Lifestyle
GameStop Call of Duty MW3 and Xbox Giveaway
We’re partnering up with Gamestop for a sick giveaway to get the word out about the Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 “Pick Your Perks” Sweepstakes. Call of Duty MW3 will be available at GameStop stores nationwide November 8, and to ramp up the launch, GameStop has this sweet sweepstakes thing going on at GameStop.com/CallofDuty.
The sweepstakes gives Call of Duty players the ability to craft their own, customizable prize pack full of unique perks. Call of Duty fans can pre-order Modern Warfare 3 and play every day for a chance to win cash, vehicles, VIP experiences and tons of other prizes of their choosing. The perks change weekly, so players need to check back every Monday to see the new perks for the week.
Gamers can combine three different perks to create their own prize pack. The pro pack option is a preselected perk, but you can choose two additional perks out of a list of available prize options. So for example, this week the preselected perk is an extreme flying experience where you get to experience the thrill of skydiving and fly through the air in a vertical wind tunnel. For Perk 2, you can select a Sea-Doo GTI Diver Propulsion Vehicle, an MSI Windpad tablet or a VIP trip to Comic-Con 2012. The options for Perk 3 include a Looxcie Video Bluetooth headset, 100,000 Microsoft Points or Vuzix Virtual Reality Eyewear.
If you love Call of Duty and you’re going to buy MW3 anyway, might as well pre-order and enter a bunch of times to win these awesome prizes, right?
So we’re giving away a MW3 Prize Pack that includes a copy of the game (once it becomes available), and a 250GB Xbox console. That’s a pretty sweet haul right there. What do you need to do to win the game and the Xbox? Follow us on Twitter @MANjrcom and send us an email below telling us why you love playing Call of Duty. We’ll pick a winner at random next Thursday.
Good luck!
Oct 20th
WOWee ONE Portable Speaker Review
We all carry tons of music around with us. Whether it’s on a laptop, tablet, iPod or smartphone, it’s not unusual for people to have gigabytes worth of their favorite tunes with them at all times. Plugging in a set of headphones and blasting your favorite songs is all well and good, but sometimes you want to share your music with the people around you. Sometimes you want to bump your music to the world.
That’s why God invented portable speakers. But not all portable speakers are created equal. Some are small, tinny and cheap. Others are expensive, difficult to lug around and require a wall outlet power source. It’s not really practical to bring an iPod docking station to the beach. Sometimes you just want an easy-to-carry, compact size portable speaker solution that has its own power source.
Enter the WOWee ONE portable speaker. This little, cell phone-sized device is the coolest thing to happen to portable music since the boom box. What’s so great about it? Well unlike most portable speaker solutions, the WOWee gives you the gift of bass – crisp, clean, wonderfully thumping bass. The speaker plugs into your audio device with a standard headphone plug and uses patented gel technology to turn any flat surface into a makeshift subwoofer.
Sounds weird, huh? It is kinda. The WOWee can be placed on different surfaces for different bass-thumping effects. Plug it in, hold it in your hand, and you have a little speaker with minimal bump. Place it on a flatsurface – a table, a box, your car bumper, a cooler, the arm of a couch or chair – and you get unique bass results. It’s actually really fun to play around with different surface areas to see what kind of bass comes out. It’s also rare to have a little speaker put out quality lows in the 40 Hz – 20 kHz sound range.
The WOWee ONE is rechargeable via USB. There’s no on/off switch, you just plug it into an audio jack and it lasts up to 10 hours per charge. The thing looks and weighs about the same as an iPhone, so you can slip it in your pocket for easy transport.
The uses for quality portable beat-bumping are endless. You can easily manage music at work, at home, at a party, outside, on-the-go. You get the idea. If you love blasting tunes on the fly and you appreciate the low end of the sound spectrum, drop the $79.99 and pick one of these up. It’s totally worth it.
Oct 7th
iHip Headphones Review
Zeikos electronics is teaming up with former NFL great Carl Banks to promote a new line of licensed, limited-edition MLB and NFL iHip music accessories. You can pick up a pair of iHip headphones or earbuds and choose between 61 different team logos. If you’re looking for an affordable gift to give to your favorite sports fantastic, iHip gear could be a great choice.
