I heard a song being played as Best Week Ever came back from commercial. It was a catchy tune, but I had no idea what the song’s name was or who the artist was. Technology to the rescue!

First, I rewound the episode a bit, since I was watching it on the DVR. I fired up the free Shazam application on my wifi-connected iPhone so that it could sample the music. A 30-second sample showed this result:

The artist’s name is actually misspelled there. There is no space between the two Honeys, and they are all lowercase. I grabbed my Zune and searched the Zune Marketplace (via my home’s wifi network) for honeyhoney. This is what it found:

I selected the Loose Boots album and played Little Toy Gun from there:

I was able to stream the track directly from the Zune Marketplace (ZMP) because I pay for their $14.99/month Zune Pass. This gives me access to most of the ZMP’s music (tracks that are marked as Album Only cannot be accessed using the Zune Pass). After verifying that I had the right song, I added it to the cart, which allowed me to download it to the Zune. Later on, when I sync to my PC, the song would transfer to the collection on my PC.

While I’m away from home, the Shazam app works just fine since I usually have at least an EDGE connection. However, the Zune is limited to wifi, so I couldn’t download anything from the ZMP until I returned home. This makes me hope that a Zune app will find its way to Windows Mobile.

On a related note, the Zune team is now giving 10 free downloads a month to Zune Pass subscribers. So if I really like Little Toy Gun, I can permanently add it to my collection. It should be available as a 320kbps MP3 or a 192kbps WMA (the latter is still DRMed, but I believe I can just burn it to a CD and then rip that CD to get it as an MP3).

Thanks to Jordan, I learned about imeem. Using their service, I can embed the tune that caught my attention and prompted me to write this post about how I use these two mortal enemies together.

I’m pretty open to non-Generation 1 Transformers. Much more than Nadia, who hates anything post-Rebirth (Transformers G1 season 4). The live-action movie is the only exception her overall hatred.

Despite my open-mindedness, I really can’t get into the new cartoon. I think it has something to do with the animation style they went with; it is so far removed from all of the other shows that I can’t accept it as part of the franchise.

I should note that I felt the same way about Beast Wars until a friend forced me to sit through a few episodes. Since then, I’ve considered that to be the best series in the Transformers franchise. Maybe if I sit through a few more Animated episodes, I would come around.

Regardless of my stance on the show, their toys are top-notch. During a trip to Target on Sunday, I found Megatron and Starscream. I was surprised that they were $2 cheaper than on Amazon. I think that the Animated line could be some of the best Transformers, with only the Masterpiece and Alternator/Binaltech lines being of higher quality.

I find it odd that Hasbro waited seven months after the premiere of the series to launch this line of toys, since the two typically coincide.

Hello from Texas! It’s been difficult adjusting to life without Will, the furbabies and my home, but I look forward to the day that we will all be together again in May.

So how have I been spending my time here? Lots of death by powerpoint lessons, classroom instruction, formations and Army-chow *yummy*. I have my 360 and my PC to keep me occupied, so I don’t do too much outside of my room. I did, however, venture outside on Friday to see the World Combat League competition. I was less than 1000 feet away from CHUCK NORRIS!!! This league is his baby, and he made a special guest appearance to meet with the local Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Marines.

There were 4 teams - NY Clash vs. Miami Force and NJ Tigers vs. St. Louis Enforcers. You can find out details about scoring and the team members from the site. It was 3 minutes of beat downs and let’s just say that the Northeast did not represent the way I hoped they would. It was very entertaining and I hope to see this take off like UFC. Check out their schedule and see if they will be in your area. My photos didn’t come out as great as I had hoped, but I assure you that the action was real.

UPDATE: Here is a video of the last fight between NJ (orange) and St. Louis (grey).