Are you going to be braving Black Friday to pick up a gift for your favorite geek?  Whenever you’re going into a chaotic situation, and this WILL be chaos, you need to have a battle plan.  Know what you’re going for, know where it is, and know where the next stop on your route might be.  Joystiq has you covered with their Black Friday roundup.

They have coverage for both real world and online stores:  Amazon, NewEgg, Circuit City, Best Buy, Walmart, Game Stop, Toys R Us, Target, and they even have a best-of section!  If you’re gonna go out there, and I’m seriously considering it, it’s best to have a list and get it done as quickly as possible.  Accomplices always help. 

I’m just checking in to wish the readers of Shaktronics and all the Shak family a Happy Thanksgiving!  I hope you’re all prepared for Black Friday madness tomorrow morning!  I’ve been perusing ads all day and picking out likely targets to shoot for, so wish me luck.

It’s kind of funny.  Even at family gatherings, I can’t get away from electronics debates.  Tonight I had to answer about the difference between DVD and Blu Ray, 1080p vs 720p HDTVs, and plasma versus LCD TV styles.  Even on holidays I don’t get a day off!

Still, they’re my family, so that means I have to love them and do my best to answer their questions in exchange for turkey and pie.  I hope you guys had a great day and ate too much, too!

I’m glad I’m not the only person who is constantly questing for more USB warming devices.  There has to be a market for this kind of thing, if only because a lot of people work in offices where they can’t control the temperature.  I know at my place of work, starting next year, we will no longer be able to bring in fans or portable heaters, so I might have to invest in a secret USB warming thing.

Which one?  I’m not sure yet.  Geek Alerts has a list of 10 of their favorite USB gadgets designed to make you warm.  I’m partial to the USB heated blanket myself, if only because it’s the one that would stick out the least (though the gray USB gloves would work great, too). 

All I know is I have to get something.  I’m about five degrees away from starting a fire in a trash can!

I was recently over at a friend’s place and I was struck by the amount of vinyl records that were there.  Those in my generation get records by inheriting them from parents or picked them up at yard sales or record stores, but most of us don’t have a turntable.  I don’t have much vinyl myself (my parents were into 8-tracks), but if I did, I wouldn’t want it off gathering dust or stored away in big plastic tubs when I could be listening to it.  I’m one of those people that says vinyl sounds better, and the best way to get that vinyl sound is to convert all your old records into MP3s.

If MAKE is to be believed, it’s easier than you think to turn records into MP3s, especially if you already have a turntable.  They even give you a couple of different options on how to transfer your music, should you desire to experiment.  I imagine real audiophiles have a preference, but I kind of like all the cracks and pops that transfer into the authentic, warmer record sound. 

What about you, readers?  Do you have a preference as to how you want your music to be delivered to you?  Opinions about MP3 encoding bitrates?  Vinyl vs. 8-track vs. tape vs. CD?  Just how many copies of Frampton Comes Alive do you need?

The Naked Gun is one of my favorite movies ever, and Police Squad should be on any comedy fan’s list of shows that were too good to be understood by mainstream audiences. That said, this Naked Gun opening credits spoof from Grand Theft Auto IV is brilliant! Feel free to compare it to the original opening credits and see.

This is absolutely awesome.  Via Make, Jason from 100 Words A Day had the brilliant idea to see what was inside his MacBook.  Next thing you know, he’s an Internet celebrity!  I’ve always wondered what the inside of a laptop looked like, but I’ve always been too chicken to open up my own.  I’m glad someone else took the plunge for me!

The holiday shopping season is here, and one of the hottest gifts on any kid’s wish list is the inevitable new video game console.  There are three major options to choose from out there:  the Nintendo Wii (if you can find it), the Microsoft Xbox 360, and the Sony PlayStation 3.  There are a lot of similarities between the three systems (especially the Xbox and PS3), and it can be pretty confusing to figure out which one fits the needs/wants of the person you’re buying for. 

Fortunately, a lot of people are going to be talking about this topic this year, especially since the Wii is easier to find nowadays.  Yahoo tech blogger Alexander Yoon has a pretty good compare/contrast guide, not only comparing the systems, but the different price points of those systems, to one another.  You can check it out here. 

As for me, since I have a Wii that gets pretty regular use even to this day, I’d probably be swayed by a cheap Xbox 360 bundle, assuming it came with the right game.  I’m not really in the market, but a deal is a deal, and I am interested in picking up Fallout 3 in some form or fashion.  Now’s your chance:  sway the world to your side of the console war!

I recently started podcasting.  It’s nothing huge, just some sports thoughts and bad jokes, but it’s proven to be a whole lot more fun than I ever would have imagined.  I don’t have a lot of people who listen that I know of, but it’s kind of given me a new spark of fun.  My only problem is my headset microphone, which is fine for World of Warcraft, is too quiet to accurately podcast without me talking louder than I’d care to.  I need a new microphone, and I think that maybe Gear Diary has found it for me.

Brando, those electronics wizards, have an awesome retro USB microphone.  It’s wireless, which I need, and while I’m not sure about the sound quality, I know it’s the coolest looking mic I’ve seen in many years.  If I were going to do YouTube Videos, I’d have to spring for that mic, if only to don a fedora and do my best Walter Winchell impression. 

The Squirrel Queen found this great song and shared it the other day, and now it’s time to share it with you.  It’s about everyone’s favorite toy and candy in one, Pez! Like the candy itself, the song is addictive and sweet.

It’s amazing just how many Pez dispensers I’ve purchased over the years. I have no idea where they are, or if they turned out to be valuable, but I know I’ve bought at least 10, and countless little Pez refill packs. If you’re interested in what Pez is up to these days, check out their website. Of interest to geeks like myself is the Star Trek collector’s edition featuring the original crew and the first Enterprise!

I have spent more of my life than I really care to admit playing Animal Crossing, both on Game Cube and on the DS. It has many of the key elements that I love in a game- wandering around talking to people, buying stuff, and fishing. So, of course I bought the new Animal Crossing: City Folk for the Wii yesterday when it came out.

For the most part, I really like it. Controls are clean and easy to use. The addition of the city part is pretty neat. They’ve eliminated some of the game’s more irritating points, like when you go to talk to a villager, they don’t make you choose whether you want to talk to them or not. Yep, same old game, just a little bit better.

But that’s the problem with this game, as well. It’s the same old game, only it’s a little bit better. On Wii, I expected it to be exponentially better, and it’s not. Now, I must admit that I have not yet played with the Wii Speak accessory that you can buy separately. That might change the game massively. Only one small problem- I don’t know anybody else that has the game, and I’m a bit loathe to play with strangers who are posting their friend codes all over the place.

So, the jury is still out on whether or not I love the game more than ever. I still love the game, I always will. But I just think the game’s developers have missed out on what they could have had by keeping it so much the same.