The Daily Woot

This thing is an insatiable A/V omnivore, man. Almost any media files that get close enough, it snaps ?em up and plays the bejeezus out of them. Basically anything on a disc is fair game, including CDs and DVDs with just about any combination of Rs and RWs you can assemble.

(OK, not Laserdiscs or LPs, but come on.)

It also plays digital photos and music from USB drives. It plays audio off your mp3 player when you connect it to the line-in jack. It can dock an iPod. An iPod! It?s DivX ?Ultra Certified? for your DivX videos. WMA? You betcha. JPEGs? Better believe it.

We wish our parents had this thing, because when we come home at Thanksgiving with a bunch of vacation photos we want to show them, we?ll all have to crowd around someone?s notebook PC, or wait while someone says ?oh, I have a cable that connects the camera to the TV,? and then goes and hunts for it, only to find six mystery cables and try them all before figuring out none of them is the right one, and then it?s back to the notebook.

When it?s time to watch a movie, listen to music, look at pictures or share some sick, horrible thing you found online, you don?t want to have to sit and think about file compatibility. You just want to get on with it. Otherwise the expectations get to be too much, and when you finally get the file playing, everyone?s like: ?I don?t know, dude, it?s not that sick and horrible. I was expecting worse from the way you built it up for ten minutes while we were trying to figure out how to play it.?

With 1080i HDMI, 12-bit video DAC and high-definition video upconversion, your media will look great. With digital multichannel audio, Dolby Digital and Pro Logic II surround sound, your movies and music will sound great, too.

And since the Philips thousand-watt system is (to paraphrase a certain grey wizard) the One Thing To Play Them All, you can get down to the business of enjoying the contents of your media library with a whole lot less scratching of heads and rummaging through the drawer where you keep all those cables.

But no, you can?t throw out your record player just yet, sorry.

Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty

Heydey ho, yousan! Mesa here to tell yousan bout dis Star Wars Vault box set! Deysa spake itsa ?30 Years of Treasures From de Lucasfilm Archives?, and deysa point is well seen! Posters, iron-ons, copies of handwritten script pages, and a maxibig book wit behind-de-scenes photos from all de movies, some dem never before published! Itsa also 2 CDs wit vintage radio ads, original cast interviews, excerpts from de Star Wars radio drama, and other tracks ? including Princess Leia song from de bombad Christmas special! Mesa had like dis Christmas special so mooey mooey, but itsa so expensive on eBay!

(My enjoy dis memorabilia whilesa me wear mesa Let The Cookie Win t-shirt, but my not sure whysa.)

Yeah, so dis Star Wars Vaultsa maxihot, but my have one question: wheresa mesa? Whysa me not on de cover? Whena mesa boyo George had hire mesa to be in hesan movie, hesa had say my be maxibig star dat all de people like! Some stinkowiff fanso try to crunch mesa: dem say mesa annoying, mesa borderline racist caricature, mesa cheap ploy fe younger audiences, mesa mek dem movies jump de shark. How wude! But mesa boyo say dem fanboyso cawazy. My know: hesa ganna make new Vault all mesa own! My can?t wait! Ooey booey! Fe now, yousan mus? be satisfied wit dis Star Wars Vault, okeeday? Byesy-bo!

Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty

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Hey, (BLEEP)head, we gotta hand it to you: great job on the profanity. Your fluency and deftness in English-language vulgarisms is without peer. You?re a (BLEEP) genius, the (BLEEP) Shakespeare or (BLEEP) Twain of your chosen idiom. You don?t just cross the line ? you (BLEEP) in its (BLEEP) and then (BLEEP) all over it.

But there are billions of people out there who would just shrug blankly if you told them ?Go take a flying (BLEEP), (BLEEP)-for-brains.? In today?s interconnected world, can you really afford to leave so much of the planet unscathed by your relentless pottymouth?

(BLEEP) that (BLEEP)! Professor Crass (presumably no relation to the English anarcho-punk band, although they also liked a good f-word) says ?Global profanity class is in (BLEEP) session, (BLEEP)face.? And the syllabus is the International Cursing 101 CD, with profanities, vulgarities, curses, and imprecations in no less than 12 languages. Don?t forget the obscene hand gestures printed in the booklet.

But what?s up with the inclusion of no less than three languages from the Indian subcontinent (Hindi, Punjabi, and Kannada)? How many trips to India have YOU taken? And isn?t English the common second language there anyway? If it bespeaks some sort of Comedy Central racism involving the proprietors of 7-11s, we say ?(BLEEP) you, Professor Crass!? But he?d probably appreciate the sentiment.

