Gary Vaynerchuk (Wine Library TV) on The Ellen Degeneres Show TODAY!

Gary Vaynerchuk of Wine Library TV will be making another national TV appearance today on The Ellen Degeneres Show! So go on ahead and set your DVRs and TiVos to record.

If you don’t remember or somehow missed it, Gary V was recently on with Conan O’Brien, and helped Conan train his wine palate.

Here’s that very entertaining clip:

Conan tastes dirt, cigars, wet rock, socks and mor - Watch more free videos

Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE - Momentum Facts ‘n Stats

Here are some fun facts just released by Microsoft to hold you over until you get your little hands on Halo 3.

Leadership: Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE are leading the charge into the future of gaming and entertainment, bringing the best games, an active community and a growing catalogue of high definition entertainment to all members of the household.

More than 11.6 million Xbox 360 consoles have sold across the 37 countries where it is currently available. Xbox LIVE is currently available in 25 countries across the globe.

According to U.S. NPD data, gamers have bought more software for the Xbox 360 (24.3 million units), than software for PS3 and Wii combined (19.8 million units).

Faster than expected, Xbox LIVE has eclipsed the 7 million member milestone and is on track to reach 10 million members by the end of June 2008. In fact, in the last year we’ve added a new Xbox LIVE member every 8 seconds.

Gaming: With the greatest lineup in the history of video games, Xbox 360 is hands down the best gaming console on the market.

There are more than 250 games available today on Xbox 360, including 86 Xbox LIVE Arcade games.

Xbox 360 is the next-gen console with the largest games attach rate at an astounding 6.3 games sold per Xbox 360 owner.

Xbox LIVE members have spent more than 3.2 billion hours playing games on Xbox LIVE with their friends around the world. That is equal to 137 million days or more than 376,000 years of gaming.

To date, Xbox 360 owners have unlocked more than 600 million Achievements. All of those unlocked Achievements have created a total combined Gamerscore of more than 14 billion.

There have been 2.5 billion game sessions hosted since the launch of Xbox 360, with more than 5.6 million hosted each day so far in 2007.

Xbox LIVE Arcade has been a huge hit on Xbox 360, with nearly 70% of all connected consoles downloading and playing Xbox LIVE Arcade titles.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace currently offers nearly 200 free trials and demos, giving owners more free playable content than any other console.

Entertainment: Xbox 360 is the center of digital entertainment in the living room, offering the best in high definition games, movies and television along with access to all your friends, digital music and pictures.

Xbox 360 continues to lead with the largest library of on-demand high-definition movies and television in the U.S. on-demand market. Twenty-nine movie studios and TV networks continue to provide a growing catalogue of premium high- and standard-definition entertainment content that to date totals 2,800 hours.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace is now the leading provider of on-demand high-definition content in the U.S., providing more than twice the number of hours as leading cable operators.

Xbox LIVE Marketplace is home to a growing catalogue of more than 9,000 pieces of individual gaming and entertainment content, downloadable at the click of a button.

There have been 290 million downloads of gaming and entertainment content from Xbox LIVE Marketplace

Social Networking: Xbox 360 and Xbox LIVE offer the largest, most active online community of friends, family and rivals worldwide.

Xbox LIVE is the largest social network in the living room with 2.6 million IM, text and voice messages sent over the service every day.

Since Xbox LIVE launched, 3.1 billion games sessions have been hosted on the service.

The average Xbox LIVE Gold subscriber has 23 friends on their Xbox LIVE friends list.

More than 1.2 billion cross-game invites have been sent since the launch of Xbox 360.

Xbox LIVE Top 10: Check out the list of the top 10 games played over Xbox LIVE, as well as the top 10 worldwide downloads for Xbox LIVE Arcade and Xbox LIVE Marketplace Demos since Xbox 360 launched in November, 2006.

The top 10 games played over Xbox LIVE worldwide:

1. Halo 2
2. Gears of War
3. Hexic HD
4. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
5. Call of Duty 3
6. Call of Duty 2
7. Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter 3
8. Elder Scrolls: Oblivion
9. Crackdown
10. PGR3

The top 10 Xbox LIVE Arcade downloads worldwide:

1. Aegis Wing
2. Uno
3. Texas Hold ‘em
4. Geometry Wars Retro Evolved
5. Bankshot Billiards 2
6. Street Fighter ‘II Hyper Fighting
7. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles 1989 Classic Arcade
8. Worms
9. Castlevania: Symphony of the Night
10. Contra

The top 10 Xbox LIVE Marketplace Demos downloads worldwide:

1. Crackdown
2. Lost Planet E3 2006
3. Dead Rising
4. BioShock
5. Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six Vegas
6. Forza Motorsport 2
7. Sonic the Hedgehog
8. Saints Row
9. Superman Returns
10. Colin McRae: DIRT

Source: MSFT Press Release.

GameStop is still harassing you with unsolicited calls - Halo 3 edition

A while back I posted a voicemail of an unsolicited call I got from GameStop. This morning I got another one. This time they want me to trade in games, and they also talk about Halo 3.

Once again, I never signed up or gave GameStop permission to call me about anything. In fact, after last time I called up my local store and asked that I never be contacted via phone again. It’s a good feeling knowing that GameStop respects the privacy of the customer.

Apple iPhone $100 credit - Hope you didn’t want to use it to buy music

Apple released details today on how you can obtain your $100 credit for your iPhone.

Nice of Apple to do this right? Sorta. Here’s what you can’t use your credit on:

“Customers may not redeem their store credits: (1) at any iTunes Store in the United States or elsewhere, (2) Apple Store locations outside the United States; (3) at Apple resellers; (4) for cash; (5) to purchase Apple Gift Cards, or,iTunes Store Gift Certificates, to give iTunes Store content as gifts, or to create iTunes Store allowances; or (6) as payments on Apple accounts”

Come on! So that forces you to buy hardware, software, or accessories which in most cases costs more than your credit.

Thanks Apple.

(Thanks Erik)

Apple bends you over

.. if you bought an iPhone more than 14 days ago that is.

And here’s what Steve Jobs has to say to you:

Jobs spoke with USA TODAY’s Jefferson Graham and Edward C. Baig.

Q: What do you say to customers who just bought a new iPhone for $599? Sorry?

A: That’s technology. If they bought it this morning, they should go back to where they bought it and talk to them. If they bought it a month ago, well, that’s what happens in technology.

USA Today

Hahaha! Meanwhile, the Apple iPhone support forums are still getting flooded with posts of people asking for some kind of credit or refund, and it looks like it’s not going to stop anytime soon.

I, myself tried to call the Apple retail store which I purchased my iPhone from which ended up just annoying me more, when a rather rude employee answered and just didn’t want to deal with me. Then I tried the 1800 number, which informed me that since I purchased it in an Apple store there was obsoletely nothing they could do, and it was up to the Apple store I made the purchase in to decide if they’d credit me.

There have been some success stories posted on the Apple forums, and I would link to them if the moderators weren’t on a mission to delete all threads that talk about this issue.

Think Different my ass.