Shouzer

I’ve seen this commercial on CBS multiple times throughout the tournament. I honestly don’t know if it is a real promotion though.

Watch CBS Videos Online

Honestly, I understand Sci Fi’s desire to become more mainstream–they want to make more money.  They feel they’ve pigeonholed themselves by marketing only towards a niche audience.  But seriously, come on…  Syfy just sounds ridiculous.  And really, who’re they trying to fool?

Realistically, I suppose it doesn’t really make much difference for me.  If there’s a show I want to watch, I’ll watch it regardless of the network.  Then again, I assume I’m not the audience this new branding is suppose to attract.  Considering who it is supposed to attract, it’s probably only a matter of time before they start playing reruns of The Hills.

xkcd has a good point about all the hooplah that’s been made over the AIG bonuses.  I understand the public’s anger, and honestly I do think it’s a pretty stupid thing to do.  But the fact of the matter is the bonuses are inconsequential when put in the proper context.

Apple came out and announced iPhone OS 3.0 a few days ago.  It’s got some great new stuff in it, including (finally) push notifications, copy+paste, MMS (picture/video messages), turn-by-turn navigation, and more.  Reading the news, I thought to myself, “Great, I’ve been wanting MMS since this thing came out.”

Honestly, how is it that a $600 phone was ever released doesn’t have one of the most common features in existence?  I’ve heard arguments that it wasn’t required, because the phone handled email.  After all, email is better than picture messaging, right?  Apple was one of the first companies to stop putting floppy drives in their computers, because they were ahead of the curve.  Such is the case with MMS, right?

Wrong.  Dead fucking wrong.  As long as you have friends out there who have and use MMS, email is worthless in filling the void.  It certainly has its place–after all, I use email on my phone all the time.  But almost none of my friends or family have a phone that does email.  Nope, they all have regular phones that “only” to MMS.  It’s bothered me since the day I bought my phone.

Great, right?  They’re finally fixing a fundamental flaw with the phone by adding in a missing feature.  Oh wait, there’s some small print.  “Only available on iPhone 3G.”  Huh? So because I was there in line on the first day, giving Apple my money without ever seeing the phone in person, I got fucked.  Well, fuck you too, Apple.  I’m buying a Pre as soon as the damn thing is released.  Ironically, that likely means Palm will screw me somehow, too.  But, at least they haven’t done it yet, and Apple has.

I found this site to be very, very useful:

Farecast

They forecast airfare so you know the best time to buy. Will the fare go up? Will it go down? Now you know…sort of. They also send you email updates when the fare changes on your tracked flights.

What I really like though, is the flexible search option. You put in a destination city, and then you can adjust parameters for departure date, duration, destination, and trip length. As far as I know, they are the only site doing this. Most travel places let you search by flexible dates, but flexible destination is far more useful. For example:

I want to go on vacation over memorial day weekend, but I’m not too particular about the destination. So I got this sweet map to telling me what it would cost to go where. Pretty cool, huh?

As I do every year, I’ve made a document with game times for the first round of the NCAA tourney. Since I’m not rooming with, living in the same city as, or seeing any of you on a daily basis, I’ll upload the thing here for all to share.

For some reason, no one else publishes one of these, but I always find it helpful to have a sheet in my pocket telling me who is playing when.

File is here.

I have no clue whatsoever how Twitter stays afloat.  They’re basically like, “Hey, everybody!  Why don’t you come use our bandwidth?!  w00t!”

Now sure, as a user, I love the business model–I just don’t understand how it’s going to last, especially as it gains more and more attention from the media. Quake Live just went into public beta, and as they’ve been adjusting to the demand, they’ve frequently gone offline with only a link to their Twitter page available. Basically, they get crushed for bandwidth, can’t handle it, and send it all to Twitter. And Twitter doesn’t have ads, so what do they get from it besides a bill? Oh well, that’s not my problem.

I happened to catch this “editorial” about Warner’s new contract with the Cardinals, and I have to agree with it.  Frankly, I’ve always hated the notion that God takes sides in sporting events (and wars, for that matter, but that’s another story).  If that’s true, that means the other side never stood a chance, and then what’s the point?

Given that, I’ve never really cared for it when athletes are strongly outspoken about their faith, and you never hear a single interview with them when God isn’t mentioned like twelve times.  Sure, I understand that your faith is important to you–that’s a good thing.  But I don’t want to hear about it when it’s almost a certainty that you’re not taking it serious anyway.  Jesus said, “Again I tell you, it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God.”  Oh yeah, but here Warner is being a bitch because he’s being offered $10 mil/year instead of $12 or something.  Whatever.

You know you want yourself some Tiberius.  You gotsta get you some of that Star Trek lovin’.

Seriously, though…  This type of stuff is crazy to me.  I’m sure it’s got it’s market, and it’ll sell, but come on now.  Is it really necessary?  Couldn’t you get by with regular cologne?  Any who wants the Red Shirt?  “Oh great, now I smell like somebody who’s going to die within the hour.  Sweet.”