Surrender, Dorothy: Reviews

Sony Streaming Player Giveaway Winner

Congratulations to Jill L for winning the Sony Streaming Player!

Sony’s Streaming Player 2: Review & Giveaway

Do you have an old TV and wireless Internet? You could actually be sitting on an Internet-enabled TV with access to YouTube, Hulu, Netflix, NPR podcasts and more. Seriously. Which is why I agreed to review Sony's Streaming Player 2 -- we have an Internet-enabled TV downstairs that our daughter adores. We have a normal TV upstairs -- which is really where we'd prefer she watch her daily Cake Boss fix. But, like, it doesn't stream.

Only now it does.

Because of this thing. It costs $69, and you could literally buy a TV for $10 at a garage sale and hook this thing up to it (using HDMI or rock it old school with the yellow, red and white cables) and be watching all the bad movies from 1987 in your instant Netflix queue in fifteen minutes.

Cons:

• The remote is really simple. Like, way too simple for Internet access: It has no keys, no numbers. Imaging life without a mouse. You're surfing the web with arrow keys. Now you have the Sony Streaming Player 2 remote. There's a way to get to a key menu, but then it's like texting with a flip phone, only more like entering URLs with a flip phone. Shoot me now. Caveat: If you have your Netflix or Hulu or what have you all set up online, you don't need anything but those arrows.
• The Sony app presentations aren't the best. If your TV isn't gargantuan, the movie posters that represent the movies are hard to read. It would be better if they presented fewer per screen and you had to page through more, in our opinion.
• It will just be one more thing adding strain to your wireless router (but this isn't Sony's fault, it's true of everything, but something to think about if your wireless is already slow).
• There's no step-up fastforward or rewind, so you're stuck either fastforwarding with the speed of Edward Cullen (and about the aim of Bella Swan) or watching everything in real-time.

Pros:

• Hook-up was super fast and easy.
• The device is as complicated as two cords.
• Setting up your network is painless.
• For $69, you're rocking a smart TV. Smart TVs cost many, many more pennies than $69.

Sony has graciously offered to let me give away one of these devices. Here are the rules totally made up by me:

• Every comment is an entry, comment as often as you like.
• Comments will be closed at noon CT on Friday, February 17.
• Winner will be chosen with a randomizer. If I don't have your email in the comment and can't contact you, I'll move on.
• Product will be shipped from Sony.

Good luck!

WordGirl

When I was in graduate school, I was often totally offended by my magazine writing professor's tendancy to highlight incorrect word usage and grammar mistakes in any old flyer he found around the university.  I thought it was rude.  Slowly, though, I became him.  I have to bite my tongue to keep from correcting people's language, and I actually keep some of the most offending e-mails with which to amuse myself when it's slow around the office. I'm horrible.  I once tortured a co-worker for weeks because he incessantly used the word "socialize" incorrectly. I do not think that word means what you think it does.

Imagine my delight when I discovered there's now a new superhero called WordGirl who spends all of her time correcting word usage and introducing kids to 50-cent words like "arduous" and "abscond."

I love her already.

I watched an interview between Word Girl and Jim Lehrer, as well as a few shorts, and I can't wait for the series premiere that will be tomorrow, September 7 on PBS.  This will be on my DVR. 

WORDGIRL!