While the MLB experience sucks in 2013, it’s still the best out there among the sports leagues and franchises. The MLB.TV package at $130 for the year for new users is still riddled with blackout and game restrictions (all Saturday games are blacked out) but, with a great Internet connection, you can watch games on your iOS and Android devices, PC and on your television. Samsung TVs even have the MLB app built in now. You need the Internet. Without MLB, well there’s your TV cable / satellite provider who will charge you about $250 for a season of games, also blackout restrictions apply. Finally, Satellite radio has you set for about $200 for the programing as a part of the deluxe package( Not an extra $20 a month but included in the $20 a month package)

The NFL, MLS and NHL leagues don’t have this sort of flexibility so, MLB is doing a good job but I don’t think it’s enough. We really need a one time fee that allows he end user to select what games they want, what features and where they want to watch or listen to those games. If I want only SF Giants games on my TV, iPad and in my car, that should be one price.

(Via Adam Jackson)

The MLB.tv & MLB At Bat apps are amazing. The league did a fantastic job creating the service, but to say the NHL doesn’t ofter the same amount of flexibility is just not true.

The MLS is expanding their reacher and their iOS apps are nice, but I do not think I have seen them on devices without app stores (TVs, set top boxes like Boxee & the Apple TV, etc). The NHL still requires a subscription via some satellite company and have some of the craziest black out rules in all of sports. Only MLB challengers their blackout rules.

With NHL GameCenter Live, I can watch old and live games from my computer, my iPhone, my AppleTV, an AppleTV, a Xbox 360, Boxee, Roku, Android, BlackBerry and Sony’s internet connected devices including the PlayStation 3. That is a lot of “flexibility.” All of this for only $50 for the entire season – granted, a shortened season of only 48 games which is much shorter than the baseball season.

The service also includes the radio streams, highlights and archives of games from the past. The NHL does blackout games, but the blackout regions are smaller than the regions covered by MLB teams. In Tulsa, I cannot watch the Dallas Stars hockey games. I also cannot watch the St. Louis Cardinals, Kansas City Royals, Texas Rangers and Houston Astros. I just cheat the blackouts with unblock-us to get around the stupid blackouts (DNS, not VPN). A great $5/month. It will allow me to get around the NHL’s blackouts of the playoffs in the US & Canada. International GCL customers get that for free. We’re stuck with the radio broadcasts here which may be free, at least in the playoffs.

The NHL also has one plan. $50 for the season in one or two payments. That is it. The MLB has season long and monthly passes for radio stream only. I cannot tell which is a better deal, but it would seem to be the monthly option. Then there is the two different MLB.tv offerings. One costs $110; the other $130. The cheaper one does not include the mobile apps which the other leagues include for free. From what I can pull from MLB.tv’s site, the cheaper option forces the broadcast feed on the user. Just seems like the MLB wants to have an option with a lower price tag knowing users will surely go for the more expensive option.

With satellite radio and pay TV. The NHL has a station on Sirius-XS which carries game and NHL Center Ice cost cable & satellite users $50 this year as well. They just need to get the NHL Network back on Uverse. NHL Network, NBC Sports Network and NBC games are blacked out online. Verizon users can cheat it because Verizon has a deal with the NHL & NBC. I really dislike that. NBC does stream NBC games on the web, iPad, iPhone and Android (maybe more) for free, so that does help us out. The Blues have three Sunday games starting at 11:30a in a row to end the season.

The NHL did have trouble keeping the site only when the league returned from a lockout last January, but the service has been fantastic since then. We still are stuck in SD at home, so going to HD (despite a low bit-rate HD) is amazing. Just makes the game feel that much better. I have had no trouble keeping the 3000 Kbps stream since opening day. The web player can be strange, but all full-screen video on my computer is acting up. All other devices I have used use Apple’s default video player it is great.

MLB.tv might have been first, but do not judge NHL GameCenter Live. They really improved the quality of their apps before this season, the service works fantastically, it is cheap and it works almost everywhere.

EDIT:

The Apple devices all share one common theme, they don’t allow MLB to inject advertisements into their stream.

Strange though. Apple allows ads for the NHL. Sure the MLB just does not do ads online? Not all of the NHL’s games have ads, just most.

Check out the rest of the game on Flickr.

http://tucollegian.com/fine/issuetwenty/articles/newsarticles/Sequester_may_harm_Oklahoma_education.html

A Missouri state representative proposed a new bill which would actually make it a Class D felony for any member to propose gun control legislation. A class D felony carries a maximum sentence of no more than four years.

The legislation, House Bill 633, comes from Rep. Mike Leara in response to the talk of stronger gun control legislation on the national and state level. One such bill is Missouri House Bill 545, which was proposed by Missouri House Democrats a few weeks earlier. HB 545 would ban high capacity magazines and “assault weapons,” which the bill defines as a “semi-automatic rifle” with the ability to “accept a detachable magazine” and at least one of four extra features.

All assault weapons must either be turned into the proper authorities, disabled or taken out of the state within 90 days of the legislation being turned into law.

Many on the right view this type of legislation, if passed and signed into law, as infringing on the rights under the Second Amendment. The conservative media, including blogs like Breitbart.com, radio shows like “The Dana Show” and several commentators on Fox News, had a field day with this legislation.

Yet when a Republican, Rep. Mike Leara, proposed legislation which would infringe on legislators’ First Amendment rights, very few on the right vocally stood up against this mess of legislation.

Most of those concerned with the bill were to the left, but some on the right came out against the bill too. Republican Rep. Kevin Engler of Farmington, Mo. said, “Everybody should have a right to introduce bills, even bad ones.” Those on the right against the HB 633 could not raise their collective voices to the same volume as many on the right had done after HB 545 was proposed.

Leara released this statement defending his bill: “I have no illusions about the bill making it through the legislative process, but I want it to be clear that the Missouri House will stand in defense of the people’s constitutional right to keep and bear arms.” Because Leara knew this bill would never pass the Missouri Legislature, his defenders say that the legislation is nothing about which we should get upset.

The Democrats’ legislation attempts to ban certain guns while permitting others, in order to make our nation safer. Leara’s bill only makes our nation safer if one believes that the federal government, and President Obama in particular, is attempting to become tyrannical. That world is fictional.

The most obnoxious bit about this defense is that I am positive the Democrats knew their bill would not pass either. Both Houses of the Missouri legislature are controlled by Republicans with a veto-proof majority in both chambers over the Democratic governor, who tries to avoid conflict. I would claim that the Democrats simply wanted to state their position, just as Leara wanted to make sure his position was known.

The conservative media decided that it was better to exaggerate the extent of the Democrats’ bill with headlines and talk implying that all guns would be confiscated (some even suggesting the bill had passed) while letting Leara get off easily. It is not because they care about the Constitution, but because the attacks on the left help their political goals and positions. Many of the right like to hide their actions behind defending the Constitution and their love for America.

The Second Amendment is in the Constitution, and a change would be needed before stricter laws could be created. The Constitution and our rights as humans are always evolving. Our courts and legislators have shown time and again that rights can be changed, removed or added to better protect that nation as a whole.

I hope that at some point as many conservatives will be as outraged by similar actions from both parties. Until then, I will continue to be outraged by the spin, inaccuracy and inconsistency coming out of a large number of people on the right.

A group of Tulsa residents led by Eric Vardeman began the Tulsa Curling Club in February of 2012. Vardeman, like many in the club, became interested in the sport after seeing it during the Winter Olympics. A few members are Canadians who have been curling for years.

Those unfamiliar with curling might begin by imagining shuffleboard on ice. Rather than using a stick to push a puck toward a triangle across the board, curlers set up on starting blocks similar to those in track. Curlers launch off the blocks, pushing a large, polished piece of granite, which looks similar to a wheel of cheese with a handle.

The curlers then release the granite “rock” toward the “house,” a target made of four rings painted under the ice. Two other players use “brooms,” which look more like mops, to sweep just ahead of the rock without touching the rock as it moves down the sheet. The friction from the sweeping causes a small layer of water to form, over which the rock can slide. The sweepers use their brooms to influence the speed and direction of the rock.

When the puck reaches the house, the fourth team member joins in with a broom direct the rock. If the rock reaches halfway through the circle, a member of the opposing team can begin sweeping in order to bring it away from the center.

Teams take turns sending rocks down the ice. After an inning, the team whose rock is closer to the center of the house receives a point. The team with the most points following 10 innings wins the game. If the game is still tied after ten, like baseball, rounds are added until one team can earn more points to win.

When the league started last year, Vardeman said he was looking to find seven other people, so the league could have two teams. Participation far exceeded his expectations, with enough players to comprise 14 teams in the first season, a number which, according to Vardeman, has been “fluctuating up and down” since then. In the current season, there are eight teams participating.

“People just kind of came out and tried. Decided they liked (it) and kept playing,” Vardeman said. “We’re just trying to make it to next year when the Olympics hit.”

He predicts a spike in interest following the 2014 Winter Olympics, and hopes to get newcomers hooked, as they have been in the past.

The current season is four weeks into the ten-week season, and meets on Saturday nights from 6 to 9 p.m. Vardeman says that there will be a shorter and cheaper mini-season soon, with more information coming later this month on TulsaCurlingClub.com.

I am often a fan of the European Union, but the EU clearly still does not understand the Internet and the world of computers. When Google consolidated its many privacy policies into a single policy early last year, it allowed data to be shared across all of Google’s services, which EU regulators say violates EU privacy laws.

Google was never charged with doing anything illegal, but the EU, lead by France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberties (CNIL) continued to use harsh language when talking about the search giant’s privacy policy. CNIL and the EU went so far as to say that the new policy broke the EU’s laws, and encouraged Google to put a hold on the updated policy.

Google has since implemented the policy in spite of the EU, leaving the data regulators unhappy. In October, the EU gave Google until Feb. 18 to fix the problems—as the EU considers them—with the privacy policy. Once again, Google failed to satisfy the EU’s concerns and the EU regulators will be holding a meeting soon to decide the next step in this story.

Google, along with all Internet companies, should not have to deal with these absurd regulations. Google’s business model is almost identical to those of businesses including print media and sports teams, which rely heavily on support advertisements. Unlike a sports team or a print publication, though, the cost to run Google’s business is almost entirely covered by revenue from advertisers.

What distinguishes Google’s business model is that the company is able to collect a large amount of data about its users and more accurately advertise to those users. Sports teams and print media also collect data, but is not on the same scale.

Google is able to analyze all activity, including e-mails, and its users contribute quite a bit of data for Google to analyze every second of the day. The EU regulators are upset that Google has decided to merge dozens of separate data pools into a single user profile.

One way in which Google benefits is that working from a single platform is a lot simpler than working from dozens. It simply requires less work to support one system which spans the entire company than dozens which would have their own rules.

The policy does not just benefit Google, but it also makes advertisers and users happy. I have always been fascinated by big data, and the Internet is truly Big Data—a vast collection of small pools knowledge and information which can be analyzed to show us amazing new things.

Google uses this information to suggest YouTube videos, news stories, and most importantly for the business, to choose the ads we see each time we use the website. This personalized advertising can prove useful to the user, but might not have been possible had Google been unable to scan his or her e-mail.

The advertisers benefit because the money spent on advertising will be better targeted rather than wasted on uninterested eyeballs. Google benefits because it will make even more ad revenue and can create a better experience for the user, who Google hopes will stay on the website and view more advertisements.

Google should respect the users’ wishes and, for example, not steal a person’s cookies without permission, but nearly all data of Google’s data has been willingly provided by its users.

All users signed up and agreed to these terms which allowed Google to use their information to better advertise in exchange for dozens of free services. The EU has no reason to prevent the people from knowingly giving their data to Google.

When Netflix announced that it would be create its own original television series, releasing the entire season at once, there was hope that this could change the way we watch TV over the internet.

“The goal is to become HBO faster than HBO can become us,” said Ted Sarandos, Netflix’s chief content officer. If these new shows were hits and brought in new subscribers, many thought it would prove the future of television was already here.

The first show to be rolled out by Netflix was the Americanized version of the BBC’s 1990s series of the same name, “House of Cards.” The show was pitched to HBO, Showtime and AMC, but Netflix grabbed distribution rights to the first two seasons, 13 episodes per season, for a rumored $100 million.

Originally signed on as creators of the show were David Fincher—the director of movies including “Fight Club,” “The Curious Case of Benjamin Button” and “The Social Network”—and Eric Roth, the screenplay writer of movies including “Forrest Gump,” “Benjamin Button” and “Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close.” The screenplay writer and co-producer of “The Ides of March,” Beau Willimon, was added soon after that.

By the time Netflix planned to announce the new series in March 2011, the show had signed on Kevin Spacey as the lead character, Frank Underwood, a Democratic U.S. Representative from South Carolina and House Majority Whip. Underwood’s wife is played by Robin Wright, who played Jenny in “Forrest Gump,” Princess Buttercup in the “Princess Bride” and countless other characters in many great films.

Underwood had been promised a prominent cabinet possession in the White House for his help in the campaign, but it was taken away from him. He claims that the slight from the White House did not bother him, but in reality he is working against the White House by working for them.

A general rule in acting is to avoid looking into the camera, yet Spacey often stares out of the screen to inform viewers what the person opposite him will do next. As the English teacher might have said, “Show, don’t tell,” a habit that works perfectly for Spacey’s character. Underwood is a great politician and is able to predict the moves of his rivals.

During the final episode of the first season, the show becomes very emotional. Mrs. Underwood has trouble continuing to project her tough personality, while freshman representative Pete Russo is having trouble at home. Some viewers will have tears.

All thirteen episodes of the first season were published to Netflix’s website at the beginning of February. Many jumped on to Netflix to start watching the first episode and could not finish until they had watched all 13.

Yet Netflix is not releasing ratings for the show because they “don’t want to give ratings, because it is a real apples-to-oranges comparison with network ratings,” but has said that “House of Cards” is now its most watched show in every country in which it operates.

One analytic firm estimated that on Feb. 1, up to 2.7 million watched the show and that possibly one third of House of Cards’ viewers finished it during the first weekend in which it aired. It is now the most popular television show on IMDb based on the website’s algorithms, which take into account “public awareness and interest” as well as ratings.

This show is worth watching. For those who do not have Netflix, it offers a month-long free trial. Students should probably wait to finish the first round of college tests and papers, because they will certainly waste a weekend with the show.