We received a set of headphones and earbuds that both featured the logo of the Pittsburgh Steelers. The headphones are medium-sized. They’re not too small that they slip off your head, but they’re not so big that you feel like a helicopter pilot in Vietnam. The DJ-style, headphones fold up for easy storage and feature bright colors to go along with the authentic team logo of your choice.
One interesting thing is that the headphone cord comes with an extra input for another audio source. The extra line-in is a bit presumptive, but appreciated nonetheless. If you want to share some tunes with someone, they can just plug right into the extra line and tune in to what you’re blasting. These aren’t crazy high-end headphones. You won’t fine top-of-the line noise cancellation or other super sexy features. But you can rock your team pride at an affordable price. And really, that’s all you can ask for here.
The earbuds lean a bit towards the low end of the sound spectrum, but that’s not likely a problem if you like your tunes with some bass. The earbuds come with extra earplug inserts, so you can adjust the size of the plugs to fit your specific inner ear size preference.
iHip music accessories range in price from $14.99 to $99.99. If you want to show your support you’re your favorite NFL or MLB team, the simple, colorful music accessories provided by iHip will give you a functional and flashy way to display your team pride.
Oct 4th
Guinness Black Lager Is Awesome
I was sent a bottle of a new Guinness beer – Guinness Black Lager. It’s a black colored beer that’s supposed to be served cold. It was billed as light, but I had my doubts. Regular Guinness can serve as a meal replacement, so Guinness Black Lager, how light could it be?
Well when I tried that thing, I couldn’t believe it. Seriously. It’s better than advertised. You’re supposed to drink it right out of the bottle, so I did. As soon as that sweet, frosty light/black combo hit my lips, that bottle was toast. It had no chance. Stout – 1, new bottle of Guinness Black Lager – zero.
So what does this thing taste like? Well for starters, it’s super refreshing. I like Guinness on occasion, but I wouldn’t call myself a habitual stout drinker. The beer bares my name so you’d think it’d be a match made in heaven, but I don’t always like the heavy, not-so-brisk taste that comes with stout beers.
That’s why I’m such a big Newcastle fan. It’s really not that heavy. All that “lighter side of dark” talk rings true with Newcastle Brown Ale. If you like the invigorating effect of a cold Newkie, you’ll definitely dig this new Guinness. It’s a fantastic extra-cold beverage; black beer that drinks like a light lager but still has distinctive malty undertones and full-bodied flavor.
Now when I say light, I don’t mean low-cal. I just mean not heavy and overbearing. I could care less about the calories with this black lager. It’s just too damn good.
Now maybe it was the presentation or the special delivery (the bottle of Guinness Black Lager that I received came in a fancy box with its own coozie bottle cooler jacket), but the next time I see this beer — in the store, at a bar — I’m definitely going to reach for it. If you like dark beer flavor without the heavy, heavy impact, you’ll enjoy this new Black Lager from Guinness.
Oct 4th
PERT Plus Giveaway
Summer is over and everyone’s back to school or back to a regular, vacation-less schedule. As we get into the first few weeks of the Fall season, routines are being reestablished and free time is quickly becoming sparse for everybody. To get you through the daily back-to-school or back-to-work grind, we’re giving away a PERT Plus prize pack to one lucky reader.
Why shop around for different hair products when you can pick up a single, 2-in-1 solution that works for men and women? Guys, you know you’d never condition your hair unless the conditioner was already included in your everyday shampoo choice. And ladies, why do you need to fill the shower with five different bottles of hair washing product? Why not simplify your shower routine and minimize your hair care shopping hassles? You can jumpstart this effort by scoring a PERT Plus prize pack that includes:
- 2 bottles of PERT Plus
- PERT Plus branded baseball
- PERT Plus t-shirt
- PERT Plus USB drive
Do enter the giveaway, just like us on Facebook and send us an email below telling us why you need to simplify your hair care routine. We’ll pick a winner at random next week. Good luck!
Oct 4th
National CofFREE Day at 7-Eleven Tomorrow
It’s National Coffee Day tomorrow, and 7-11 is celebrating by running a National CofFREE campaign. On September 29, participating 7-Eleven stores in the US and Canada will offer free medium cups of coffee from 7am to 11am. You can grab a free cup of coffee, a latte or a capucino in the morning tomorrow at no charge, folks. If you get your early morning coffee fix going on the regular, do it for free tomorrow. At least until supplies last.
