Enter many times or just once. Most importantly, however, make us laugh and/or cry. Add a picture by hotlinking to your flickr stream or wherever else — BFF can’t host pictures yet. Also, write in your best CG style which includes misspellings, half-baked opinion, and ranting. We will close entries next Tuesday at noon EST.

Entries are rolling in and you guys are GREAT at making up stuff about stuff. Take this one, for example:

The teenage years are by far the best and easiest part of parenting. At the age of 16, teenagers are finally able to get a job like they have always wanted. By that age, they are very responsible with money and will offer to use it to help their parents pay down the mortgage rather than waste it by buying video games and a car. Also, the education they are getting in high school will turn them into geniuses, enabling them to get full academic scholarships to the best Ivy League schools, insuring that they get very high paying jobs as soon as they graduate. By then, the parent’s financial problems will be over, because their child can support them forever.

Vote early and often, friends! To recap, readers of CrunchGear know full well that 95% of the time we have no idea what we’re talking about. Well, we want you to get in on some of that action by reviewing something you’ve never seen, touched, or even know exists. Two posters with the most comments, votes, and number of votes, wins either an 80GB iPod Classic or a 80GB Zune 2. Here’s what to do.

1. Pick an item that you’ve never seen. It could be a Kindle or a Zune or God.
2. Log in to BFF and post your review. The headline should be “Blind Review of XXX” where XXX is the item you’re reviewing. This is important so I can programmatically generate the scores.
3. Tell the world about your review and have your friends comment, vote, and generally create a ruckus. Sometimes friends are slow and don’t know how to vote. Those friends can leave comments.
4. Repeat.

Enter many times or just once. Most importantly, however, make us laugh and/or cry. Add a picture by hotlinking to your flickr stream or wherever else — BFF can’t host pictures yet. Also, write in your best CG style which includes misspellings, half-baked opinion, and ranting. We will close entries next Tuesday at noon EST.

Holy bonkers! The flash Zune will soon add a 16GB model that’s yellow! Yes, you read that correctly. It’s going to be 16GB of banana-colored goodness. Ok, not really, we’ll see 16GB, but not yellow. I thought the Social was over? You make it you, right?

Updated: One of CG’s faithful, Brian R., just sent this in saying he’s seen a yellow Zune in a tv spot:

I was watching top gear tonight and they were running an ad for the Zune – The same one we have here “Ballad of Tina Pink”… In the very last part of it you see they line up of all the zune’s and their colors… yellow is included..

Flickr

Nope. It’s the Zune.

No, really, Amazon and most other online retailers are totally sold out of the 80GB version. Granted, Microsoft didn’t make the player in huge quantities, but the fact that it’s demand outweighs its supply means that it’s a hit.

For over a year now, we’ve liked the Zune. A year ago, the Zune was actually a better MP3 player that the comparable iPod. The interface was better, easier to use, and far more responsive.

We like the updated version, too. While we think the iPod Touch is the best on the market for now, the new Zune is a better bet than the comparable iPod classic. Unless, of course, like me, you’re a Mac user. (Ahem, MS, Ahem.)

This is how you know you’ve made it. That tattoo of Clippy is pretty awesome, too.

Zune Originals ‘Ballmer’ Frigtard [iPhone Savior] Thanks Rymon!

I was unaware that you couldn’t use the first-gen Zune as an external drive via USB without hacking it and now, apparently, the new firmware has locked down that hack. I wouldn’t know, I hardly used my Zune since I didn’t have enough hard drive space on my MacBook to install Windows, which I’ve done since my upgrade to Leopard and I finally got myself an external. Oh, XP, how I’ve missed thee. Nevertheless, the crafty folks over at the Zunerama forums have figured it all out and now you may resume using your Zune as a USB drive.

First, it’s based on the registry hack from before – (described at this link: http://zunerama.com/forum/index.php?topic=970.0)

The difference with the new firmware is that the registry keys have changed. The new registry keys to be modified are:

HKEY_LOCAL_MACHINE\SYSTEM\ControlSet002\Enum\USB\VID_####&PID_####\########-####-####-####-############\Device
Parameters

Modify the same three keys as before, and your Zune will serve as an external drive. A different icon will display in the shell, but you’ll have the same functionality.

The tipster did this using Vista Home Premium with a Zune30 with the newest firmware.

The usual disclaimers apply: backup your registry first; be very careful; and don’t blame us if things go wrong.

Hacking the new Zune firmware, to use Zune as a USB drive [Zunerama]

So, I just took a quick look at the Zune Originals site and the Artist Series looks great. I may just have to cave in and get one because they’re that cool. The Tattoo Series is a different story. I’m so happy they didn’t include any tribal designs because I’d just barf, but it’s nothing special. It’s all crappy tattoo flash that you’ll find at the local shop. Ya know, the kind that stupid 18-year olds will think looks really cool and some how makes them look like a badass when in reality it just makes them look like a huge d-bag. Check it out for yourself.

Zune Originals

I think I’m beginning to understand the whole You Make It You thing, but I could be wrong. I think it’s very cool that MS is taking the laser engraving beyond some stupid text like Apple does, but you’re really not making it you, per se, when you’re using graphics from 18 different artists that includes 27 unique designs. Wait. No. That’s pretty damn cool and if you want text (up to three lines with graphics or five without) then you can have that, too. Aside from the Artist Series, there will be a Tattoo Series with 20 designs. Hopefully the Tattoo Series will be sans everything tribal because that’s been played out more than Chasey Lain’s you know what. The list of artists after the jump. Oh, and it’s all free.