If you begin your television sports viewing day between 7am and 9am (Eastern), you get a show called “The ‘Lights” (short for highlights, get it?). It harkens back to what was the best thing about classic SportsCenter on ESPN in that it consists entirely of rapid fire highlights with a sprinkling of pertinent sound bites from all the previous night’s games in all sports. The show is a half hour long and repeats over two hours. That means you’re never more than 30 minutes away from the highlights from any particular game.

(via NBC Sports Network fills a long-empty void for NHL fans as a legitimate alternative to ESPN)

NBSNC has not filled the void of ESPN… yet.

I think the reason hockey fans disliked ESPN at first is because they tossed us aside and we ended up on OLN. That just feels like we’re being told our sport is not good enough to even be on a real sports channel.

But I think the reason we are less happy with ESPN now has evolved. We are still annoyed that they don’t consider us a sport good enough for the “World Wide Leader In Sports.” But I think more hatred has come from how SportsCenter has changed over the years. The Clark J. Brooks, the author of the article, says The Lights is like the old SportsCenter.

There are no feature stories but there are also no talking heads behind a desk practicing schtick and catch-phrases. Best of all, there’s no contrived debates with pundits shouting their “takes” at each other, something that seems to dominate ESPN these days.

These “debates” seem to be what one might find on Fox News (or MSNBC). The network focuses on the stories which benefit their business, bring in people to discuss the topic. Either the analysts agree with the network or the two debate. But the debate is usually between a stronger debater, for the network, and a weaker debater, against the network. And, of course, the network introduced the topic in their own favor and provide more time for their side; not provider enough time for the opposite side to clearly respond and rebuke their points.

When we had that ass who shall not be named claiming the Blackhawks streak was tainted by ties, we got to see how the network works. We never heard in the first bit anything for the ESPN anchor correcting said ass. Finally we get Barry Melrose – who can just thrown ass into the ground – yet he does not. I’m stumped. I think the easiest thing Melrose could have corrected was parity in the NHL vs the NBA. That day, 4th-8th in the west was tied at 24 points.

Darren Pang mentioned that 4th-14th in the west was only separated by 4 points during yesterday’s Blues @ Kings game. That man is awesome. Panger got it. Why doesn’t Melrose? Melrose was swamped trying to fix all of the things ESPN let slide before he got the chance to correct such horrible lies. The ass also seems to just talk way over his opponents. Also, maybe one too many hits to the head for Melrose.

This just reminds me of the crappy thing we call cable “news.” Once upon a time, news had integrity and only the facts meant to enter the discussion. Journalists told us what happened. They questions and got answers. They did not work to prove their point and make money for others. Then cable news showed up and we got arrogant asses yelling at other arrogant asses; literally repeating the same thing 24 hours a day (except on weekends. That is the time for lockup documentaries).

ESPN’s SportsCenter used to show highlights of all the day’s games without injecting opinion into the mix. We saw the beautiful plays in sports and got a summary of all that happened. If there was news, SportsCenter would investigate and get us answers; hold the leagues and players accountable. Now we get people making up crap to prove their sport is better.

Cable news and ESPN are simply propagandist machines. They say what some part of society would like to hear simply to help themselves. Their is no actual journalism; there isn’t even documenting the day’s events. They simply discuss one topic to an extreme to drive home what is important to the network; hopeful that their viewers will trust the network and come along too.

That is why NHL fans hate ESPN even more. We hate news which is not actually news. We want to know the news of the sports world. SportsCenter once provider that and now they only share one sided opinions for their benefit. It has worked for ESPN the same way it worked for Fox News and MSNBC. People like to be be told what they believe is true to an extreme. Until enough people think hockey is just as good or better than the NBA or the NFL or those few college sports teams, hockey won’t be on ESPN or SportsCenter.

NBC Sports Network might be nice, but it is the MSNBC to the Fox News of sports, ESPN. NBCSN will tell us what we want to hear, but most people will be stuck on ESPN. I need to check out this The Lights though. If it really is only highlights, I would love it. The reason I once watched SportsCenter every morning before school.

Maybe if someone can ever finally disrupt the television industry (please do it, Apple!), a Pandora of highlight reels can come to exist. Know the sports and teams we like. Show the popular and truly impress highlights from outside our comfort zone. Build from there to show us the clips we want to see. Might isolate us even more if done incorrectly, but Pandora-like services are great for discovery if done right. I can dream.

PS Cox needs to bring NBCSN to our dorm. The other dorms get NBCSN, but we don’t.

TL;DR: ESPN’s SportsCenter no longer has the sports journalistic integrity it once had by excessive talk on a single subject, weighted debates and a lack of top plays in all sports. ESPN took the cable news path by trading journalistic integrity for money. This expands the reason hockey fans hate ESPN, but still is not the only reason.

EDIT: Sports journalism is real and analysis should exist. Just check newspapers. But ESPN, like Fox News, acts as news while expressing a partisan issue. Unlike The Daily Show and Colbert Report, both of which act as news to parody the news (particularly cable news), outlets like ESPN and Fox News act like news to express an opinion.

There are lots of things I want that I can’t have because I lack the resources like a Viking range, a BMW X5 and washboard abs. Doesn’t mean I’m allowed to go out and steal them. Same goes for music, movies and video games. Just because I want the content and it’s convenient to steal doesn’t mean I should.

(via Studios Need To Replace BitTorrent, but users have to stop stealing)

There are two types of pirates: those who steal because they do not want to pay for the content and those who pirate because they do not have access to the content. If I wanted to go and buy a BMX X5, I’m pretty sure that BWM would be happy to “Shut up and take my money.”

I am still waiting on MLB to let me watch St. Louis Cardinals baseball from Tulsa, Oklahoma. At least they are on the local TV down here, so all I would need to do would be purchase a TV, but I have a computer. I would love to subscribe to HBO starting March 31st, but they won’t take my money either. Living in a dorm, I cannot just get a cable subscription run into my room. I also cannot subscribe online. 

I do not care to wait a year to watch the next season after Twitter spends Sunday nights spoiling each and every episode. John Gruber said this nice little bit about Apple’s business.

I have long argued that Apple’s business model is simple and seemingly obvious: make high-quality products that people want to buy and sell them for a profit. 

(via Apple as Bumblebee)

I would like to add that Apple makes it easy to buy stuff. Most everything on TV is crap, but there are some shows which I am willing to buy (and I do. Check my bank account). I still do not understand why I television networks and cable providers are against making great products and selling them easily to users (including me) for a profit….like Apple. 

Yes, I brought this back to Apple. Shut up.

I was skipping through the channels a couple of years ago when I came across a strange event on NBC that caught my eye. Four people dressed in hockey gear wear flying up and down hills, over jumps and around tight corners.

The sport is called downhill ice cross and the event is called Red Bull Crashed Ice, part of the Red Bull Signature Series. The goal of downhill ice cross is similar to those of ski cross and snowboard cross: the athlete’s aim is to race along a fixed downhill path on skates. The sport is barely more than a decade old, having begun with Red Bull sponsorship. The first Crashed Ice event was in Stockholm, Sweden in 2001, and one event was held annually following.

Red Bull has been a fantastic sponsor for the sport. They have negotiated a TV deal with NBC which helps spread awareness of the sport, and have paid to build the custom tracks. Red Bull goes even farther by not only abstaining from charging an entry fee, but also paying the travel costs for all contestants, including cash award prizes for the top eight finishers. This allows many people to participate in the sport who otherwise could not have.

Cities also seem to love the event. The New York Times reported that the 2012 St. Paul event brought in $20 million for the city.

Beginning in 2010, multiple events were held each year, with points awarded by place finish in an event. After the end of each downhill ice cross season, a world champion is crowned by points won. The current ice cross world champion is Kyle Croxal.

There will be five Crashed Ice events this year. The first was held on Dec. 1 in Niagara Falls, Canada, the second is St. Paul, Minn. on Jan. 26 and the third event in Landgraaf, the Netherlands last Saturday. The fourth will be held in Lausanna, Switzerland on March 2nd and the final event for the year will be held in Quebec City, Canada on March 16.

Events last for three days, the first two of which serve to filter down the number of competitors to 64 skaters. Each heat features four skates; the first and second place finish in each heat advance to the next round. The final day’s event lasts about two hours. At St. Paul this year, about 115,000 people showed up for the free event to cheer on the many Americans, many of whom were, unsurprisingly  from Minnesota Only 80,000 people showed up for the Crashed Ice in St. Paul the previous year.

Even though Red Bull has a deal with NBC to air the Crashed Ice events, the events do not air live on NBC, but rather are streamed live on RedBull.tv. NBC aired the event held in Niagara Falls, Canada the afternoon before the Crashed Ice event in St. Paul was held. The victor of the Niagara Falls Crashed Ice was the current world champion, Kyle Croxal.

For anyone interested in viewing a new sport on the rise, there are many great compilations on YouTube, and the event from St. Paul will be aired on NBC this Saturday at 3 p.m.

Few people will admit to doing something something good for a bad reason. Many of the University of Tulsa’s students will be participating in Service Day this weekend, but doing so for motives other than simple altruism.

Community service should not be about four hours of work coupled with the promise of free food, a sweatshirt and making oneself look better on paper to employers. It should also not be about making the university look better in the eyes of prospective students and outside groups judging our school.

Many of the students working to make Service Day a success genuinely believe they are making our neighborhood a better place. Unfortunately, other motives exist. My skepticism about the ulterior motives of Service Day comes from two places: my own experience volunteering and the length of Service Day.

In the summer of 2010, I volunteered at the Magic House, a children’s museum, for several reasons. The first was that my lawn care work dies down in the summer as the heat rolls into town.

I did not have a summer job, and I had been told that volunteering at the Magic House was a great way to earn a job the following summer. Other people had used this strategy, and it worked for them. I am clearly not the only person to have volunteered to boost my employment prospects.

Another reason was to put community service hours on my college transcript, something many people do to improve their college applications. If you were not one of the people who did service for the sake of application, and doubt that others do this, just search “community service college application” on Google. A week of community service was required in eighth grade and a month of was called for in the month before graduation.

I did other volunteer work because it sounded like a good—and also fun—thing to do. I have collected cans and been a buddy at the Special Olympics. There are many hardworking volunteers who spend countless hours of their time making the world a better place, but I know most of my community service work was for more for my benefit than for others.

A person preparing for Service Day only commits to four hours of work. In addition, some other organization set it up, as opposed to the person discovering an organization in which he or she already sees value. By finding a service opportunity independently, a person demonstrates a conviction that the organization deserves service time, and often commits to volunteering free time for months, if not years. I cannot help but think of my own volunteer work and compare.

Service Day is too full of people working to get free things, to look better in the eyes of others and convince themselves they have helped the community. I see our university sponsoring this day because it makes the school look better to outsiders. The caring students supposedly help create a nicer community around the school and possibly a safer campus.

The way we think about community service has changed from helping others to helping ourselves by helping others. This should not be the reasons we do a Service Day. In fact, I say Service Day should not exist. Rather, the school should do more work to help students find volunteer work in and around our community whenever possible.

The crazy people at the Collegian, the student paper at The University of Tulsa, let me write stuff. This article below was featured in the Jan. 28th issue. (link to article coming soon)

The National Hockey League returned to the ice on Jan. 19 after owners locked out for 119 days because the league and players could not agree how to share revenue. This was the third stoppage—one of which wiped out an entire season—since Gary Bettman left the NBA to become the NHL’s league commissioner in 1993.
Following the  2004-2005 lockout that which wiped out the entire season, fans were angry, and some teams in non-traditional hockey cities had trouble bringing them back. In the seasons following the second lockout, attendance has returned and TV ratings and revenue have dramatically increased.

Credit has often been given to Bettman for bringing hockey back to broadcast TV, leading the league into a better financial standing and increasing the sport’s popularity.

When the first games were canceled for the 2012-2013 season, fans were worried and upset that the entire season would be missed once again. Only seven seasons had been played since the last lockout, and neither league nor players seemed to want to work with the other.
As is typical with hockey fans, worried and upset quickly transformed into angry. The players received unhappy remarks for being well-paid yet fighting for money, but most of the criticism was directed at Bettman and the owners.
The attacks went so far that one fan tweeted “can I get a RT for wanting Bettman dead?” which was retweeted by Dave Bolland of the Chicago Blackhawks. Bolland quickly deleted the tweet, apologized and said “It was a mistake, I never meant to retweet that out.” Clearly, though, there was anger with Bettman and the league.
Other than death threats to Bettman, responses have included fans threatening to leave the league. A group of fans from Los Angeles created “Just Drop It,” a pledge backed by over 21,000 people on Facebook to boycott the same number of NHL games canceled since Dec. 21, in hopes of creating an organized and easier-to-follow “eye for an eye” retaliation than an indefinite boycott.
Both sides had finally come to an agreement on Jan. 6, and completed a deal on Jan. 12, followed by the immediate release of a 48-game schedule, reduced from the regular 82-game season. The “Just Drop It” pledge stated fans should miss ten games before returning to the NHL. The league and players had to hope fans and sponsors would return.
A few sponsors have, and some, such as Molson Coors, are looking to be recompensed for missing nearly half of the season. Luckily for the NHL though, it seems that hockey fans have returned without demands. Granted, we are only through the first week of games after a long lockout, but high attendance records were set opening weekend in traditional hockey and non-hockey cities.

As of Jan. 26, 21 of the league’s 30 teams have sold out, and 12 of the 21, including non-traditional hockey cities such as Columbus, Ohio; Miami; Anaheim, Calif.; and Los Angeles have over-sold all home games played. Only Phoenix is below 90 percent attendance.

Excluding the Winter Classic, NBC’s opening-day coverage was the highest-rated hockey game ever on the network and highest since ABC carried the NHL in 2002. Local broadcast records were set on NBC in Philadelphia, Pittsburg and Chicago.

The Kings raised their Stanley Cup banner in the Staples Center to the highest rating since 2007. The first Blues vs. Predators game was the highest-rated Blues game on Fox Sports Midwest ever.

It is unlikely the league can keep attendance and ratings this high until the playoffs in May and June, but teams have been offering discounts on tickets, merchandise and concessions among other incentives to bring back fans and keep them.