Sep 28th
Van Heusen Big Game in Style Contest
At the start of the football season, Van Heusen launched the Institute of Style at VanHeusen.com. The Institute of Style is challenging dudes everywhere to spiffy up their fashion selections. If you use Van Heusen to transform yourself from schlub to swagger, you could win a trip to the Super Bowl. Not just tickets to the big game either. If you win this thing, you and four of your friends will be flying the Indy in a private jet and watching the Super Bowl in a suite with Steve Young, Jerry Rice and Deion Sanders.
To enter, visit then Van Heusen website and submit before and after shots of you looking like a schlub (sans Van Heusen) and you looking like a super dapper swagger (after the Van Heusen touch). You can see examples of different looks and style tips on the website.
Your before and after shots will be judged by the three aforementioned NFL Hall of Famers, Van Heusen’s fashion director, an editor at ESPN Fashion and an the market editor of GQ magazine. Here are the judging categories/requirements:
- Use of Van Heusen Clothing and Merchandise (33.33% of score)
- Extent of overall transformation between photos (33.33% of score)
- Level of personal style (33.34% of score)
You don’t need to purchase anything to enter. Five entries allowed per person and per email address. All entrants must submit their photos by 12/31/2011. The approximate retail value of the grand prize has a not to exceed prize of $22,900. That grand prize includes:
- Round trip private air transportation on a G4 airplane for five (winner and (4) guests)
- A total of (2) standard hotel room accommodations, each for a total of (4)-nights
- Five (5) tickets to the Big Game being played in Indianapolis, IN
- Five (5) tickets to the ESPN Next party
- Five (5) tickets to the GQ party
- Five (5) tickets to the NFLX Experience
- Van Heusen Wardrobes for winner and each guest, with a maximum total retail value not to exceed $1,000
- 5,000 in cash
So yea, enter this thing, dude.
Sep 28th
Help Us Select Our Jim Beam Bold Choice!
A couple weeks ago, we posted about our partnership with Jim Beam and our participation in the Jim Beam Bold Choice campaign. It’s a pretty exciting opportunity, man. Jim Beam is giving us $2,500 to experience a Bold Choice that we’ve always wanted to make. I narrowed down the options to three Bold Choices, but it’s up to you, loyal reader, to vote on which Bold Choice you’d like us to experience.
The first option was diving in the Great Barrier Reef. I hear it’s on of those must-do bucket list time things, and I’ve always wanted to go to Australia to check out the largest reef system on the planet.
The second option is to hike a volcano in Hawaii. This probably won’t entail any sort of life-threatening close distances to actual lava or anything. I just think it’d be fun to see the fury of Mother Nature’s wrath all up close. Plus, I’ve never been to Hawaii and I always wanted to check it out.
The third Bold Choice option is a combination of skydiving in Austria and experiencing Oktoberfest. Seems like a pretty sweet pairing of things I really want try. I mean flying in Austria and checking out the Alpine scenery while freefalling from the clouds sounds amazing. The added Oktoberfest bonus is just another bucket list style item that I’d love to cross off my Bold Choice checklist.
Thanks to everyone who already voted. We’re going to tally the final votes up at the end of the week, so there are only a couple more days to chime in with what you think we should do! Just use the email form below and let us know if you want us to choose option 1, 2 or 3.
Sep 28th
Accell MHL to HDMI Adapter Review
We receive a lot of tech items to review on the site. The last thing we got was an MHL to HDMI Adapter from Accell. Basically, this adapter is used for connecting specific phones and tablets to your TV. Why would you want to do this? Well let’s say you have family over and you want to show off some photos or videos or play some music from your phone or other handheld device. Instead of passing around a tablet or smartphone, you can just hook your device up to your TV and showcase audio, video or photo in full, easy-to-access high definition.
The adapter works with any MHL or USB Micro-B devices. Depending on the device you’re connecting, you may need to use a power adapter as well. The adapter supports digital audio and HD video resolutions (1080I/60Hz or 1080p/30Hz). If you have a Samsung smartphone on an HTC smartphone or tablet, this thing will be real easy to connect. Here’s the list of products that support MHL:
- Samsung Galaxy S2
- Samsung Infuse 4G
- HTC Flyer Tablet
- HTC Sensation
- HTC Evo 3D
Sep 26th