The Zune Originals Artist Series will launch with designs from artists Colletivo Studios, Catalina Estrada, Laurent Fetis, Sam Flores, Klaus Haapaniemi, Pierre Marie, Kenzo Minami, Parskid, Mike Perry, Phunk Studios, Chisato Shinya, Skwak, Iosefatu Sua, Tado, Nobumasa Takahashi, Ramiro Torres, Darvin Vida and Steve Wilson.

Zune Originals [via Press Release]

Does it suck? Will it kill the iPod? Will you buy one? Do you care? The general consensus seems to be that Microsoft is at the cusp, but they’ve fallen short once again, though, it’s a vast improvement over the first gen Zune. It takes Microsoft a bit of time to catch up, but once they do, I think the Zune will be a worthy opponent. We’ll see how my Zune does tomorrow with the firmware update. I just wish the software didn’t suck so bad. No EQ settings certainly sucks a big one, too. And the fact that I have to run BootCamp. Look for the CG review later today, I think. Biggs?

Wired

PC World

CNET

Yahoo! Tech

Tech Talk

Laptop Mag

Looks like CompUSA has been selling the 80GB Zune 2 for some time now and for $1,113.07! It’s probably a typo and I doubt that people would spend that much money on a Zune, but it’s pretty funny when retailers make such bloopers. They’re sold out online so who knows.

It’s not a typo. CompUSA will sometimes put the release date as the price in items that haven’t gone live yet. 11-13-07.

ChrisK, FTW!

Thanks for the tip, Osa

CompUSA

Zunerama forum’s n00b, eds, has acquired him/herself with a brand spankin’ new Zune before the Tuesday launch. That’s all well and good, but he/she can’t use said Zune 2 until the firmware is released on the 13th. What a bummer. Totally takes away all the fun of having it first if it won’t work, right? Oh, but what about the install CD? Yeah, I guess it doesn’t come with one. That’s one way of deterring any leaks.

New Zunes are bricks until Tuesday – New Pics! [Zunerama]

I know we’ve covered this multiple times in the past, but I was just filtering through some e-mails and came across this from the Zune team. Maybe you’re just joining us and haven’t been bombarded with all the Zune 2 coverage so take note that November 13th is the day your 1st gen Zune will be updated to unleash new features and all that jazz. You make it you or something like that.

Between the new Zune ads and Sony’s PS3 gibberish, I’m beginning to lose faith that I’ll ever see a good advert ever, again. This new ad is very arsty fartsy, but I don’t understand what’s going on in it. He’s watching a video of animated ice cream, which makes him daydream about climbing a pyramid of people and then jumping off of it. Wha?! Huh?! Someone explain before my head explodes.

v2.0 of the Zune is fast approaching its November 13th launch date and the first ad appeared yesterday revolved around the “You Make It You” campaign. I can’t quite understand what’s going on in the ad so watch for yourselves. A new site, www.zunejourney.net, was also launched for the campaign to help educate consumers on the basic features of the Zune and what to expect from the v2 platform.

ZuneJourney.net and the First Zune 2 TV ad [Zune Online]

Apparently this is the case at a Walmart in St. Louis.

zune 2 in the wild! [itsnotlikethat]

A recently leaked support document reveals that the Zune 2 will include an inbox where Zune Socialites can send and receive messages amongst each other, but that doesn’t necessarily entail text messages in the way we’re used to. In fact, this is all just a crock of poopoo. If you look closely at this particular slide you’ll notice that it never mentions ‘text messages’ anywhere. It does say ‘text from the message’ and that’s how it should be interpreted. There’s no secret message and I have no idea who the hell thought it meant text messaging.

Zune Socialites will be sending their friends messages through the Social and by what other method should receivers interpret a message? Is it subliminal or do all Zune owners have ESP. Learn to read before you go throwing around rumors about something so obvious. What a waste of time.

ZuneBoards [via Zune Scene via Giz]

Here’s a pretty in-depth look at the interface on the new Zune 80GB. I won’t lie, it looks pretty slick.

We just received confirmation from our little birdie that the launch date for the new line of Zunes is November 13. Yeah, Amazon already leaked that info, but it’s nice to have confirmation.

We like the Zune series of music players. We really do. We’d like them more if they’d work on our Macs, but that’s another story. We don’t, though, like them as much as Steve Smith of Sioux City, Iowa. Steve has not one, not two, but three Zune tattoos on his body. And, now that the new Zunes are out, he’s planning on more.

Our editors wanted me to speak with Steve about his fetish love for Zune, but I was too frightened. So I dug up this post from earlier today by Laptop magazine, who talked to this scary individual so that I wouldn’t have to. Thanks for taking one for the team, Laptop.

In the post, Steve talks about how much he likes the new Zunes, and his wishes that Big Redmond would send him a new 80GB model on the Z2 for his loyalty. C’mon, Cesar, you guys can spare one for this guy, right? Just don’t make me deliver it.

New Zunes Mean New Zune Tattoos for One Fan [Laptop]

Now that you’ve had some time to digest everything, what do you think about the Zune 2? I like my first generation Zune, but it’s difficult to manage because I don’t have a PC and I’m not about to run Boot Camp or Parallels for it. In most instances I like it over my iPod, but I have the first photo iPod and that’s obviously ancient compared to the Touch iPod. I can’t wait to get my hands on the Zune 2. What are your thoughts? Do you even care?

Roundup:

Zune press release sneak peek leaked, MS shrieked, source’s outlook bleak

Zune 2 family launched: We’re digging Dad and the kids

Sweet Zune o’ Mine: Where do we go, now, where do we go?

Here’s what happend at Microsoft today, hands on with the Zune 2

Zune 2: Don’t immediately discount them

Zune 2: Can someone tell me what ‘you make it you’ means?

Video: Bill Gates explains why the Zune 2 is ::thumbs up::

Zune Social: Discover what music your friends like, then buy buy buy

A few more Zune details [Update, again]