One gizmo i enjoy is my dvd player.
I purchased it from circuit city here in California after a lot of research on many web pages. It's a "apex ad-660". Now, the sales guy I bought it from really tried to talk me out of it. He confided that he has never kept one sold. Despite that warning I knew what I wanted out of my dvd player..

So, for $110 with tax (it's been as low as $80) I walked home and tested this DVD player out.. It's the most unrestrictive player i have ever seen. For DVD's (which i tested last) it did just fine, not the greatest quality but much much better then VHS.. Has the angles/zooms/etc.. But dvd functionality was not the highest on my list of what i wanted.

So sure it plays music cd's just fine.. And you bet, it play's MP3 cd's.. VCD's? of course.. Burned VCD's? yup yup.. How about straight burns of MPEG movies? YOU BETCHA, plays them with zero conversion, mind you your fast-forwarding and re-winding capabailites are limited unless converted to VCD, but non the less they play wonderfully.
Wanna top that? It plays CD-R's..and it plays CD-RW's.. every flipping type/color/price of cd-rw's i've put in it..

So, it's nice to load up the Kazaa or Imesh or whichever file sharing application you prefer.. download whichever "world's greatest" video you cant seem to avoid, then keep that memory with you forever on CD.. Much easier to take the dvd-player with you to friends homes to watch movies/clips then your whole computer and using video-out..

In closing, this is not the dvd-player you want if a HDTV type picture is what your looking for.. But dont kid yourself, you really think that old TV you have is even capable of properly displaying the picture quality you expect?

kevin