

As most of you know, I am canceling my XM Satellite Radio, which means I need something for the car…something that can play music and downloaded podcasts, particularly news and talk shows like The Bob Edwards Show. But I’m afraid the V-Touch VL-875 isn’t anywhere near it.

Wow, what a deal!

This player, according to the distributor’s web site, has a list price of $249.99, and I only paid $60!!! Um, no, to be serious, if you pay more than $90 for this player, you’ve been severely ripped off regardless of the manufacturer’s list price. I purchased mine when buy.com had a sale with free shipping, including a set of “high-end” earphones. (The earphones turned out to be Visual Land’s SSB-10’s, which list for $30 and are commonly available for under $10. And I’m not a fan of in-ear earphones anyway, preferring something that sits outside the canal. But still, it made the $60 a somewhat better deal, although not much, as you’ll see.)

The player has a 2.8″ touch screen which is a whole lot smaller than it sounds, and plays MP3/WMA/WAV/AAC audio files (depending on where on the website you read…some places omit the AAC, and others omit the WAV as well - me, I’ll bet on MP3 and forget the rest), and AVI/3GP/MP4 video files (more on this mess a little later), as well as JPG/GIF/BMP photo files, and plain-text “ebooks.” (Yeah, it has a text reader. Be still, my heart.)

Opening Up…

The box is kinda classy, a book that needs to be opened to expose the player. Mine was sealed in a cellophane bag (you know the kind, with the folded sticky-strip on the end), with the accessories (included earphones not dissimilar to the SSB-10’s, USB cable, USB wall-wart, and sexy little carry-bag) in the larger side. The first disappointment was a small mar on the touch screen…I couldn’t remove it using my favorite screen cleaning method, vinegar-and-water with a micro-fiber cloth. It’s still there, and visible while watching video; I can only assume it occurred either during manufacturing or testing…I’d hate to think the unit I received was remanufactured, even when on sale.
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