The Internet was abuzz Jan. 12 with the news that 26-year-old Aaron Swartz was found dead in his apartment. He had hung himself the day prior.

Swartz was born in Chicago to a father who worked in the computer industry. He became interested in computers at a young age. One of his first achievements was co-authoring the RSS 1.0 specification—a tool for publishing blogs, podcasts and more to the web—at the age of 14.

Swartz’s work gives more people a voice on the Internet. In 2010, he founded Demand Progress, an organization to help organize a fight again PIPA, SOPA and other acts from the government and private groups which would censor the Internet.

Shortly after the acquisition of his company by the publishers of “Wired” magazine, he was forced out of the company because, as he wrote in 2007, “I was miserable. I couldn’t stand San Francisco. I couldn’t stand office life … I got sick. I thought of suicide.”

Swartz struggled with depression, and many people were aware of his illness. His death has started to get people in the tech industry to discuss depression more openly in hopes of being better able to support others suffering from the condition. Sam Altman, current executive vice president of Mobile at Green Dot, said that depression is “a major issue, and it’s one of the least talked about things in the Valley.”

Swartz was willing to speak publicly about his depression, but help was inadequate. The time for people in Silicon Valley to more openly acknowledge depression should have started long ago, but at least it seems they are learning from the mistakes of the past. Hopefully the words will turn into long-term, meaningful actions.

But talk of depression is not the reason the Internet was abuzz these last few days. Rather, people were furious with the federal government, particularly with Carmen Ortiz, the U.S. Attorney for the U.S. District Court for Massachusetts, and Stephen Heymann and Scott L. Garland, assistant U.S. Attorneys in that district.

The Attorney’s office charged Swartz for crimes including, but not limited to “Recklessly Damaging a Computer,” “Theft of Information From A Computer” and “Computer Fraud” under the Computer Fraud and Abuse Act from 1986 and with “Wire Fraud.” These charges could have landed Swartz in jail for up to 35 years and earned up to a $1 million fine.

After Swartz’s death, these charges were dropped, but they should never have been brought against Swartz to begin with. MSNBC’s Chris Hayes said the charges stemmed from Swartz “downloading too many free articles from the online database of scholarly work JSTOR.”

Though prosecution maintained Swartz had intended to illegally distribute these free articles, he had not shared them and JSTOR was not seeking that charges be filed, yet Swartz was still charged.

According to Swartz’s attorney, Heymann was “pursuing federal charges against Swartz to gain publicity,” and was “very, very difficult to deal with.” Swartz’s father has even gone as far as to say that his son was “killed by the government.”

The U.S. Attorney’s office was pushing a sick man into a corner. Because of their thickheadedness, we lost a brilliant individual who has contributed to keeping the Internet open for all and providing a voice for those who once did not have one. Rep. Darrell Issa (R-CA), Chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee and a man with whom I rarely agree, plans to do the right thing and investigate how the attorneys involved handled this case.

Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D-CA) has proposed changing Computer Fraud and Abuse Act to be less broad and contain less severe punishments, and is drafting a new bill she calls Aaron’s Law, that would contain “broader measures to improve copyright law that are separate from” the bill to amend the CFAA.

It is important to let our representatives in Washington know that we do not support the actions of these attorneys, our attorneys, in this case. Let them know that we do not support these laws which can restrict our access to free and open works. Make sure that they understand that we will not tolerate trials for politics. A death like Swartz’s should never happen again.

Forbes recently projected revenue conferences would generate this school year through network television deals, bowl games and NCAA tournaments. The Big 12 is expected to earn $262 million, which averages to $26.2 million for each of the 10 schools – the highest per-team average of any conference. 

(via The Tulsa World)

Honestly shocked that the Big 12 is making the most per school in the TV deals.

Bowlsby said there is evidence that dictates the league stay at 10 schools, and other that suggests getting bigger.

The question becomes, “Who else could the Big 12 add even if they wanted to add teams?” The Big 12 would want a school with an athletic program which can bring in more revenue and one which would not lower the quality of play in the conference. A bonus to the conference would be one which is also good academically. Any team which qualifies the necessary requirements to join the Big 12 has already moved or was already in the conference which best fits them.

This leaves schools from the Big East and below. I am still not sure where those Big East basketball only schools are going, but it is not the Big 12. Granted, with time and revenue from the Big 12′s media deals, a school could provide a higher quality team, but it is still unlikely that it would then have an increase in revenue enough to please the conference.

Stick with the ten teams the conference has now. Stay open to expansion if another school’s athletic program begins to approach the revenue and quality of play the Big 12 needs, but do not go hunting for something that is not there.

**I have more thoughts on this and reasons I believe these things, but each time I typed them on my computer, they did not seem to come out perfectly. I figure it would be best to get my point across followed by a discussion on Twitter or Facebook discussion whether or not people agree with my ideas and give me time to better formulate my ideas. This also gives me a chance to see if others are thinking the Big 12 should not expand as I do.

Ironically, the least important aspect of Wednesday’s numbers are the numbers themselves. What the market really needs to see with Apple now (after the stock’s nearly 30% drubbing since mid-September) is that it has a compelling future rather than a desperate one — one with a new, hot, innovative product rather than a rehash of aging products.

(Via. Crazy People)

I did not know that iPad has been out for so damn long. It has not even been three years since the release. Most companies do not release something completely revolutionary every year. There was three years between the iPhone’s release and the iPad’s release. There was six years between the iPod and the iPhone. I think Wall Street needs to learn about patience.

Even if Apple was ready to release new things, it is not a great idea to release a bunch of new stuff all at once. For one, there is a ceiling for how much people can spend on Apple products at once. Even if there was more to be spent, maybe Wall Street just wants Apple to have more money in the bank, so that Apple can just dish it out to investors. I think they want Apple’s $140 billion now, rather than over time.

Greedy bastards.

Apple reported better-than-expected earnings, but its revenue fell slightly short of forecasts during the crucial holiday quarter.

Wall Street really should learn not to be so damn stupid. How the hell can a quarter be better than expected, but still fall short of the forecast. The way I read it, there are two possibilities. 

1) Either you all do not pay attention to your own work; saying whatever the hell you want.

2) You’re idiots.

Personally, I believe both. Scums also works for me too (watch Jan. 22nd’s episode of Frontline).

It also seems like that every time that Apple has an earnings report, Apple misses the forecast. These are almost always Wall Street’s forecasts, not Apple’s own forecasts though. Apple tends to under sell their earnings and profit, but Wall Street tends to over sell. My question is this: “Which forecast is CNBC looking at here?” I’m having trouble discovering Apple’s own forecasts though. Anyone want to help me out?

It may be because he speaks slowly and pauses a lot, all of which drives my fast-talking-Italian-New-York-native-self up a wall.

(Via Hypercritical)

I was sort of shocked to read this (old) John Siracusa blog post because during his podcast, Hypercritical, he has referenced Steve Jobs at WWDC in 1997 multiple times. Jobs often pauses too. One would assume that he is thinking before he opens his mouth which is also what I picture Barack Obama doing when he pauses while speaking too.

UPDATE: Pausing is something I really should do before writing or speaking.

Then today I see that magic that is Glenn Beck. To quote from his website (link),

What are the American Dream Labs building towards? Glenn gave a look at the big picture that everything is building towards: Independence, USA!

While Independence is very much a dream at this point, the proposed city-theme park hybrid would bring several of Glenn’s seemingly disconnected projects into one place.

Notice some amazing similarities? The only thing Glenn needs to do now is get a red nose, crazy hair, big shoes and succeed.

With iTunes 11, now us lazy asses can at least see all of our TV shows and movies in iTunes without having to download them which is damn magical. But I still feel horrible wasting, so much to buy a movie and because it costs way too much to rent for 24 hours, I feel like renting is a dumb idea because it is only about 1/3 of the cost of the movie and I may end up buying the movie later.  It got me thinking, why not rent movies and offer to put that rental fee towards the purchase of the film. It would be like Complete My Album and Complete My Season. If I spend some money for part of an album or season, I don’t want to repay for it again. I would love movies to work the same way.

It doesn’t have to be Apple offering this either. Amazon, Google, Microsoft, etc., I don’t care. I know though that I would be much more likely to be renting purchasing and purchasing movies from the web which I hope is what the movie studios would like me to be doing.

Link because the embed won’t work.

On Wednesday night, U.S. Representative Mickey Edwards spoke in Chapman Hall, offering ways to reduce gridlock in Washington.

For eight terms, Edwards represented Oklahoma’s Fifth District in the U.S. House of Representatives. After leaving the House in 1993, he continued to be involved in American politics, working with conservative groups, writing books and newspaper columns and teaching at universities.

Edwards recently released his new book, “The Parties Versus the People: How to Turn Republicans and Democrats into Americans,” which explains his plan for fixing Washington. On Wednesday, he gave the audience in Chapman Hall a sample of his thinking.

He began by arguing that the reason the parties are so divided is because the party system rewards divisiveness. Edwards gave examples of primary races in which a small portion of the population voted for a candidate in a primary election, such as the race between Mike Castle and Christine O’Donnell to replace Joe Biden in the Senate.

O’Donnell received 30,000 votes in a state of one million, enough to win her primary, because in primary elections, the “the hyper-partisan, ideological zealots” are the people that turn out to vote, Edwards said. The two-party system, he said, leaves voters to choose between two candidates on the extreme ends of the political spectrum.

He suggested following the lead of states such as Washington by hosting an open-ticket primary in which the top candidates in the primary from any party are on the general-election ballots. He also objects to the “sore loser” laws in 46 states which prevent a loser from a primary ballot from appearing on a general election ballot. His argument against these laws was that they prevent the middle of the political spectrum from appearing on the ballots.
What might have made Edwards the most upset was redistricting. After he became the first Republican in Oklahoma since the 1920’s, Congress changed the boundaries of his district to go from Oklahoma City to the Kansas board and halfway to Arkansas. This put more Republicans in an already red district.
He believes the Constitution requires a representative to live in the place he or she represents, so that the representative may know the needs of the people. By moving his district, he represented people whose needs he could not understand. He says that this provided for poor representation purely to keep fewer Republicans in office.
He attacked the party system because “the checks and balances has been eroded to serve the advantages of the party.” He argues that our first four presidents know that permanent parties would destroy our republic and that would should have temporary factions instead.
At the end, the audience was able to ask Edwards a few questions. When asked if he believes the next two years will be more productive that the last two even though the political map is virtually the same, Edwards remarks that it depend on the lessons learned by the parties.

He hopes that this will be a wake-up call for the Republican Party, which was unable to defeat a president with a weak economy and finally understand that compromise is needed in Washington. But he also hopes that Barack Obama can understand he barely won re-election and must look to the other side for policies.

An audience member wondered how to bring about this movement the politicians to the middle. His response was simple: if we do not like how Washington is run, we must challenge our representatives in Washington because we can throw them out of their job. Edwards believes we ultimately hold the power as we are not subjects, we are citizens. “They (the politicians) are afraid of you,” he said.

I like math. Especially when it is important math. That is a big reason why I loved election night and cannot wait for 2016. Of course, I also loved election night because I am a Barack Obama supporter, but following the numbers all night long was a blast.
Since 2006, I have had a computer by my side each election night with pages from such sources as the New York Times and CNN loaded up, providing me with excessive amounts of information. This year I almost entirely relied on the Times. I kept nearly a half-dozen tabs open on my browser throughout the evening.
These tabs were filled with the numbers from the presidential race, many congressional races, and races from my home state of Missouri. As happens every year, I was hooked on the numbers. People complain that math is not useful in the real world, but on election night, it really does matter.
The New York Times had a web app which showed the 512 different ways the election could have turned out, depending on how the major swing states went. Just a few states could mean 512 different outcomes for the election. It still fascinates me.
As election day approaches, I also tend to follow the polls a bit more closely. The right was claiming that the polls were skewed in favor of Democrats and that Five Thirty-Eight Blog’s Nate Silver prediction that Obama had about a 90 percent of winning was just absurd. Silver uses averages and weights different polls to come to his conclusion. I was hoping to see that his math would come through.
Amazingly, Silver predicted the way every state would go, and was wrong in only one senate election. I am looking forward to following his polls in 2014 and 2016. Both years look like they could be difficult for Democrats.
Before Silver was involved in politics, he was a baseball statistician. Yes, baseball and politics are a lot alike. Both involve a lot of numbers and math. Anyone that has seen Moneyball knows that baseball, like politics, is heavily influenced by math.
Both have big stars. Whether it be Matt Cain and Stan the Man from baseball or Obama and Chris Christie from politics, these people are beloved by millions. Then there are the small people playing in the minor leagues or working in state legislatures.
The great difference between the people in baseball stars and politicians is that the action of the latter are meaningful in the long run. While ball players may do community service or ask for donations or inspire kids, they do not determine the taxes we pay, the quality of the roads on which we drive and whether or not we will fight a war.
This is why the politics excite me—the numbers mean absolutely everything. They decide what will and will not happen in the coming years.
I am extra excited for the next two elections. The numbers will show just how productive Washington will be after 2014 and right now, it does not look good. No one knows where we will be in 2016, and that is the most interesting part of it.

Even though four years might not seem like a long time, and elections seem to run on forever, there is still a lot that could happen before the campaigning actually begins.

Through the last few months, the campaigns of Mitt Romney and Barack Obama have been trying to convince the American people that their administrations would lead this country in dramatically different directions over the next four years.

In reality, the politics of both candidates are actually amazingly similar. The campaigns and the media have been driving discussion of the minute differences between in the two plans and blowing those ideas out of proportion.

I will be voting for President Obama because I believe his plan for the next four years would lead this country to a better place than Romney’s would. I do not agree with many of Obama’s policies, but there are a few more of Romney’s policies with which I disagree. Simply, I am voting for what I consider the lesser of two evils.

The Obama and Romney administrations will be similar to many previous presidencies. While some laws and taxes will be changed, just visiting the basement of the McFarlin Library can demonstrate the enormous number of laws and other policies the U.S. government has on file. As with most presidencies, nearly all of these will be left unaffected, so that our government will operate almost identically to how it has these last four years.

Romney has proposed changes to Obama’s health care reform law, but says he supports most of ObamaCare’s reforms, like the ban on denial of coverage for pre-existing conditions. The only noticeable difference I see between his plan and Obama’s is that Romney would allow insurance to be purchased across state lines and remove the mandate to buy health care.

