Serena Flying in the Air with her iPad

The new year is almost done with its first month. Classes are solid, getting the schedual is becoming accustamery, and news is int he air...
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First off, I was watching the Australian Open, and wow, haha. I was talking to my roomate albert, who is a powerlifter and looks huge for hsi size, and I was telling him how Serena Williams could probobly kick his butt. He was like, yea, she is big, but naw, no way. Then I turned on the TV and there she was...playing and swinging her raquet...her huge body in glory. She is so huge. Her quadricepts is like the size of Albert´s core, and his core is huge. Holy Cow. So I just want to make all yall aware...that dont take Tennis Female players lightly, they will likely rick your butt. Starting with Serena Williams.




And Guess who won the Austrelian Open this year? You´re looking at her. 12 Single´s Grand Slam Titles and 11 Doubles Grand Slam Titles...her nickname might as well be Miss Grand Slam.
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Something else that is pretty big news...at Least I think so. I got up one morning in Chicago getting ready for the Northwestern game (of which we will not speak of) to find the USA today outside my hotel door. On the front page, I see something detremential. Sure, it is one news story, but it is the mentality that we must be aware of. During the past six years, millions of passengers have flown on at least 65,000 US Air flights that should never have left the ground due to maintainance problebmes, the USAtoday 6 month investigation found. This is a mentality issue. How can we target so much attention on screening tecnology, no fly list, cockpit saftly, and terrorist issues when we have issues of our own! We have piles and pile sof problems, but instead of taking care of what we can do, we focus on what we cannot do and put our efforts and attention on it. This is the problem with politics on a national scale, this is a problem in our local businesses and schools, and even at the house. We need to focus on what we can handle and work on dealing with the larger issues. If you let it slip by at home, then it makes sence that 65,000 flights with mecanical problems that you could have been onboard, have flown in the last 6 years.
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So the iPad came out...now what? Is this gonna be a revolutionary tecnological advancement? Or is this just a pretty boy toy from the pretty boy of all boy companies, Apple. Yes, I am writting this on my black mac book. Yes I have a unlocked and jailbroken iPhone 2G. And yes I use apple software and recomend it. But why on earth create something like a large iPod touch and give it the hype of a $45 million blockbuster hit movie on 3-D? Steve Jobs says it was supposed to hit the gap between phone and laptop. Is there really a gap? Is there a need to fill that gap? What can it do...surf the Web, play games, watch high-definition movies, listen to music, dispatch and receive e-mail and read electronic books and newspapers. Alright, that is everything that the iPod touch can do. Ok. What can it do better?
-It has a bigger screen...ok, not bad. 10inches. Ok. Anything else?
-It has an ibook application that can read books and magazines and newspaper like a Kindle.
-Can it play flash? No
-Does it have a high speed processor to run different applications? No
-Does it have a camera for web conferenceing? No
-BUT, geuess what? ...it has WiFi...so you can get online as long as there is a internet wireless port in your vecinity. OR you can buy the 3G upgrade capability for $130 extra along with a AT&T $30/month plan to get data anywhere


...here is my big problem. It is not Creating New Media, or creating anything new in any sence of the word...it is only about Consuming. And that is the problem I have about it. There is nothing new. Sure, we will see how much of the market it will take from the ebook market, considering the iPad is 2-3 time more expensive than the other competators, such as Amazon Kindle and Sony-s ebooks. Why carry along a laptop, a smart phone AND some big pad. I mean, it looks good, but lack of physical keyboard, no video camera, and limited internet because of disabilities such as Flash leave the iPad as a only so-good type of player. Its good, but only at a few things...that can already be done on your iPod Touch. Yes, you iPod touch. Alright. My iPhone can do everything that that sucker tcan do (minus having to pay for books through the iBook application...I just do it for free). So yea, not me, not my dollars. I wonder to see what happens int he market. This was the worse kept secret for Apple EVER, since people have been expecting it for like up to 2 years. But it is finally here now. And lets see what happens. We will surely be talking about this again in the future.
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Last thing, the Basketball team has not been doing well. Losses after lossses. Some have been close, some have been blow outs, such as the Northwestern game. We hope to change things around. Wisconsin, Purdue, and Michigan State have not been pretty losses. Infact, Michigan State hurt SO much because we barely lost, at the very very end of the game. Peedi almost had the out of bounds play of the year, but barely missed. Lets see what we got left.
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Ucon Win

This was a big game for us. We had won and lost a few, but we needed a big confidence booster. If you remember our past success with UCLA and DUKE from last year, you will remember that those victories were pivital to make it into the NCAA Tournament. Well this year we have not ahd any big non-conference wins, many good wins at that. So we came into this past week determined to work hard against the much taller, faster, and talented University of Connecticute Huskies.