Warranty: One Year Professor Crass

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Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty

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These are the times you?ll remember. The whole family gathered around the Sony PlayStation 3, bathed in the chilly glow of games and movies. The kids learning valuable life lessons from GTA XI: Frag The Nursing Home! (sold separately). The young ones bonding with their older siblings over a spirited game of Curious George vs. Predator (sold separately). All of you, together, marvelling at the lifelike special effects of Blu-Ray movies like Spiderman 3 (included!), sharing the wonderful illusion that Bryce Howard looks like that naturally. Yes, if it wasn?t for your PlayStation 3, you?d hardly have a family worthy of the name.

What? You?you?you never got your kids a PlayStation 3? Wow. Man. We knew there were parents like you out there. But we just weren?t ready to face it.

Listen, before we report you to Family Services, we?ll give you a chance to make amends. Here?s a PlayStation right here, with an integrated Blu-Ray player, 7.1-channel sound, and 1080p video. And oh yeah, it plays video games, too. We don?t want to call you a monster if you?ve never had a chance to do right by your kids. If you pass this deal up, then we?ll call you a monster.

Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty

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Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty

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So close, but so far. You can see the street trees shrugging in the breeze, the sunlight bathing everything in gold, the patches of grass like bright green miracles. Your every cell aches to go outside, to run, to set a kite swooping in the sky. But you?re deskbound, cubicle-bound, office-bound. You can?t even open the windows.

But you can bring a little of the outdoors indoors. A house plant. An AstroTurf desk. And a Mighty Kite Mini-Kite, the eensy-weensy flying toy that barely needs a breath of wind to take flight. Any desk fan or A/C vent ought to do the trick. Just don?t let it crash in your desktop waterfall.

Warranty: 90 Day Woot Limited Warranty

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This is your chance to adopt one of the last specimens of a dying breed. It?ll be like having a Tasmanian Tiger in your yard, or making all your calls on one of those hand-crank telephones like the one they used on ?Lassie.? You?ll be an eccentric!

There was nothing unusual about owning an HD-DVD player a couple years ago. Why, anybody who enjoys watching movies with a bright, sharp picture might?ve had one. But now? Ah, to buy one now is to start down the path to the kind of lifestyle where you listen to 8-tracks instead of mp3s. ?I just prefer the format,? you?ll say, as you re-cinch your smoking jacket, or adjust your fez, or comb some more wax into your magnificent handlebar moustache.

Besides, HD-DVDs are cheap, and about to get cheaper. Soon you?ll be able to pick them up at garage sales, where they?ll be available by the boxload alongside VHS tapes. And if the selection seems a little? random, well, your Venture HD-DVD player still plays regular ol? DVDs just fine.

But to get your collection started, this player will come with two HD-DVD movies. You?ll get two of the following, in decreasing order of desirability: 300 (?Sweet, I loved that movie!?), The Bourne Identity (?Cool, I really liked that movie.?), The Perfect Storm (?Oh, I heard that was good.?), Rumor Has It (?Hmn.?) or Firewall (?Ugh, how much you want to bet that?s one of the ones we get??)

So snap this player up?then trade in your Ford Focus for a Harley Topper! ?Cause today? OK, today you?re a little out of date. But in a few short years? Boy, you?re going to be the lovable neighborhood oddball. The hit of every cocktail party. The kids? favorite house on Hallowe?en. They?ll say ?you know old man [your name], the guy who keeps bees, and invents his own slang? The guy with the outdoor shower, who plucks his eyebrows into that weird shape? Did you know he watches HD-DVDs? That guy?s awesome!?

Warranty: 1 Year Venturer

Warranty: 1 Year Nike

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How many times have you wanted an extra 32 bits? The HP Pavilion Slimline S3320F Dual Athlon 5200+ 2.6GHz has a 64 bit processor, but only comes with 32 bit Windows Vista. That?s a free 32 bits just lying around!

klikIt doesn?t work that way.

Oh, really? So you just sit in that booth and hand down pronouncements about what ?it? does and doesn?t mean? Who are you? Have you ever done this before? I?d bet a year?s salary you don?t know a ATSC/NTSC HDTV and FM Tuner from a 16X DVD± R/RW 12X RAM ±R DL LightScribe SATA optical drive!

klikI?m just saying that-

Just saying? Why are you saying anything? Can?t you even do math? What are they teaching you? If you can figure out how sixty four minus thirty two doesn?t leave thirty two then? I?ll take you San Francisco for a weekend. Good lord. Good lord!

klikOkay, let?s just

Good lord! I just wanted to talk about the HP Pavilion Slimline S3320F and? and I endure this nonsense? Dear Heaven, do I need a drink. How do you even get work? Good Lord!

Warranty: 1 Year HP