In the 1990’s, The Heritage Foundation, a conservative think tank, proposed a health care mandate as an alternative to the universal health care system proposed by liberals, including President Bill Clinton. In Massachusetts, Romney worked with the heavily Democratic state legislature to pass health care reform with an individual mandate.

Obama, erring on the side of bipartisanship, brought in many of the same people that worked with Romney in Massachusetts to help propose a bill that both parties could pass. Neither liberals nor conservatives would like this bill, as it sat in the middle of the political spectrum. Most conservatives preferred less government interference in the private sector, while many liberals would have prefered a single-payer system.

Both men are also committed to keeping our military as the largest in the world. Obama likes to talk about the new ships Romney would build for the navy, while Romney targets Obama’s proposed cuts in military spending. While building ships for the navy might look expensive, in comparison to the amount of money our government already spends every year, the cost is small. Obama’s cuts to the military are similarly small compared to total military spending. We could reduce military spending by $150 billion per year and still spend more than the next 10 largest military budgets combined.

Both men are still also invested in keeping us involved militarily around the world. Romney has suggested that we should be more involved in Syria, and not be bound to a timeline for withdrawal from Afghanistan. Obama has continued to use the morally questionable drone strikes in sovereign nations and has declared any male of combat age as a combatant, to keep the recorded civilian death toll low.

Both men would like to reduce taxes on nearly every American. The difference between the two policies involves only a small fraction of Americans. Romney would lower taxes on the wealthiest Americans while Obama would require them to pay a little more money. Both Romney and Obama say they would close tax loopholes.

Romney and Obama also both support investing in new roads and other infrastructure. Both would like to invest more in energy in an attempt to make America to energy-independent. Romney’s plan would lean more heavily on traditional fuels, while Obama’s plan would include more alternative energy sources, such as wind and solar. However, men though would still invest in traditional and alternative energy forms.

Neither man would lead America off of a cliff immediately. I happen to believe that Obama would drive the car there a little bit more slowly than Romney. We have been coerced by campaigns and the media into seeing these two candidates are our only options, as though they have polar opposite policies and outlooks for this country.

We actually have more options with third-party candidates that have a wider array of policy differences than than Obama and Romney. These candidates offer greater change and could get us off of this highway.

The big Internet companies — Apple, Amazon, Google — are all pursuing a ‘walled garden’ approach, where they hope to do so much for their customers that they will never leave (Maybe it should be called a ‘Hotel California’ strategy).

I’m pretty sure that is the best name for a strategy I have ever heard!

(via Apple and the Desire for Control – NYTimes.com)

But Silver has exposed those guys for what they are, which is propagandists and entertainers.

Yeah, the media sort of sucks.

(via Why Nate Silver Won, And Why It Matters)

The device’s launch marks a new chapter for the Cupertino, Calif., tech giant as it sells its first major new device since the death of its co-founder, Steve Jobs, last year. It is also part of the largest product push Apple has had ahead of a holiday season in its recent history.

I don’t think I’d call it the “first major new device” because it isn’t that big. It is just another model of the iPad. I don’t believe anyone would call another screen size for a laptop or desktop a “major new device” and this is no different. What will be major is whatever Apple has up their sleeve for the spring and summer of 2013. I don’t think they can just got an entire year without introducing a new product to bring in a lot of money (the Macs don’t bring in a lot of money).

(via Apple Kicks Off iPad Mini Sales Stores – WSJ.com: )

When we vote on Nov. 6th, we won’t actually be voting for the president of the United States, rather, we will be voting for someone that will vote for the person we want to be elected the next president.

The Constitution gives states as many electors as they have seats in Congress—that is at least three electors—and the District of Columbia is given three electors because of the 23rd Amendment. In total, 538 electors are chosen on election night.

Some electors actually end up representing more voters than others because of the way electoral votes are awarded to each state. States get a minimum of three votes, even though some states are so small that one or two electors would represent them if the number of electors were distributed by population.

Because some states are awarded extra votes, votes in some states are actually less valuable. For example, if Electoral College votes were distributed by population, Texas would receive an extra six electors and California would receive another 10. These 16 votes from only two states are redistributed to smaller states such as Rhode Island and Wyoming. That is a redistribution of wealth behind which I am unable to stand.

As certain states are valued more, the value of a person’s vote is decreased in larger states and increased in smaller ones. The Electoral College values those people voting in Oklahoma, Kansas and Arkansas more than those voting in Texas and Missouri. As a Missourian, I am very upset that my roommate from Arkansas has more say in outcome of this election that I do. Votes should count the same in a democratic society.

The Electoral College system was created to prevent the candidates from only campaigning in and introducing policies that supported the larger cities and states. The goal of the founders was to create a system that would protect the smaller states from larger states.

Each political party in every state must pick a pool of people that they would like to vote for their candidate. In nearly every state, these people, supporting whichever candidate wins the popular vote, become that state’s electors. All except two states award their electors in a “winner takes all” manner.

By removing this “winner take all” system, we could ensure that our candidates are campaigning to people by increasing the number of undecided voters that still have value from just a select few in some states to every undecided voter. We have 51 metropolitan areas with more than a million people. The candidates would have to visit many hundreds of cities to reach all of these undecided votes he or she needs.
Even if you believe that smaller states need “affirmative action,” the Electoral College has failed to make small states relevant. In the last two months of the 2008 election, Barack Obama and John McCain only visited 18 different states, and nearly half of the campaign events were in Ohio, Florida and Pennsylvania.

Of the 18 states visited, most of the small states were skipped over. Big states such as New York, Texas and California were also skipped. Candidates will not campaign as much or at all in states that are traditionally “red” or “blue” because they already know the states are either won or lost and they will receive the same number of electors no matter how many more votes they receive.

This leaves “swing states“ for the campaigns to canvass. Even though the races are close in these states, each state will award its electors to only one candidate, adding a large value to the few remaining undecided votes.

The biggest failing of this insane system is that we are actually able to elect a president when he or she has actually not won the popular vote. Excluding the election of 1824, in which the popular vote was not tallied and some state legislators chose the electors, three times in our country’s short history a candidate has won the popular vote yet lost the election. The first time in 1876, again in 1888 and most recently in 2000 when Al Gore lost to George W. Bush.

As pointed out by C.G.P. Grey, this means that for about every twenty elections we hold, there is one election that goes to the candidate that lost; a failure rate around five percent.

We should pass an amendment to the Constitution changing the way we elect a president. Every vote should counts the same, and the winner of an election should be the winner of the people’s vote each and every time.

The Tulsa Oilers ice hockey team hosted the Quad City Mallards for the home opener of their 2012–2013 season Friday night at the BOK Center.

The Oilers were looking to come out strong in front of 5,400 fans, including St. Louis Cardinals shortstop and Owasso native Pete Kozma, after their 8–2 loss last Saturday to the Wichita Thunder. The puck was in the Oilers’ zone for the majority of the first ten minutes, but about halfway through first period, the Oilers’ Drew Fisher put the puck in the back of the net, and the arena filled with excitement.

That joy was short lived, though, as the Mallards returned with two quick goals within five minutes. The Oilers kept the pressure on for the rest of the period and had many chances to score, but were unable to get past the Mallards’ goalie. At the end of the first, the Oilers but were losing 2–1 despite more shots on goal.

The Oilers didn’t let off the pressure going into the second period. Tense words were exchanged, bodies were thrown and tussles started, but the officials kept the players under control. Near the end of the second period, Oiler Gary Steffes knocked the puck out of the zone and passed past the Mallard defense to David Alexandre Beauregard who skated down the ice on a breakaway. The puck flew over the shoulder of the Mallard’s goalie and into the upper, right-hand corner of the net, tying the score.

The spirits of the Oilers and their fans were riding high, but only moments later, the Mallards replied with a goal of their own after the Oilers failed to clear the puck from their own zone. The period ended with worry brewing among the fans.

Four minutes into the third period, Steffes was back in action for the Oilers. Michel Beausoleil had a breakaway, but shot the puck wide. It came off of the board right to Steffes, who stuffed the puck under the Mallard goalie’s pads to tie the game at three.

Regulation time was running out and neither team could score. Players and fans were getting tense. The play was getting more physical and some fans on the extreme were wanting blood, but the players kept calm and continued to play until the end of regulation with the score once again tied at three apiece.

So began a five minute, sudden-death overtime period. The Oilers could not clear their zone and the Mallards took advantage. With just 32 seconds until a shootout, the Mallards snuck the puck past Oiler goalie Dan Bakala to claim two points in the standing, leaving the Oilers with one point and a loss.

The team faced the Mallards again on Saturday night in Quad City, Iowa. The Oilers handily beat the Mallards 4-1 after taking an early 2-0 nothing lead in the first period. On Sunday afternoon, the Oilers took their first home victory against the Fort Worth Brahmas. With this victory, the Oilers are now in first place in the CHL.

The team will travel to Dallas this week to play against the Allen Americans on Wednesday and Friday nights before returning home to play the Americans once again on Saturday night at 7:35 at the BOK Center.

Though the NHL lockout continues, Tulsans need not be deprived of their hockey fix. The Tulsa Oilers, the city’s professional hockey team that plays in the lower-tier Central Hockey League, kicked off their season Friday and Saturday night in Wichita, Kansass against the Wichita Thunder. Hopes are high for the team, which is coming off a .500 season last year and a perfect record in the preseason.

Friday night started well for the Oilers, who quickly gained a 3-0 lead over the Thunder. The Thunder was not out of the game, though, and managed to score twice in the three minutes after the Oilers scored their third goal.

With about two minutes left in the third and final period, the Oilers’ Ryan Cramer scored a goal from Matt Gingera, but the Thunder replied almost immediately with another puck in the Oilers’ goal. The Oilers were able cling to their threatened lead for the rest of the game and come away with the win with a final score of 4-3.

The next night the Oilers were looking to start their season with a 2-0 record. With two exciting fights to kick off the game, everyone at the Intrust Bank Arena in Wichita was pumped. The Oilers were the first to strike when Matt Register scored 10 minutes into the game, but could not keep the Thunder down as they replied with a goal one minute later and then another two minutes after that.

The period ended with a 2-1 lead for the Thunder. From there, everything went downhill for the Oilers, who had one of their goals waved off and gave up five more goals to the Thunder. In the third, the Oilers could only grab one more goal and ended up losing to the Wichita Thunder by a score of 8-2.

The Oilers will return to Tulsa for their home opener next weekend to host the Quad City Mallards on Friday night at 7:35 p.m. at the BOK Center, then travel to Quad City for a game on Saturday night and return to Tulsa to play the Texas Brahmas on Sunday at 4:05 p.m. Because the Oilers are in the less popular CHL, their ticket prices are astonishingly low, so seats close to the ice are easily acquired.

Another plus of the the Oilers playing in the CHL is that the players have everything to prove to the teams in the higher-tier leagues like the American Hockey League and the top-tier National Hockey League.

Players in the CHL tend to try to demonstrate that they are tough by throwing big body checks and participating in fights. Fighting is not severely punished, as in other sports, unless the rules of hockey fighting are broken. These fights create extra excitement and add appeal for fans and players on both teams.

Tulsans looking for something to do next Friday night who would like to watch a sport faster than basketball, rougher than football and as tactical as soccer, with players whose hand-eye coordination rivals that of baseball players, can head down to the BOK Center to watch the Oilers take on the Mallards.

UPass, a new partnership between Webster University and Metro Transit, offers free public transportation for Webster University students, faculty and staff.

Count me as jealous. One of the biggest plus factors of The University of Denver was their deal with the local, public transit agency which provided free, public transit to all students. Happy to see that more schools are treating similar deals with their local transit agencies. If Tulsa actually had decent public transit, I would beg for a similar deal here, but I really do not want to wait an hour for a bus that only will go to a few places.

It should also increase ridership which is great for Metro. Too bad cities in the US haven’t started doing what this French city did (link). “Free” public transit for all. Of course everyone pays in the form of taxes, but why not use it if one has already paid for it? It will increase public transit use and lower our carbon foot print! It sure will be a great day when more people use public transit, bikes or even commute by foot than by cars.

(via Webster University Partners with Metro Transit on UPass Program | Webster University)

http://www.zomato.xxx/ 

Will: Who we call The King. Will is Liam’s roommate, he is from St. Louis. Which is the only topic of discussion he talks about besides Apple products. He spends most of his time on his computer which we have re-named The Queen. We decided to call him The King because of his middle name which is Arthur. We soon became the sets of roommates you would always find together. 

Pretty damn accurate.

(Via Bri and Emily’s Shenanagians)

For one, Apple wants to make a profit on their hardware while Amazon & Google want to make a profit on their content, so they sell the hardware at or below cost. Then again, the materials to make the iPad mini do likely cost more, but it isn’t $130, $170, or $230 mores.

For anyone that has ever owned even a computer with iTunes installed, the price of owning either device could drop quite fast. This is even more true if this person has owned an iPod, and then even more so if they’ve owned an iPod touch or iPhone and drastically true if they have owned an iPad.

Why is this? Because they have bought into the ecosystem that Apple has sold. Because music from iTunes is now DRM-free, it is easier to move the music to a different device, but TV Shows, Movies and books are still stuck. Apps are also protected with DRM, but would be even more difficult to move just because they are written and designed to run only on iOS; they could not run anywhere else.

The average movie on iTunes starts at $10 in SD for older moves and $15 for newer released and maxes out around $20. Even if someone purchased only old movies in SD, they would only need 13 movies to overcome the price difference between the iPad mini and the Nexus 7 or Fire HD. Maybe most people do not purchase their movies on iTunes, but there is always the digital copy that come with the purchase of many DVDs and Blu-Rays now. If the digital copy has been redeemed on iTunes, it is staying on iTunes.

Then there are TV shows. Again, many people do not purchase TV shows from iTunes, but even with the purchase of a few, it will easily push one over the $130 barrier. Most seasons of shows run around $40-$50 depending on the show and the video quality. There are some cheaper shows (such as Frontline, Mythbusters and other shorter season shows), but they still cost $20-$35 for a season. These will quickly add up as well.

Amazon still has the lead in book sales, so maybe most people do not have many books from the iBookstore purchased, but as Apple announced today, there are many that have been sold. These books are priced similarly to the movies on the iTunes store, so they will quickly add up as well.