And thats just what we did, working everyday on our weeknesses, especailly boarding and passing perfectly, to make sure any weaknesses of ours would not be exploited so that we could compete with them,a nd with the beleif that if we hung close the hwole game, our confience and the help of the crowd would help us succeed. And that is just what happened

We came into the game really pumped. This was a a game that mattered. It ment something to us. It ment something to the fans as well. We had a top TV commentator on CBS and we had a come prime time saturday slot right before the NFL playoff games. We had to work our butt off, but the momentum and spirit was there. Was there any possibility that we would be able to hit the clutch shots when we needed to against Duke? Was it possible our maize rage and defensive pressure would cause easy buckets ont he other end of the floor? Would we be able to hold our heads up when the opposition started to get things going their way? Well, we did. We were fortunate enough to get everything working together in this game, after such a disasterous first part of the season,t hings were clicking the way they havent since last year. Good passes, great defence, solid boards, and most of all, clutch 3-point shots to seal the game. Sure, the rush on the court was half hearted and completely unceccessary for beating a 15ranked opponent (remember, we were 15 pre-ranked), but I feel liek this win was much more than beating a ranked team. It was the fact that we had finally shown what we were capable of to a win-starving fan population. We were able to beat the bigger, faster, talented, and NBA going UConn Huskies. THey were literally larger than us in every position except when our Fr Darius Morrus was on the floore. And we won, we finally got a win that cpould make every Wolverine fan smile from ear to ear. Great great win. Thank God.

You can see I was determined that game as well

Unfotunately the Cowboys can say the same thing. After having a decent beginning and a solid ending of the season with big wins over the powerful New Orleans Saints and the Talented Eagles, the Boys ran out of steam in a terrible loss to the Farve-led Vikings. I was so much hoping for a Saints-Cowboys NFC championship. That would ahve been awesome, considering those are both my teams. So yea, oh well. Cowboys out, but the Saints live on, and probbobly have the most ligit chance to win that Lombardi Trophy. Only time will tell. Go Saints...all the way.

Back in Ann Arbor and ready to go

THe secreat to how good you are going to do in the semester are two things...sleep, and food. More sleep=good. More food=good. I beleive food and sleep can someonewhat be substitutes. Cant sleep a lot? Eat a lot of food. Cant eat a lot? Well sleep a lot. Im lyin. THats a bunch of made up stuff. But, thats what I do. Weeks are long and hard, weekends, well, I try to sleep when I am not at Crisler.

We will see how the basketall team does this semester. We are comming off of a very rough non-conference paly. Without the big staple games liek Duke and UCLA of last year, we will ahve to have a very solid running in conference play to get a good bid. Big games this semester include Ohio St at home, Uconn, MIchigan State at home, and a few big ones at the end to seal the deal again like we did last year.

TO Finish off, I want to offer the tip of the week and post a video one of my most loyal fans, Laxx1550, contributed to my email to put on the blog. For those that dont know, if you have any news, bits or info that you want included int he next dpinedoblog, just email me at dpinedoblog@gmail.com. Its that easy.

So the tip of the week...I went with my bud to the hotel a few weeks ago and when we left he forgot his charger and didnt know where it was. He figured he had lost it and was kinda bummed. I told him that instead of going to buy a new phone charger he should go to a local hotel and claim that he lost his charger for so-and-so phone. Sure enough they had one for his phone in a bin with tons of other lost chargers. It's the #1 most left behind item at hotels, so most places have a big bin filled with every phone charger imaginable. I found a quote online of someone who has seen this work..."I work for the second largest conference hotel in my city. You have no idea the size box we have of chargers left behind. 90 percent are idiot blackberry chargers. This works 100% of the time, we never verify that anyone stays here we just let them go shopping for [their] charger. Hell we even will give people a charger if they call down to the front desk and say they forgot theirs!" Aparently it also works with car rentals...cause everyone must leave theirs in their rented cars. THe moral of the story, truth be told, there are enough phone chargers int he world to cover every man and cow, so instead of going to T-Mobile and spending another 20 bucks, just go to your local hotel or car rental store and let them know that you lost yours there...bingo.

And now from our beloved listener Laxx1550...