From Somewhere, Volume Two

The News Wheel. It never sleeps. However- its  typist tends to nod off a bit, though.

On today’s hit list: iTunes-now only slightly less annoying, New Product for your approval, Santa as you’ve never seen him before (and as you still might not), Bob Dylan’s holiday joy, the Waters of Mars US air date, and news on Top Gear Series 14 .

Updated and expanded upon as things become interesting / author has time … and it begins after the jump!

iTunes introduces web preview- In days of olde (READ: as of three days ago),  any outside link to iTunes on the web brought up a very annoying and really slow holding page as the browser attempted to launch the full iTunes program. This never worked- since you could launch iTunes, login to the Store, and locate the thing yourself before the browser could get around to it. So iTunes links were never terribly useful.  Until, now.

Yes friends, almost eight years after the introduction of iTunes-Apple’s finally gotten around to fixing the web link issue by instead launching a preview page in the browser that includes short clips of the thing being linked.

New Product:

Games

Assassin’s Creed 2-More fun and death, this time in the expanded sandbox of Renaissance Italy. (Available now on PS3& 360, PC TBD )

Left 4 Dead 2- There was going to be a joke about numbers here, but it seems one of the zombie hoard ate it. Just as well, I suppose… (PS3, 360, PC)

New Super Mario Bros.- The Wii-ifciation of the classic 2-D Platformer adds 4 Players and will be your new drug of choice if you’re still too young to exterminate zombies or simple assignations… (Wii)

DVD

Star Trek (2009)- JJ Abrams’ re-tooling of the ailing Trek franchise comes in a 2 disc package with deleted scenes and a few documentaries. The 2 Disc Blu Ray features a digital copy activation.

Life On Mars, Complete (UK) Series Two- The final series of the original and  far superior British version finally drops stateside (albeit, again, with some music that appeared in the original episodes being replaced, sigh). Hopefully, Acorn Media can now get around to putting out at least the first season of follow up series Ashes to Ashes.

Somewhere in the middle, maybe BBC America could finally get around to airing A2A’s second series.

Music

Them Crooked Vultures

Janet Jackson- Number Ones

John Mayer- Battle Studies

Paul McCartney- Good Evening, New York (CD / DVD)

Santa sounds a lot like that guy who sorta sounds like Brian Blessed…!- OK, I’m linking this because I’m being a good friend. I’m warning you not to click on this because it may very well tear a hole in the fabric of reality.  And because I like you, random website visitor #22059687 (or so, I lost Count- but know that I care deeply for your well being). Which is why I would definitely attempt to steer you away from this.

BBC America has announced the US air date for the latest Doctor Who special Waters Of Mars, which will premiere stateside on December 19th. No word yet on the following special, The End of Time (part one of the David Tennant’s final turn in the role) or the still untitled final installment (being the official hand off to the incoming 11th Doctor, Matt Smith).

What I CAN tell you is there will be a collected box set of the 2009 Specials, which is tentatively due out on DVD and Blu Ray next Spring.

New Top Gear- Just so you know, Top Gear series 14 kicked off on BBC2 this last Sunday- meaning US viewers might get to see it come Spring. Meanwhile, you can now pre-order box sets for both Series 11 & Series 12.

Happy Holidays from Bob Dylan- Finally, when Bob Dylan invites you to a Christmas Party,please go somewhere else- here’s a taste of Dylan’s new holiday CD.