Most importantly though are applications. Many iPad games cost $5-$10 (and are better quality) and they will all have to be repurchased. Most likely, none of the progress will be synced over which sure would be painful. Then there are Apple’s iWork and iLife apps which have to be replaced on those other platforms. Then there are expensive apps like SlingBox that must be repurchased again. Add on all of those $0.99 apps (which really add up if you do not pay attention) and the cost of changing the app store could be drastic. Even for iPhone and iPod touch users, all of your apps will work scaled on the iPad mini and some apps may even be universal, so they already come with an iPad version. I hope there are as good apps and the same apps on the other app stores, but I would wager that there is not.

$130 does not look that bad to me, because the cost of switching will be a heck of a lot more.

Now, when voters ask her about it, she says, “I try to ask them what they don’t like about it. Typically it’s the mandate. And then I explain how the mandate and pre-existing conditions are linked. … All of these Republicans have gotten away saying, `Oh we’re not going to change pre-existing condition,’ and nobody is saying to them, `Well, how do you do that? Who in their right mind is going to buy insurance until they get sick?’ If you know you can get it after you get sick, why would you ever buy it until you’re sick?”

Link

Yes, I actually did it.

Someone want knock me on the side of the head?

While the NHL does not hold one of the largest fan bases in North America, it does hold one of the most affluent fan bases.^[127] Studies by the Sports Marketing Group conducted from 1998 to 2004 show that the NHL’s fan base is much more affluent than that of the PGA Tour.^[128] A study done by the Stanford Graduate School of Business in 2004, found that NHL fans in America were the most educated and affluent of the four major leagues. They were also found to be substantially more computer literate than the other fans. Further it noted that season-ticket sales were more prominent in the NHL than the other three because of the ability of the NHL fan to purchase them, something more out of reach for fans of the other leagues.^[127] According to Reuters in 2010, the largest demographic of NHL fans was highly sought after group males aged 18–34, who were also shown to be more “tech savvy” than most fans.^[129]

When I first read this, I thought it was crazy. We are cheering on a much more violent sport than the other big three. Have these people ever been to a game and seen some of these fans? They can act quite crazy. But as I thought it over more, it does not seem that strange. Cost to play as a kid and location of the fan base.

Well, just bring back the NHL and remove all of these stupid blackouts online!

On Sept. 10, the teachers of Chicago’s public schools went on strike for eight days, demanding such things as better pay, preventing a rise in the cost of their health insurance policies, more chances for future raises and reduced importance of test scores on a teacher’s evaluation and pay.

The city was able to increase the hours the teachers were working and the number of days the teachers would be working each year. This new deal between the teachers’ union and the city of Chicago is a win for the teachers, the mayor’s office, the city of Chicago, the parents of students and—most importantly—the students.

The teachers have gained a great deal because they now can worry about their students rather than how they will be paid or if they will even have a job next year.

As confidence increases due to job and economic security, people are willing to spend more, which will bolster our economy. This is something upon which both Democrats and Republicans tend to agree.

The mayor’s office should be happy to get kids back in school and off the streets. Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel can now be known as the man that kept Chicago students in school longer. CNN has reported that Emanuel believes the extra days and time will “effectively (add) more than two years of instruction time to to the school career of a student who starts next year.”

With kids in school for longer hours, the parents and all of the people of Chicago can rest assured knowing the kids of Chicago have a safe place to be. As violent crimes rise in Chicago, a school should be thought of as a safe zone—a refuge—by students and their parents.

Last summer, as schools were let out for break, the rates of violence in Chicago skyrocketed as kids were either in the wrong place at the wrong time because they had nowhere else to go or were permitted to commit these crimes–a trend attributable to many factors.

Of course, the entire city of Chicago is not filled with violence, and nearly every person would love to see the violence end, but a small fraction of the population can still terrify entire neighborhoods. While Emanuel does still need to work at enforcing the laws and stopping these few bad seeds that haunt parts of Chicago, he has applied a decent bandage to reduce the risk that a child might be involved—either intentionally or unintentionally—in these senseless acts of violence.

The group that has benefited the most from this strike was the students. While they surely enjoyed the eight days off from school, they have gained so much during that time. They now have teachers that are more focused on them rather than finances and standardized tests, a safer place to be for longer hours and more days, and more time to learn and consume the knowledge that their teachers share with them.

Hopefully the kids of Chicago will take advantage of the extra schooling being offered to them by working hard so that someday they will be able to return value to the city and make it a shining example of why we should always be investing in education, no matter the economic situation.

Sports fans around America have been rightfully upset as the two top leagues have implemented referee lockouts. The National Football League locked out the officials from the National Football League Referees Association beginning in June because of disputes over pay, number of officials and retirement. The National Hockey League locked out all players starting the night of Sept. 15 and requested that the National Hockey League Players Association agree on the league’s revenue division.

The NFL finally reached a compromise with its officials on Wednesday, but the mess caused by the replacement officials should never have happened. The hockey lockout still continues, with the first talks in weeks between the league and the players’ union beginning last Friday. To prevent another dismal situation like the recently resolved NFL official lockout or the 2004–2005 NHL season, the NHL needs to quickly resolve its differences and compromise with the players.

Before the NFL season began, many were worried that some replacement referees were unqualified and unprepared to officiate high-level games. Fans’ fears have been confirmed as replacement referees made horrible mistakes such as misplacing the ball, wasting time, allowing challenges for unchallengeable things—sometimes for teams that were out of challenges—slipping up a receiver with a hat, botching a call at the end of a game which resulted in a major upset, and allowing dangerous and illegal hits.

The base salary for a NFL player is $400,000. According to Sports Illustrated, the lowest-paid position is tight end, yet an average tight end will still bring in over $850,000, while an average quarterback, the highest paid position, earns just shy of $2 million. These numbers include backup players.

The NFL has also deals with CBS, NBC, FOX and ESPN, which pay billions to air the NFL’s games. From these and other sources of income, the league was able to amass a staggering $9.4 billion in revenue last year. Last December, the NFL made a deal with CBS, FOX and NBC, increasing the networks’ collective payment from $1.94 billion per year to $3.1 billion per year for nine years, and recently ESPN agreed to increase their annual payment from $1.1 billion to $1.9 billion over the next eight years for nothing more than Monday Night Football, the rights to video clips and the possibility of a wild card playoff game.

All 121 of the NFL’s officials each make an average $149,000. While most people would consider this a lofty salary, around four times the value of an average American income, the NFL demonstrates in its player salaries and other spending that it is willing to pay the best money for the best people. The NFL forks out weighty cash to avoid settling for second-rate, but they used second-rate officials over a relative pittance of a pay increase over the next eight years, changing the officials’ pension plan to a 401(k) to grandfather officials in with their pension and training for new officials.

Fans have grown accustomed to, and consistently pay for the industry to support, first-rate officials they can know and love and hate. Luckily, NFL Commissioner Roger Goodell came to an agreement with the NFLRA before week four began and issued an apology to the fans for the season’s substandard officiating.

The NHL’s situation is even more absurd than the NFL’s. Since Gary Bettman became the league’s commissioner almost 20 years ago, there have been three lockouts; one that wiped out the entire 2004-2005 season and caused a 2-percent pay decrease for players. This time the league proposed a drop from 57 percent of hockey-related revenue providing for player salaries to 43 percent. The number has risen to 47 percent, but would still be a serious cut to pay for the players.

The league’s situation has improved since the last player lockout, but an estimated 16 of the 30 teams are still losing money each year. The league and owners would like to stop bleeding money from many of these teams, and have proposed that the players take drastic pay cuts; in other words, use the skin of the players to bind the wounds of the league. The players have argued that the league should have a better revenue-sharing deal like that of the NFL, in which all revenue is split equally among the teams, and teams that are failing financially are moved out of bad markets, such as Tampa Bay and Phoenix. Bettman is firm in his belief that the National Hockey League should truly be national, but the current situation colors his belief idealistic.

Fans believe another way the league could bring in revenue is by actually playing the sport. More frequent games could mean more integrated, passionate and spendthirifty fans. A friend back home who was never a fan of hockey told me in reference to the St. Louis Blues, “I was actually looking forward to following them this season.” Browsing ESPN.com and Facebook, it is clear why this is not an uncommon mindset. Each time Americans finally start to show interest in the game, it seems the league forgets to play.

Gary Bettman should realize that there is only so much the league can deprive players of before these teams, which consist of mainly foreign players, start looking to play overseas. The league should stop investing in cities that have no desire to see hockey played, keep the players healthy and happy, and bring back hockey to the lifelong fans. Bettman surely does not wish to see a mass of hockey fans outside of his office in New York; we have been known to get rowdy.

On the morning of Sept. 12th, Apple announced the next generation iPhone, called the “iPhone 5,” which features a taller screen, faster wireless internet, a speedier processor, the introduction of the new operating system iOS 6 and a thinner, lighter and slightly modified body. I was not planning to upgrade to the iPhone 5, but once again, Apple convinced me to spend my money on one of its products. Best of all, it performs even better than I had anticipated.
My biggest fear for the new iPhone was the larger screen. Of the many phones I have used, the iPhone has always felt like it fit the best in my hand. I was worried a larger screen would lead to a wider phone and a less comfortable feel. Rather than increasing both the height and width of the iPhone, Apple only made the screen taller. This made the transition from an older iPhone to the iPhone 5 much easier.
With the extra screen room, Apple has added an additional row of icons to the home screen, and apps now show more text. For example, when viewing a news article on a webpage, only a few extra lines of text are visible on the iPhone 5 compared to the iPhone 4S. However, even with the extra room, the iPhone 5 does not show anywhere near as much text as the Samsung Galaxy S3.

Until an app is updated for the new screen size, the app will be centered on the screen and letterboxed, that is to say, bordered by a black box on the top and bottom. Unfortunately, this moves the keyboard up, which can sometimes lead to mistyped words. Thankfully, many of the more popular apps have already been updated, including Facebook, Tweetbot and Instagram.

Moreover, videos look much better on the the iPhone 5 when compared to previous generations. Many movies are shot at a ratio of 16:9—some are even narrower—which matches the iPhone’s screen, meaning that the letter boxes that once surrounded these videos are gone. As a result, the videos look dramatically larger.
Although the screen is taller, Apple’s designers have cut out space around the home button and earpiece, so the phone itself has not gotten any larger. It is also noticeably lighter than older iPhones, while avoiding the use of cheap plastics. Each of the previous iPhones were just shy of fives ounces. Remarkably, the iPhone 5 drops nearly an entire ounce, and weighs under four ounces. Combine this with the fact that the iPhone 5 is almost 20 percent thinner than the 4S, result in a phone that is anything but a brick.
In addition, the back of the phone is almost entirely aluminum, rather than glass. However, there have already been plenty of reports that this aluminum scratches, which Apple’s Senior Vice President of Worldwide Marketing, Phil Shiller, passes off as “normal” for aluminum. The best way to avoid scratching on any devices is a protective case.

The bottom of the phone has also been updated. The headphone jack has been moved to the bottom of the phone, and—unless you are coming from an iPod touch—will require some time to get used to.

Furthermore, there are now three microphones on the iPhone 5 which seek to reduce background noise during phone calls. The speaker, along with the new earbuds—which do sound and feel better, even though they are horribly called “EarPods”—is Apple’s way of returning to music.

Unfortunately, many are angry with Apple because of the new “Lightning” port on the bottom of the phone. Some believe it is a way to force those who buy Apple products to repurchase cables and docks, while others are upset with the use of another proprietary solution rather than the more commonly used microUSB. Lightning, however, is much more durable than other connectors. It can be inserted either way, which should benefit those who always seem to insert a USB into their computer the wrong way. Additionally, there is a chip inside the cable which allows for reversibility, authorization and possibly other uses in the future.
With the iPhone 5, Android owners have lost a major trump card. Apple has created its own processor, the A6, which is much faster than the A5 featured on the iPhone 4S and iPad 2. The A6 is nearly 2.5 times faster than the A5 and it beats out almost all of the Android-powered phones and tablets.

The iPhone 5 also supports Long Term Evolution cellular networking, or LTE. LTE offers speeds that are much faster than the average household receives with a landline connection.

The iPhone 5 is by far the biggest update to the iPhone yet, however, there are a variety of fantastic phones for sale, such as the Galaxy S3 and Nokia Lumia 920. The best advice for students is to play with the phones in the stores, read reviews and ask questions to find the phone that is right for their needs.

More pictures from the evening are available here.

Anytime politics is brought up in a conversation, most people tend to shy away from a discussion. It seems as if most people are sick of all of the extremely polar political talk coming our elected officials. By not discussing or following politics, we encourage the divide to grow even wider. In 2008, voter turn out for the Presidential election was 131 million people, or 64% of eligible voters, according to the US Census Bureau. While this could be higher, it beats the turn out rates of midterm elections and many times higher than turnout for primary and caucuses. Oklahoma, for example, had a turn out 14.7% in last March’s primary vote. Compared with other data from George Mason University’s United States Election Project, 15% turnout is just about standard for primary elections across America. Turn out in caucuses were even lower. Wyoming’s Republican caucus had an abysmal 0.3% voter turn out rate.

There are plenty of good reasons to stay informed. Follow the news, read the paper, watch the debates and make sure you are registered to vote.

On Oct. 26, Microsoft will soon release Windows 8, a major update to its Windows operating system. The update will be one of the largest overhauls in the product’s history, and will dramatically change the aesthetics of the operating system.

Windows 8 will feature Microsoft’s “Modern (User Interface),” formerly known as “Metro UI,” a new graphical way to interact with the machine. The goal is to unify users’ experiences between various Microsoft products. The Modern UI is now used on the Xbox 360 and has been on Windows Phone since 2010.

Since the Windows Phone’s release, people have praised the UI as “beautiful” and “innovative.” This unification may seem to be a great move by Microsoft; however, after sampling the Windows 8 pre-release beta, many people have predicted problems to come.

Unfortunately, Windows 8 has lost the start button to which so many users have been accustomed. Some users have gone so far as to make their own start buttons. Samsung has reported that it would ship its Windows 8 PCs with an “S Launcher,” in an effort to restore the start button.

However, this is not the only problem Windows 8 users have encountered. Because many apps work solely on the old Windows layout, Microsoft has included a “Desktop Mode” that enables older apps to run. However, there have been reports that users are finding this confusing for many reasons, including difficulty switching between modes.

