Friday, March 30, 2007

Biggest Sports Weekend Ever?

Probably not but here's a quick rundown of the events to look forward to:

1. Saturday Night: NCAA Final 4 (CBS)

  • Georgetown Vs. Ohio St. [6:07 pm ET]
  • Florida Vs. UCLA [8:47 pm ET]

If you want to know who I like to win it all the answer is none of these teams. After going 8-8 on my Elite Eight picks I followed that up with an 0-4 on my Final Four picks. So I am unqualified to judge any of these teams, but I'm rooting for UCLA. When are they going to ditch the 35-second shot clock?

2. Sunday Noon: Mavericks @ Suns [3:30 pm ET] (ABC)

Possibly the biggest regular season game of the season. The Suns will attempt to tie up the series between the 2 most explosive teams the NBA has seen this side of the 21st Century. If either Steve Nash or Dirk Nowitzki steps up and has a significant game-winning impact they could seal the deal for their MVP candidacy. I'm just glad the game's not at Dallas so we don't have to endure the testicularly-proned Jason Terry's eagle-soaring, ape-stomping antics.

3. Sunday Night: MLB Opening Night - NY Mets @ St. Louis Cardinals [8:05 pm ET] (ESPN 2)

Baseball is back. Last time these teams met Endy Chavez made one of the greatest playoff homerun snags of all time, but the Metties still lost on a Yadier Molina dinger and an Adam Wainright curveball. Biggest stories to follow this season:

  • Daisuke Matsuzaka (松坂 大輔) for whom the Red Sox paid $51.111MM just to talk to his agent will make his major league debut later next week (TBD). The young pitching phenom features 8 pitches (including the "shuuto") and has no pitch count, and as far as I'm concerned no ceiling for potential.
  • The Baby Backs (AZ Diamondbacks) added some quality pitching, including the Big Unit (Randy Johnson), and will look to their highly-touted young stars to carry the load in their quest for a playoff spot. Meanwhile, I will look to my dad to carry the financial load in my quest for a seat at the ballpark.
  • Sammy Sosa is back and playing for the Texas Rangers. Will he hit 50 homeruns? Will he hit 2? I have no idea. The HGH era has made it really difficult to gauge performance on some of these players (particularly the ones with perpetually increasing head sizes)

--Throw that sensational sports batch in with Saturday & Sunday LDS General Conference and factor in the marvel of the Tivo era and I'm looking at roughly 20.5 hours of TV over a 48-hour period (for which I'll be awake for only 32 hours give or take--that's a 0.64 TV/Waking Hours ratio). But if I cut out all MoTab sequences and all "shoulder-pad" talks I can cut that down to about 18.5 hours.

Friday, March 23, 2007

Apple TV - A must have??

Apple TV

NY Times Review

  • $300
  • 40GB of memory
  • Streams up to 5 other computers
  • Brings iTunes to your HDTV

I love the concept and I'm a huge proponent of non-physical collections (except for baseball cards) but at least in my case, I'm not on board until iTunes begins offering 720 resolution HD movies, TV shows, etc. Why exclude non-HD households from the market (apple TV doesn't communicate with standard TV sets) if you don't even offer HD programs? I'm sure it's just a matter of time before high-res programming becomes available. Apparently video recording capabilites are on the horizon as well. Intriguing, but on the Buy/Wait/Don't Buy scale, I'm giving it a "Wait".

Friday, March 2, 2007

26

Having let 26 days come and go since my last post, today I will cite 26 examples that define Blake's greatness, on this his 26th birthday. (What's the name of that new Jim Carrey movie?)

  1. Just a great guy
  2. The Trifecta blog, I mean c'mon
  3. Cap'n Overtime
  4. Douchey Doucheying it
  5. Age Does Not Matter. It does not matter.
  6. Voicemails
  7. Jack N' The Box: Chicken Tenders Combo
  8. All the unfinished Coke cans
  9. The Brown Lexus
  10. Writing the Owner's Manual
  11. Traveling with Surge Protectors
  12. Always leaving something behind
  13. Miracle Gro
  14. Great Golfer
  15. Public Relief
  16. Knows how to Bilbo Baggins it
  17. Still uses Case Logic products
  18. $30 steaks - knows how to fine dine
  19. Knows good music
  20. The Congratulatory Prize
  21. Spango Dango
  22. Understands Politics
  23. Loves to spoon
  24. Sports Buff
  25. Stuffed Pockets
  26. A true friend