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H.I.T.S.

5 min read

Buy a car and get a free guitar! If you’ve watched any TV lately, you may have seen one of VW’s cool ads, which you can see online at a href=”http://www.vdubsrock.com/ http://www.vdubsrock.com/ end .

Even better, you can play your free guitar through the stereo of the VW Rabbit, Beetle or

Jetta, which really goes to prove how popular playing has become. Obviously, because I teach guitar, I got a real kick out of seeing people like Slash and John Mayer playing really cool guitar in the ads.

Anyway, I hope you all had a great Thanksgiving. Now, we look forward to the biggest event of the year. No, I don’t mean my birthday on December 6th, but Christmas, of course. By the time you read this, we will have filmed our Christmas HITS show, packed with reviews of all kinds of cool things you might wish to find under the tree this year.

If you’ve thought about learning to play the guitar, check out one of the many digital instruction options at a href=”http://www.iplaymusic.com/ http://www.iplaymusic.com/ end

. They offer some interesting lessons via DVD and we’ll be reviewing a couple of their products on the show. What’s really interesting is how different people learn. Not every one is the same. Some people can watch a DVD and grasp the fundamentals, where someone else may do better looking at a book. Yet others require that one on one personal touch of a teacher.

Of course, these rules also apply to learning anything and you have to have sympathy for people going through the school system who just don’t “get it”, which is why I often use various methods to teach people guitar.

Another big thing this Christmas will be (yet again) all things iPod. It’s amazing how many accessories there are for these little devices. We’ve covered many of them in previous HITS shows, but it still astounds me how many different age groups of people own these things.

Microsoft has now come out with their version of the iPod and you can see it at a href=”http://www.zune.net:80/en-US/ http://www.zune.net:80/en-US/ end

. It will be interesting to see how well it does in the market. Also, some of Apple’s iPods have dropped in price at a href=”http://store.apple.com http://store.apple.com end

.

I’m happy to report that we’ve got two new Apple users in Carl Micarelli’s sister Gina and her husband Brian. Maybe in time I’ll be able to persuade Carl to go Apple!

At this point, our regular readers may have noticed that I’ve haven’t mentioned my shingles problem yet. Well, I’m feeling a lot better and resuming teaching next week. I’m looking forward to seeing my students again! Thanks for all your patience and kind words, guys! A special thanks to Chris for popping this in my door: a href=”http://www.thebeatles.com/hub/love/site/ http://www.thebeatles.com/hub/love/site/ end

. It’s the new Beatles CD called Love and it’s got a huge variety of Beatles songs that have been digitally remastered and remixed. It sounds fantastic and it’s amazing to hear all the subtle things you missed previously in the songs.

Now for some fun-my wife showed me this site at a href=”http://www.paulgoldinresearch.com/cg/index.htm http://www.paulgoldinresearch.com/cg/index.htm end

. It uses color theory to analyze your personality. The test only takes about a minute, so check it out and see what your results are!

Also coming to our area soon (Pittsburgh, actually) is the Trans Siberian Orchestra at a href=”http://www.trans-siberian.com/ http://www.trans-siberian.com/ end

. They’re really cool guitar players and other rock musicians, along with an orchestra playing Christmas songs and an amazing light show. Maybe one day I’ll take my wife to see it. You can see previews of parts of the show at a href=”http://www.trans-siberian.com/multimedia/video.shtml http://www.trans-siberian.com/multimedia/video.shtml end

.

Speaking of previews, isn’t it cool how you can see so many of them online?

You can even visit Santa at a href=”http://www.claus.com/index.phpand http://www.claus.com/index.phpand end

.

An early Christmas present for me was when my wife showed me the new English food section at our local Giant Eagle. I quickly bought some of the goodies, as we’ve previously had to resort to looking online for English goodies. Thanks to Rege and Karen as well for their well wishes for my health when we were there.

Well, what are you looking forward to in 2007? It won’t be long now. Check out a href=”http://www.farmersalmanac.com/preview/preview.html http://www.farmersalmanac.com/preview/preview.html end

for some previews & predictions. For a little fun, see a href=”http://www.famousbirthdays.com/ http://www.famousbirthdays.com/ end

. Two months of being laid up and watching TV has made my favorite show “Deal Or No Deal” at a href=”http://www.nbc.com/Deal_or_No_Deal/ http://www.nbc.com/Deal_or_No_Deal/ end

, which just goes to prove you can find anything online.

Don’t forget to catch our new HITS show on HSTV Channel l9 on and keep reading the column. Above all, have fun with high-tech goodies. From both of us to all of you, have a great week — and happy surfing.

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