Last May, internet personality Chris Pirillo posted a video titled “How Real People Will Use Windows 8.” The video shows Pirillo’s father using Windows 8 for the first time—he is completely lost and unable to use the computer.      

There is no doubt that the Modern UI is great with a touch screen. For this reason, PC manufacturers are designing a variety of laptops that also work as tablets which, for the most part, look fantastic.

To work better with tablets, Windows 8 will run on a computer chip called “ARM.” These ARM chips are much more efficient than their desktop counterparts; however, they sacrifice a fair amount of processing speed in exchange. Microsoft has claimed that features of Windows 8 would not be lost on these ARM chips. Actually, only apps built for the Modern UI—save for Office and Internet Explorer—can run on these machines. In addition, they must be purchased from Microsoft’s new App Store. This has some questioning whether an ARM-based tablet is worth the money.

New computers complete with Windows 8 will begin shipping on Oct. 26, and the ability to upgrade older Window’s operating systems will also be released that same day. From then until the end of January, upgrading prices will start at $69.99. After January, the prices will rise to $99.99. However, users who have purchased a new computer between June 6 and the end of January will only have to pay $14.99 for the OS upgrade.

Save hundreds of dollars in the first year compared to what you would pay for other tablets. (link)

Amazon says I can save hundreds of dollars if I buy an Amazon Kindle Fire HD 8.9″ LTE Wireless, but I do not thing that can apply to everyone. I could match all of my iTunes music to Amazon’s Cloud Player, but I would have to re-purchase many TV Shows, movies, apps and books that I already purchased from iTunes (as well as many of the movies that I have bought on Blu-Ray & DVD that include a digital copy) because they just won’t work outside of Apple’s ecosystem. I am an Amazon Prime subscriber, so I could get a large ecosystem there too, but they don’t have all of the same things and I could get most of those things on an iPad too.

For now, it is just too expensive, but Amazon sure is tempting me with these deals. Also, can anyone find out the price for data that isn’t 250MB/month for 12 months? I can’t seem to find it anywhere.

I was a little shocked, but I checked her Facebook and read the story. It goes like this:

Okay, so, this morning we accidentally got a new pet. A bunny! 

My neighbors dog ate it siblings and if we left it there the dog would eat it as well. We’re not really sure how to raise a wild baby bunny but thankfully the internet (and vets- mostly vets) exists. We have to get a special kind of milk, and feed it with an eye dropper at obscure times during the night and early morning. Also, unfortunately, I have 2 dogs and they don’t exactly like bunnies (but at least they’re not as big as my neighbors dog- they’re rather small) so we have to keep it away from them, and if it lives into adulthood we have to keep it until it kicks the bucket because it will be more trusting and that’s not good versus predators.

So, this is gonna be an adventure.

I hope all of you are able to read that mess, but now there is a rabbit replacing me back in St. Louis. Of course my sister added a picture too.

We are thrilled to announce the news of the Stanley Cup coming to Kirkwood. Jamie Kompon, assistant coach of the 2012 Stanley Cup winning LA Kings, and his wife Tina are graciously sharing their time with the Cup with the Kirkwood Hockey Community. Tradition allows for members of the winning team to have a private day with the Cup. As most of you know, Jamie returns to St. Louis each summer to run our KHS Pioneer Hockey Systems Camp and KYHA’s Skills and Conditioning. Prior to joining the LA Kings organization, he was part of the St. Louis Blues organization. In addition, we congratulate Jamie on the recent announcement of joining the Chicago Blackhawks organization/coaching staff.

On Monday, August 6 from 11:00am until 1:00pm the Stanley Cup will be at the Kirkwood Community Center Auxiliary Gym for photo opportunities. There will be a photographer on hand taking pictures. Each picture will have a minimum charge of $5.00. All moneys will be donated to Five Acres Animal Shelter. Please arrive early as this is a first come first serve basis and is open to the public. This will be the only opportunity for adults, parents, players and other children to view the cup and have individual photos taken.

The Stanley Cup is among the most recognized trophies in professional sports. We look forward to everyone joining in the Stanley Cup celebration and extend our sincere appreciation to Jamie & Tina Kompon for this once-in-a-lifetime opportunity.

Please let us know if you have any questions.

This seems worth $5 to me. Hope to see a lot of you there!

First, look at how much it costs to add a smartphone. The most would be $45, the least would be $30. I pay $10/month for my line and another $50 for my data, so I am up to $60 already. Yes, most people are probably paying $30 for data, so they’re at $40. Plus now they get tethering.

Second, some have compared charging per extra line to the TeleCos charging extra for every home internet device. Home ISPs just have to provide one data connection to the house and you can do what ever you want from there while the cellular providers have to provide multiple connections to the internet. Simply put, home internet connections can only send so much data down “the pipe.” You can create multiple divisions in “the pipe” within your house, but the ISP must only provide one. With cellular, the provider has to provide a different “pipe” to each device.

Building on the home versus cellular connection, remember that with the cellular connection, you are buying data, not speed. With a home connection, you buy speed, not data (even though this is changing with a few big ISPs). Also, television providers charge more for each box they put in your house. Unless you still have the old cable like my family does, you have to pay more for each television in your house.

Lastly, AT&T and Verizon can charge what they want to charge. They are businesses. AT&T’s plan may cost some people more and it will cause others less, but AT&T is not forcing anyone to switch plans. In fact, if you prefer, you can still keep your old plan.

Please, just stop complaining.

Update: AT&T and Verizon both include tethering (if your phone is capable). They do not charge extra for devices connected to the tether because you are creating your own “pipe” for the other devices. They just provide one line in.

I know the quality was not always this bad, but it turned to crap when uploaded to Facebook. I guess to save time on the upload, I’m not sure but it sure as hell makes me mad.

I hope that we can use WiFi rather than cellular some day in the future and I still can’t figure out why the TeleCos haven’t done this yet. Is it because people will demand a price cut or because it’s just too damn hard to engineer or something else? Well, we know it’s possible thanks to Republic Wireless (link), but notice the price. I bet that is what carriers are afraid of even though most of our data already goes over WiFi and voice & SMS do not really cost them that much.

Well, at least we are on the road to a better place.

iTunes has a Wish List. If you use the desktop version of iTunes, you may know this already. If you mostly use the iPhone, iPod touch, or iPad App Store, however, you’ll be forgiven if you have no idea it exists at all. Because “add to Wish List”, one of the features that makes the most sense on mobile, doesn’t exist in the on-device App Store at all. And it really should.

The backups work well (it is just very slow), but the devil is using iPhoto. I just imported 8,000 photos to my iPhoto library on this disk and iPhoto has been spinning the beach ball of death for the last ten minutes. It just cannot load the library over the WiFi. I still have more photos to add to the library too, but I do not think that will happen. I really don’t have space to keep them on here, so what am I to do.

Well, I considered purchasing a 100GB DropBox for one year and storing the photos on there, but I remembered that DropBox keeps a copy of all the files on the computer, so that wouldn’t work. I thought about using Flickr, but the best way I know to upload thousands of photos is via iPhoto (plus all of my photos are in the iPhoto library folders). I am not sure what will be happening to Picasa.

I’ve come to the conclusion that Apple really needs to do more than Photo Stream. While Photo Stream is nice, it does store the photos on every device and only has a 1,000 photo and 30 day cloud storage limit. I had been debating buying more iCloud store, but it would really only been needed for backing-up my iOS devices. I would much rather back them up to my Mac because it is much faster to backup and restore. If Apple would store all of my photos in the cloud, have them magically appear in iPhoto and the iPhone’s Photo.app, I would easily consider paying a large chunk of change every year for iCloud.

It’s hard to overstate how thoroughly this move will shake up the retail industry. Same-day delivery has long been the holy grail of Internet retailers, something that dozens of startups have tried and failed to accomplish. (Remember Kozmo.com?) But Amazon is investing billions to make next-day delivery standard, and same-day delivery an option for lots of customers. If it can pull that off, the company will permanently alter how we shop. To put it more bluntly: Physical retailers will be hosed.

While this might sound good, it’ll also bring prices up and not just because of taxes. The more buildings, the more it’ll cost Amazon. Amazon will pass that cost to the consumer. Part of what kept Amazon’s prices low was less buildings while still being able to cover everyone. The more places, the more they become like brick and mortar stores. Amazon just won’t allow other people inside the stores which should save them money.

So then, why couldn’t Best Buy or Target start shipping products purchased online from their retail stores to cut down on delivery time too. That way, customers could get the best of both worlds. They would just get to choice depending on their mood and returns would be a whole lot simpler.

Link: Amazon same-day delivery: How the e-commerce giant will destroy local retail. – Slate Magazine

1. The Taken 2 Trailer (link)
2. Apple’s Podcasts.app (link)
3. Adam Oates (along with a few other awesome hockey players) joining the Hockey Hall of Fame (link)
4. Google and LEGO making a website (link)
5. Mayor Slay’s (@MayorSlay) brother getting arrested at a casino for heroin possession (yes, it shouldn’t be funny, but it still makes me laugh) (link)
6. The 1st tenant for Ballpark Village is announced and it’s Anheuser-Busch! (link)
7. The BCS will finally have a playoff! Great even if it is only four teams. (link)

I must, above all else, promise myself to never use beta software from Apple for my iPhone, iPod, iPad or Mac. I always seem to run into problems and it is not worth it. (link)

Well, now I am using the iOS 6 beta. Damn it.

UPDATE: Oh, and Safari 6.0 beta.

10) “The Lane Is Ending”

If there is a lot of traffic and you see a sign that telling you “Right Lane Must Turn Right” or the lane is ending and to merge over, don’t fly past everyone assuming they’ll let you in. If you have out-of-state plates, I might be nice, but if you fly past me, screw you! Think Westbound Manchester at Mason Rd. or any on ramp on the interstate.

9) St. Louisans Slow Down For Everything

People tend to want to look at car crashes. We don’t have to stop though, just glance as you drive by. Yes, slow down for emergency vehicles, but I think they’d rather have you be moving and looking at the road then not paying attention at 2 MPH. If it’s snowing, you don’t have to drive 5 MPH. If it’s raining, you can go more than 15 MPH.

8)  The Light Is Green, Don’t Make Me Stop!

When I am coming up to a red light, I don’t fly up to the light and stop. I coast up and hope it turns green before I get there. Some people seem to want to wait a few seconds before they move incase someone misses the red light or something. Then when they do move, the accelerate very slow. Don’t make me stop too, go!

7) Let Me Turn Right!

On the topic of people coasting to the light, sometimes I get in the way off someone wanting to get to the turn lane. If I notice someone wants to get over, I’ll hurry it up a bit and let them pass. If I’m at a place without a right turn lane, but there is a lane on my left, I move to the left lane, so people wanting to turn right can turn right. Three different locations come to mind here. First, south on Lindbergh at Manchester: I can move forward a little faster or move to the left lane so that someone can turn right. Second, south on Woodlawn at Manchester: If you’re going straight, pull forward as much as you can because there is not much room for someone wanting to turn right. Last, Clayton Rd. at Lindbergh: There is no right turn lane for any direction, but both roads are two or three lanes in both direction, so if you want to go straight and the person behind wants to go right… go to the left lane! Simple.

6) It’s Your Turn To Go.. Don’t Just Sit At The Sign!

If you go to the stop sign first, go! You have the right of way. If both people got there at the same time, the person on the right goes! If you’re waved on by the other person, don’t wave them on too, just go!

5) Why Is There No Minimum Speed Limit?

It is one thing to drive the speed limit (following the law is okay with me!), but it’s another to drive well below the speed limit. If you’re looking for a house and business, that is one thing, but please at least have a general idea of where you are going. Plus you could always overshoot and just turn around. But most of what I’m focusing on here is the people who consistently drive 10-15 MPH under the limit. It’s even worse when these people cut you off, so you have to slam on the breaks to not hit them… Then they don’t drive.

4) Let Me In!

If I’m passing you, don’t speed up and not let me back over. Even more annoying is when I slow down, so I can fall in behind then you slow down too. Make up your mind!

3) Are You Staring At The Driver Next To You or Are You Passing?

If you want to pass, go to the left lane. When you’re done, go back to the right lane. Don’t just sit next to your neighbor blocking the road.

2) Excuse Me, but That Is My Lane!

This might be dumb, but it is something no one seems to follow. Say you want to turn right onto a road with two lanes of traffic going the direction you’d like to go. You’re supposed to have the right lane and anyone turning left is supposed to turn into the left lane. Nearly every single time I see someone turn left, they go into the right now! It is one thing that drives me crazy.

1) I’m Sorry, I Didn’t Know You Were Turning!

Use the blinker!

There are so many more things that drive me crazy about driving… I can’t wait for automated cars.

9) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XxFYYP8040A

8) 

7) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VrInJIqxUMA

6) 

5) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KEq74TCDGtc

4) 

3) 

2) http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cavHNSZTyAg

1) 

First I’ll talk about the thing that drives me crazy on Facebook. I understand privacy concerns, but if your profile is empty giving me no way to confirm your identify, I get stuck and can not do anything.

It drives me crazy. This problem not only happens when getting Friend Requests, but with Facebook’s Friend Suggestions (I’ll add other people at my school even if I don’t know them) or when I try to find someone, but there are many different Facebook users with the same name as the person I am trying to find.

Say I meet someone and ask them to find me on Facebook and all they know if I am Will Bramlett. They’ll will search me and find all of this, but what if I don’t list any information publicly about who I am? Will Bramletts seem to be doing good about adding information to their public Facebook profile but there is still one in the top results (and possibly more if I click “See More Results”) without any details. How would this person be able to decide which account belongs to me? They could not! While privacy is import, it is good to at least be able to be located on the internet!

Now to my Twitter problem: Not using the f*cking “Reply” button! There is a reason they put it there, so use it! This annoys me much more than the lack of information on a Facebook profile does.

While this tweet might be something easy to figure out what it is in response to, other are not so easy. For example, I could get a tweet like this and not know what it was in response to because I’ve been tweeting crappy stuff all day or it could be in response to something earlier in the day.

Because the Reply button was used, it says “In reply to Will Bramlett” below that tweet and has created a conversation and I can go back and follow.

Because I was already in a conversation, I knew what it was about, but it could’ve been in reply to my first tweet (which was not directed at this user, rather it was public) in which I said “My dad had one of his teeth pulled today.. ow” (Tweet)

Not only is this annoying for when I get mentions, but when I’m “Following” other people… people’s conversations.

I wonder why this person is wish the other person good luck?? I know why because I saw the earlier tweet already, but I can’t easily click a button and find out if I had not already seen the tweet.

I don’t know why people wouldn’t use the “Reply” button. It’s faster than typing out a username. Just use the “Reply” button Twitter gives you; It’ll make everyone’s life easier. And make more stuff on Facebook public because not everything needs to be blocked. As long as you don’t post stupid stuff to your Facebook, you should have nothing to hide (and you still could hide it with privacy settings) but please give us a little bit of something. Just a blank page is a bad way to protect yourself.

PS Should’ve I asked people about adding pictures of their Facebook or Twitter things or is it okay enough I blurred stuff out? I sort of wanted to use Twitter’s new embedded Tweet thing.

Another problem I have happens to be this webpage. There was only a yellow background with the text “Hello!” displayed right in the middle. I have been meaning to do something with this page for sometime now. Well, I bet you can tell where this is going. I figured I’d use my website to link visitors to my other profiles online.

I could also be using this site. If I’m like many people on the web, I have forgotten many of the sites on which I have created accounts or profiles. I can come back here and find old, forgotten profiles.

Well, this might be a pointless waste of time, but I hope it at least makes my webpage look nicer!

I will start my list with what could be one of the dumbest movies of the year: Lock-Out. Coming out April 20th, this movie is about a innocent man convinced of espionage who could be freed if, and only if, he can save the President’s daughter for violent thugs in a space prison. Ignoring all of the obvious flaws with the plot, it sounds awesome! I look working to leaving the theater laughing.

Next on my list is a movie that will also be for the less intelligent… I think I fall in that category! Hansel and Gretel: Witch Hunters is the story of Hansel and Gretel after they grow up. As the title suggests, they now hunt witches. This might be a RedBox movie rather than something I see in theaters, but I find stupid funny, so I’ll likely end up watching it at some point.

I’ll continue with Hollywood’s destruction timeless classics by talking about Mirror Mirror. I’m just a sucker for movies that remind me of when I was little; I’m going to bet most other people in the world are the same way.

I can’t actually figure out what the movie Footnote is about, but the image on IMDb catches my eye… so I want to see it. Yeah, it ain’t that hard to get me to spend money. It has been released over in Israel (and I’ll assume elsewhere) and is getting okay reviews. I’ll have to look into this movie a wee bit more.

It’s rare that I find an Eddie Murphy movie I don’t enjoy watching, and I’ve heard in Tower Heist, the man was becoming funny once again, so I figure I should give the movie A Thousand Words a chance to make me smile. The plot just sounds painful though. On IMDb, the overview states “After stretching the truth on a deal with a spiritual guru, literary agent Jack McCall finds a Bodhi tree on his property. Its appearance holds a valuable lesson on the consequences of every word we speak.” I hope it is historical, but if it isn’t, I’m sorry, but I’ll have to pass.

Any story that reminds me of one of the best shows ever to air, Dexter, or the classic of Robin Hood, has caught my attention. That’s why I’ll check out the movie Parker which stars an actor a bunch of people seem to hate, Jason Statham. Most Robin Hood styled films usually aren’t that great, so once again, the trailers and the reviews will have to sell it to me.

Who doesn’t love a movie written by Seth Rogan (and a few others) staring Ben Stiller, Vince Vaughn and Jonah Hill? Yes, most people might say they wouldn’t care to see such a film, but somehow these guys are still making movies such as this movie about a gang of dads who created a neighborhood watch and discover a plot to destroy the world! Seeing that the plot is to destroy the world and it’s listed in “Sci-Fi” on IMDb, I’d bet they find aliens! Well, I will only know if I see this movie entitled Neighborhood Watch… or just read about it online or maybe, just maybe, in the newspaper.

It would seem a lot of movies are being redone in 3D this year. The first of these movies to be released is Beauty and The Beast. I don’t think I actually have to share with anybody what happens in this film, so if you’re willing to pay the large amound of movie for the 3D, look for it in theaters January 13th!

Also coming out soon is Roadie. It has a limited release on January 6th, and the only reason I bring it up is because it’s about a man who was a roadie for Blue Oyster Cult.

The next film, which has the amazingly awesome title of Dog Fight, is not actually about dog fighting. I know, you’re just as upset as I was when I first found it lacked actually dog fights, but hold on a moment because it could still be fun. I know I will enjoy it because it’s about politics! Oh, I forgot, very few people actually care about politics, but just wait to see who is starring in the film; I bet you’ll all be out to see it after this. The stars are Will Ferrell, Zach Galifianakis and Jason Sudeikis. Just go see it, I hope I have to explain no more about why it’ll be fantastic!

I have seen more than my fair share of movies in my life, but somehow, I’ve yet to see Titanic. I guess April 6th is as good of an opportunity as any because that is the day James Cameron is re-releasing the film this film staring Leonardo DiCaprio and Kate Winslet that so many people seem to rave about in 3D.

If you have a short attention span like I do, you might enjoy Movie 43. It’s a film with just a bunch of short, comedic sketches. Just read the list of actors staring in this film; it just continues on and on. Wait, what were we talking about?

A few guys being klutzes on screen seems to be timeless… so why not remake the original threesome of Moe, Larry and Curly? Yes, on April 13th, Hollywood actually has the balls to redo The Three Stooges. I’ll just stop here before more of you start balling your eyes out.

Who else here watches every damn episode of The Colbert Report? Well, you might be aware of the Norwegian Butter Shortage. Colbert was just getting Norway a little annoyed while Hollywood is here to deliver the shot below the belt. Introducing Butter, the food topping we know and love now has a movie showcasing butter in a more high-brow form: sculptures!

Speaking of the Colbert Report, one of the show’s writers, Max Werner, has written about a teenage girl who loses her crazy, little brother on Halloween. The movie is called Fun Size and shocking comes out just before Halloween: October 12th.

Leonardo DiCaprio just won’t go away, will he? He is back staring in The Great Gatsby as Jay Gatsby himself! This has been one of the few novels I have actually enjoyed reading in school, so I hope to be in line when it’s released on Christmas Day. Anyone from my 11th grade English class care to join?

Did everyone enjoy the movie Knocked Up? If you didn’t, get the f*ck out of here! I don’t have ads on here, so I’m in no need of readers. In fact, the fewer the better, but back on topic! In This Is 40, we follow Pete and Debbie a few years down the road. I can only assume this movie will be like many other movies playing off of the genius of any other: total and utter crap! If I hear it’s really that bad, RedBox might not even see my money.

A series I have never gotten in to was the 007 films. I did see the most recent Bond movies staring Daniel Craig, so if the next movie, Skyfall, fails to impress me, they may have lost someone still willing to pay to watch movies.

I know all comic geeks out there will hate me for this, but I’ve also never been a big Spider-Man fan. I did find the last few movies starring Tobey Maguire pretty good, but they were by no means sensational. Now it seems they’re starting the series over once again with The Amazing Spider-Man. Seems a little early, but I just noticed the actors. I found find both of the stars were amazing in everything in which I’ve seen them; I loved Andrew Garfield in The Social Network or Never Let Me Go (I’ve seen Never Let Me Go many more times than I should have seen it) and Emma Stone as Olive in Easy A really made a movie that shouldn’t have been that good, pretty damn great! This is a movie I will see in theaters… even though I’ll likely be broke.

In the vain of Super Hero movies with which I’m not all that familiar, I think it’d be a perfect time to talk about The Avengers! To make all of you comic book fans out there a little less angry, I do know the awesomeness of Joss Whedon. Plus I’ve seen almost all of the other super hero films leading up to this movie… even the crappy movie known as Captain America. I am ready to see this movie!

Now for a little less super powered super heros and a little more just plain old super heros. The summary of Red Dawn on IMDb is perfectly short in describing this film; “A group of teenagers look to save their town from an invasion of North Korean soldiers.” On IMDb, this film is only listed in the “Action” category, but I bet there was be a good amount of drama too.

While we’re taking all of these action movies off of the list, I’ll just throw on the sequel to Taken. So far, this film is listen on IMDb as Untitled Take Sequel. My biggest question about this film has to be, “How the hell is Director Olivier Megaon going to make Liam Neeson more of a bad-ass than he was in the first film?”

Can you tell I am getting into the films I’m just dying to see this year? Then I’ll shake it up a bit and give you a movie that looks okay, but probably is going to be a crappy action film. Argo is about the CIA getting Americans out of Iran during the Iranian Revolution. I see the film is listed in “Drama” and “Comedy” so I’ll have to figure that one out some point.

ParaNorman is going to be an awesome animated film about a little kid who can speak to the dead. Who doesn’t love a little, crappy ass kid? With his special skills, he must defend his town from the living dead (and the stupid adults).

Because I love Jason Segal on How I Met Your Mother, I’m going to see The Five-Year Engagement. It looks like it will be dumb, and it most likely will, but I don’t care… I still haven’t seen The Muppets! Plus, that cake looks delicious!

The summary of Once Upon a Time in Anatolia on IMDb is “A group of men set out in search of a dead body in the Anatolian steppes.” With an 8.5/10 star rating (it was first released in Turkey), this movie can only be interesting.

The images and video for Act of Valor look amazing; no cheap-ass film here! Even though it will probably turn into another predictable CIA film, the people making the trailers have done a pretty good job of making me think otherwise.

Another bad-ass looking film has to be The Expendables 2. Did I miss anything good in the first Expendables film? I’ve yet to see it. They’ve added a few more people including Bruce Willis and Arnold Schwarzenegger into the already action packed line-up of Sylvester Stallone, Chuck Norris, Jet Li and many more!

Name another movie bring back old stars in rolls we used to know and love. Correct, they’re making a Men in Black III! I’ll take a stab at this one. Will Smith and Tommy Lee Jones (and Josh Brolin as the young version of Tommy Lee Jones.. Yes, Agent J (Smith) goes back in time!) fight off some alien law-breakers in a funny fashion. I only just saw the first two Men in Black films over the summer and I find them to be funny enough for me to go and see the third.

I’m over 2,000 characters! Who know I could write so much? Niether I nor my English teachers did, that’s for sure! Notice I use these longer introductions for stuff I have little to write about. In another re-release in 3D, George Lucas is releasing Star Wars: Episode I – The Phantom Menace in 3D. Let me tell you how much I know about Star Wars; I just found out Liam Neeson, Natalie Portman and Ewan McGregor (who I thought played a great day guy in I Love You Phillip Morris) star in this film. I just recently got all six Star Wars films, so maybe I’ll watch them sometime soon.

We Need To Talk About Kevin. This film has already been released in France and will soon becoming over to the States. It’s about a mother dealing with her emotions, most importantly her guilt, she feels when her soon goes on a murderous rampage through his school. I just might have to cry watching this movie.

This will be my last movie I speak of that is being re-released in 3D. The only Pixar movie I thought was okay at best was Wall-E; the remaining Pixar movies are just amazing. We all know what Toy Story and the other Pixar films since have done for computer animated films, but my favorite two Pixar films have to be The Incredibles (which still needs a sequel!) and the movie being re-released, Finding Nemo! It’s just too hard to describe how important this movie (and all other Pixar films) was to my childhood. I don’t care about the extra charge of 3D; I’m going to be in debt up to my eye balls because I’ll have visited the theater so many times just to see this one movie! It’ll be “Gnarly Dude!”

The only good film I’ve seen Sacha Baron Cohen in was Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby. I never found Bruno or Borat all that appareling to me, but I hope his new roll as The Dictator can make me laugh just like I did when he was the gay Frenchman. I’m laughing just thinking about this roll as Jean Girard. On a side note, there is a rumor that Sacha Baron Cohen will play Monsieur Thenardier in the movie version of Les Miserables which comes out December 2012! I’m not Les Mis fan, but I know a lot of people that are, so good for them.

I’d be lying if I told you I have ever read The Raven by Edgar Allen Poe, I’d rather just see the film. I guess I will have to wait until March 9th when The Raven will be released in theaters with John Cusack as Edgar Allen Poe.

You’ve suffered along this far… I know you can make it through five more movies! Another thing I have never read is The Hunger Games, but it seems to be popular. I’m no hipster, so I’m perfectly fine falling in line with the rest of you guys who know how awesome this movie will be!

Back to a time, so far away a barely remember… a whole three years ago in biology class, it seems there was talk of a Dr. Seuss story called The Lorax. Now Senior year, just a few weeks before graduation, here comes a movie about The Lorax. With stars like Zac Efron and Taylor Swift, I thought I would stay clear of this movie. But the supporting cast of Ed Helms, Rob Riggle (big fan of The Daily Show), Betty White and Danny DeVito (and I also love It’s Always Sunny In Philadelphia) helps balance the tide of hell. The trailer is really what won me over as I see the awesome cast, even Zac and Taylor, are pretty damn funny.

There is going to be more Bourne movies? Yes, The Bourne Legacy, while lacking Matt Damon, should still be totally awesome! It’s still based off of a Robert Ludlum novel and involves a different character (so Jeremy Renner will not be playing the same character as Damon had). I really should read (ha, Will read? Never!) this and the other books in the Bourne series.

While I’ve not seen Batman Begins, I have seen (more than once) The Dark Knight. Combined with a wicked awesome trailer, it should come as no shocker that I have to see The Dark Knight Rises! It should be one of the most awesome movies ever! I’m still not sure it can been Batman (1989) though. I think I speak for most guys when saying, I am also looking forward to Catwoman.

Nobody would ever let me live this down if I forgot to add The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey to this list! Other than the fact that The Hobbit is awesome, The Lord of The Rings trilogy was awesome and Peter Jackson is awesome, this movie was shot using a nifty new camera. Look for the quality of the image to be pure sex… because I think many of us will be missing out on the real thing for quite some time to come. I’m not sure if I’ll wait to watch it with friends of winter break next December or be one of the first in line on December 14th… or if I’ll watch it at school and then come home and see it about 20 more times with friends! But this only gets better. There is a second part of The Hobbit; The Hobbit: There and Back Again comes out December 13th, 2013. I know it’s a long wait, but it’ll totally be worth it!

I hope you enjoyed not reading this blog post. Again, I’m sorry it goes on forever & ever and the quality of my writing is so poor.
PS Over 3,000 words, bitches!
PPS WordPress and iWork’s Pages say I have a different number of words..

UPDATE: I just watched the trailer for Snow White and The Huntsman… it’s crazy and I want to see that too now.

Well, what person doesn’t get clothing  for Christmas. A few t-shirts and some  pajama pants for this shockingly warm  St. Louis winter. And family always  knows to pick me up socks. Socks never  last long in our house. Somewhere in my  room (it’s a mess, any surprise there?), I  have a nice, new pair of slippers along with a few other things! Lastly, even though I’m not a baseball fan, I will still cheer on the Cards, so my brother & I got matching sweatshirts. (Picture) (Picture)

Pencils are among the many things that I can never seem to keep track of, so my parents bought me some of these fancy liquid led pencils. It’s like a pen, but with led (well, graphite) so there is nothing to break while still looking like a pencil. I’ve also been in need of a new tooth brush, so I go a new too. (Picture)

My bike is sort of a piece of crap, and I’ll have to be using it a lot more next year, so my parents want to make it a little more comfortable. They bought me a nice, new bike seat! (Picture)

My mother did not know if I was the child without earbuds or if it was my sister… so I now have four pairs of earbuds! They’re damn, nice in-ear pair. I had already loaned a pair to my sister, so she can keep those I guess. Don’t worry, I run though earbuds at an astounding rate. (Picture)

Then there is the deceptively cute looking Secret Santa gift I got at school. I have an awesome “thank you” gift in store. (Picture)

I am a devoted fan of The Simpsons, so I tend to get a gift related to The Simpsons each year. This year’s gift was a set of Simpsons themed pint glasses along with these fancy drinks (sparkling grape juice, sparkling clementine juice, cola and root beer) from Whole Foods. My mom thought the drinks would last a week; I finished them yesterday (12/27). (Picture)

The gift I really wanted this year was money. Very happy to get plenty of it! That’s $340 cash plus I have $50 more in checks, a $20 AMC card, a $5 AMC concession stand card, a $10 WalGreens card, and there is $50 on both the St Louis (Panera) Bread Co. gift card & Subway gift card. Plus @pscherry78 was nice enough to donate $5 to my PayPal so I could buy @WTFSexFacts‘ new book, WTF? Sex Secrets vol. II! (Picture)

1. API – The most important thing I think Apple could to is allow developers to allow Siri access to data from their apps. Some of these I would rather see Apple do own their own, but Apple does not have the time and ability to provide enough data to make Siri become a useful tool for everyday tasks.

i. ESPN – I was searching for the Oklahoma State v Texas football game score last weekend and was disappointed when Siri couldn’t inform me on how the game went. Also, finding standings, stats and player information would be great.

ii. TV Guide – I watch most of my TV online so I do not know when most shows air. Specials often miss out too because they aren’t regularly scheduled. For example, I asked Siri when iGenius was going to air but it could only offer me a web search.

iii. IMdb – I love watching movies and TV shows and often want to look up some data about a movie, show or actor on IMDb. Their app is fantastic but I’d rather just ask my iPhone who plays Travis Marshall and Brother Sam on this season of Dexter (Colin Hanks and Mos Def, respectively)

iv. WikiPedia – WolframAlpha is great for the details of a particular subject but WikiPedia provides to fun facts and covers a large swatch of knowledge. I’d just like to have an option to use both.

v. Twitter/Facebook – I know you can using text messages and Siri to update Twitter and/or Facebook, one of the first ones to post that online, but I’d like a more direct, featured route where replies to @mentions are options. If Siri could find the people I follow and learn their usersnames, life would be so much easier. On that note, iOS still needs Facebook integration no matter how much of a Twitter addict I am.

2. Hardware Integration – Siri needs to be on more devices than just the iPhone 4S; more than just the iOS devices.

i. iPod Touch/iPad/iPod Nano/iPod Shuffle/Mac OS X – These are the obvious first steps for Apple. OS X would be great just to immerse more people in Siri. The Shuffle would be great with it.

ii. AppleTV – I separate this from the other devices in that I believe it has the most room to grow and, in the process, really hurt the cable companies. The IR remote it comes with too is just painful to use. The iOS Remote.app is useful but Siri would make controlling the device similar and feel more natural.

iii. Cars – The Ford has Sync which is cool and all but there is one problem it has: Microsoft. Jokin’, I’m fine with them but Siri is amazing and can do a whole bunch more than other services can. BMW has already expressed interest in adding Siri to some of their vehicles. If it happens, it’ll require an iPhone but on a side-note, I can imagine a world where having your phone can be more than just a way to reach each other or pay for stuff; one where the phone provides access to our entire world. No more keys, no more cash or credit/debit cards, no more IDs, no other stuff we must carry in our pockets.

iv. Homes – Speaking of integration, why not be able to tell our house it’s too damn hot? Or even start the car and open the garage door? Well, maybe not the garage door because I still want some security that can’t be taken over from a network but it’d be fantastic.

I want music on the speakers, I say something to my iPhone and it happens. I want to control the TV, my iPhone can do it. I want to go somewhere, why not ask the phone for directions and display the map on a large in-dash display? The phone can be the portal from which we connect to the web while others things in our life just grab some commands.

Many people at school change their names Senior year so “colleges can’t find their Facebook.” First off, I have a very easy way to fix that. It’s under the privacy page in Facebook right here! Just make it so only your “Friends” can see your statuses, Likes, groups and photos. Just do not add someone who you do not know who may happen to be a college admissions representative as a Facebook friend or allow them to follow you on Twitter. Better yep, just don’t post anything you don’t want the world to know online. As soon as it’s there, someone can take it and share no matter your Facebook name or security settings. Ever stuff on a computer is open to the world as long as it has a network connection.

I believe the event will start with Apple’s new CEO, Tim Cook, introducing himself for all the people who have not been paying attention the last few months. He will then pass it off to Steve Jobs who will either be on stage or via a video where I hope he explains a little more about his health and why he stepped down (or up) from CEO to Chair. In this explanation, I would also be very pleased to hear my theory be proven true; Steve Jobs waited to resign as CEO until iOS 5, iCloud, the next iPhone and, of course, his sucessor, Tim Cook, were 100% ready for primetime. These products and services, giving Apple as nice stepping stone into the future as he has always imagined it would be. This will be followed by an award ceremony style acceptance speech: he must thank everyone. Of course he starts by thanking us Apple addicts for continually emptying our pockets for their new, hot toy and supporting him while he is ill. Then he will thank the Apple employees for their hard work and dedication which will end with special thanks to the board of Apple; Steve Wozniak and likely Ronald Wayne as well; finally many of Apple’s current executives. The last executive would have be Tim Cook, who will be showered with praise as someone we can look towards for leadership and brilliance.

Tim Cook will return to the stage after Steve has finished his good-byes and share the business side of things before the show really gets on the road. It will be the normal stuff; iTunes Users with Credit Cards, Song Downloads, App Downloads, iPhones/iPads/iPods/Macs shipped last quarter, etc. This is the area in which he excels so I would expect it to be his area of the show. Then Tim will fall back into his more, as I understand from the internet, “background” role by doing as Steve as done more and more over the recent years and handing off large sections of the presentation to different executives.

First up should be Scott Forstall describing iOS 5 and the new features we should expect to see on our old iOS devices along with a few developers to demonstrate what they have done since the betas first were released. Facebook will be in there to demonstrate their iPad app. If they have made peace with Apple, I hope they also are included in iOS 5′s social networking integration as was Twitter. Maybe Twitter got bumped for Facebook and have their own event for this reason. We should not expect too many surprises here though. I see the Voice Assistant being exclusive to the new iPhone so I am not expecting it quite yet. I see Eddy Cue coming out next to speak with us about some of the iCloud functionality that will be included in iOS 5 along with Lion and an update for Snow Leopard. Such as how developers can now sync data between devices with an example of iWork updates for iOS and Mac (no Windows or Web yet) that will sync projects, the ability to re-download media from iTunes, Photo Stream and iCloud Backups which they will use to enforce the “Cut-The-Cord” and “Post-PC” montras.

For the actually introduction of the next iPhone, I hope Steve will stay off the stage and Tim would present it so as to give him the regins of Apple. The only thing is I am unsure if I see Tim as someone who would give the full introduction to the next iPhone but I also think Steve is too smart to know to give a full introduction of the iPhone. Maybe a duet intro then Steve could sit back down? Tim best at least give us the main details about screen size, the processor, the design (slight modifications but nothing too insane) and some new gadgets inside. All of which differentiate the next iPhone from the iPhone 4. Then we meet Jonathan Ive who gives a more detailed overview of the phone and brings out a few developers who receive early access to the phone then show us one of those annoying videos Apple seems to make calling the phone “Revolutionary” and “Amazing,” maybe featuring Steve.

In the end, we return to Tim who presents us a chart with a list of features the next iPhone will have then do a slide over to the pricing, $200 on 2-year contract with AT&T and Verizon… then Sprint, maybe T-Mobile too, slide in as well. Here we will finally find out about whether this iPhone will be a Verizon World Phone, if there will be one phone for all carriers and if it will have LTE, HSPDA+ and/or Wi-Max. I bet no to Wi-Max because Sprint is launching their LTE network beginning of 2012 but LTE seems up in the air to me because T-Mobile and AT&T will have an advantage over Verizon and Sprint who would be stuck at CDMA is it was without LTE but so many rumors have said there will be no LTE for this iPhone. Seems strange though that this phone would be released around the time of AT&T’s LTE network though. I also think Apple will create an all-in-one phone because Steve explained they wanted only one phone to make when the first iPhone was announced back in January of 2007. I also wouldn’t be shocked if there was an option in the Settings.app for Sprint’s new CDMA Push-To-Talk as well. It would sort of disappoint me though if it was not cross carrier and usable over WiFi like iMessage and Facetime but it is Sprint’s service so I do not see it working on other non-Sprint iOS devices. I mean, Apple can’t take all of the carriers revenue away otherwise the carriers would only need to charge for data. Side note; Carriers, I would pay for a data only phone if I could us texting and VoIP apps.

Of course we need a release date and I have heard October 14th thrown around and that date seems perfect. It matches the Friday release of the iPad 2- so I would bet 5 PM local time-and it is a day I have off from school! The iPad 2 was on the first day of Spring Break and the 14th is the start of a four day weekend!

But wait, mustn’t there be more? A “One More Thing” type conclusion. Well, I think we will find out next Tuesday how much of a show-men Tim Cook really is versus a person who follows in his predecessors footsteps. If there is a one more thing, I would guess something along this tree

1. No iPods are updated at all. Only problem with this is that the holidays are fast approaching.
2. The Shuffle, Nano and Classic stay in-tact but the Touch receive  updates–(I wish WordPress would tab so I could have “1″ and “2″ then “i” and “ii” but nope)–the Nano gets more size and a better battery while the Touch is upgraded to similar specs to the new iPhone. I hope there is an option with cell phone data but I bet only some carriers (T-Mobile and Sprint, AT&T does cave though) would be on board at first but with pricer data and lacking 4G connections. The lack of the faster speeds would be to encourage a full iPhone purchase and to save money on the hardware. I would be stunned if it was on contract and if they charge much more, if any, for the cell data enable devices so as to keep it a viable option for those who can not afford an iPhone.
3. The Shuffle and Classic are gone. The Nano is set in place. The Touch get those updates.

The Nano might be updated if they do an iPod edition but I believe that the iPod Touch will be the only focus of any, if there is one, iPod overview and they will be more because it is becoming close to cheap iPhone. Apple will likely mention cases as they have with the iPhone 4 and iPad 2 launches but I do not think they will spend as much time on this as in the last events because we know they have been making them for over a year now. They really should update OS X to be able to comunicate with iMessage. I’d love to see cross-platform support such as Windows, Blackberry, Android, WebOS and Windows Phone 7 apps but that is just a dream that will never come true. Without it though, I do not see iMessage as a viable option to text messages. For NFC purchases, I would hope they include a chip in there for it but leave the API open or ever announce a partnership with Google. Too many different services would just kill it off.

Now that the new MacBook Airs and Mac minis have Bluetooth 4.0, the iPhone should get BT 4.0 as well. I have used an iPod Nano as a watch and can only imagine how sweet it would be to see the Nano updated with BT 4.0 as well and then sync with the iPhone for quick access and minimal viewing but that is just a geeks dream and will not happen here. Maybe they could use BT 4.0 for NFC? While I am writing about BT 4.0, expect a new Wireless Keyboard, Magic Mouse and Magic Trackpad with BT 4.0 to show in the online store soon but I do not see a reason they would mention it at this event.

This entire post is just observations and guesses and hunches and desires that likely will not come come true, especially the way I described them. Do not take what I say as fact as you will likely be upset after the event. My biggest worry is the “One More Thing” part because it seems the most unpredictable. Where would Apple fit the iPods into an iPhone event and what would they do with the iPods? I have no idea and my three options are all have interchangeable parts. It seems though, Apple blogs tend to over hype what will be announced. This event feels like one where the hype might not be that high above the bar because Apple has a lot to go over in a single presentation and a long time to prepare everything. That also means much will be skipped and announced later or we just find out when it comes out. I see my “predictions” as over the top too but shorter than what I notice elsewhere online. If there is anything you think I missed, e-mail me at ybrammer@brams.us and I might add it with credit to you if I think it should be added. As well if there is something you think does not deserve to be in this post.

Well, it is nearly 2:00 AM on a school night and my alarm is set for 5:00 AM. I have done no homework so I feel I should take a little nap then get to work. I am looking forward to next week and I can not wait to see how over top my “predictions” really were. It’s iPhone overload and it is keeping me up. The sooner I get an iPhone in hand, the better! If the iPhone does come out on the 14th, I will be waiting by a local Apple Store all day long with my iPad, ID and money having a blast conversing with all of the others interesting people that show up to Apple product releases!

I must, above all else, promise myself to never use beta software from Apple for my iPhone, iPod, iPad or Mac. I always seem to run into problems and it is not worth it.

BTW: Some guy listed an iPad 1G on Craigslist. Still needs to call me back! So annoying. Hope to get it before I leave town. Make my summer and this play so much more enjoyable!

– Will Bramlett (@YBrammer)