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This is why I hate the NBA

Please allow me a moment to editorialize, and opine. I cannot stand the NBA; basketball was once my favorite sport. It is the sport I played the most growing up both with my friend and organized, but I just cannot stomach the state of the NBA circa 2010. This is such a me first league, with a laughable salary cap that allows retarded team owners to pay guys like Darko Millicic 20 million dollars over four years, and every other gut gets a 100 million dollar contract. All this money being spent in a league the claims poverty, and whose owners are ready to lock out the players yet again.

I can’t take it. This league allows one player, Lebron James, to hijack its entire off season. Every team is afraid to make a move as they continue to live under the delusion that they have a shot at the supposed greatest current NBA player. I find it pretty hard to swallow that King Lebron gets labeled the best player when he has no championship rings, and is incapable of leading a team to a title.

I liked guys like Isaiah Thomas, Michael Jordan, and maybe even Kobe Bryant who had the attitude that the season was a failure unless it ended with a championship parade. I remember as a kid watching Isaiah refuse to try on someone else’s ring until he had won one of his own. That guy was driven, almost to the point of madness. He would fight his own teammates if he perceived a weakness in one of them. Dude was a shark, and he brought home two NBA championships because of it.

In reading some NBA history it seems the NBA of today very much resembles the NBA of the 1970′s. A league that needed Larry Bird and Jordan to come in and save it from ruin. I don’t think things are that bad yet, but this is a league with a very bad image problem, and a bunch of really dumb franchise owners. Darko got 20 million bucks, really?

Some people in life are nice. Or they’re nice to me, and then really funny when they’re mean to others. They compliment me on my clothes (or pull me aside, ever so gently, to tell me when a certain item needs to be retired from rotation). Some people, other people, are famous, in that way people are sometimes—mention their name when you’re temping at an office, or around the Thanksgiving table and you’d get blank stares, but everyone that I care about impressing knows them. I die when I get a casual email from them—but seeing them around is even better!

But other people, people I once knew and loved, I have been forced to remove from my life—because real life made me hate them.

The real world—so uncomfortably, as I have discovered!—shows all too often how people are so funny and smart online but are then total jerks if you actually talk to them. I just go crazy sometimes with this real-world relationship stuff! It will be so much easier when people just use computers for everything. For now, I’m stuck with sometimes seeing these…. people, but I’m cutting them out as best I can.

Cutting people out of your real life isn’t as clean or perfect as pressing a button. I wish! For instance, there was, let’s call him “Jim Ponywatch,” the guy in my book group who was always clearing his throat in the most annoying way. It was so uncomfortable when I reached my breaking point and asked him to stop coming to our meetings, especially since he’d brought the Emmenthaler that month.

Also it was pretty uncomfortable when the rest of the group kicked me out instead—the new David Mitchell is pretty hard to read alone!—but it’s pretty thoughtful that “Jim” crosses the street when he sees me. So I don’t have to hear that raspy cough anymore.

Gosh, I hate to call him out in this passive aggressive way but I have to do it online, because I'll never see him in person again!

You know what? Everyone is such an asshole! Why is everyone such an asshole? It makes things really difficult; life takes a lot of focus for me now. I signed up for a FreshDirect account I didn’t need to get away from the produce guy who I think leered at me that time.

And my former college roommate (and former friend, ha ha!) “Beth” just can’t stop calling me to talk as I’m getting ready to do something really important, so then I have to deal with that for an hour before I can move forward—or at least, I HAD to, until I decided to stop taking her calls. Doesn’t she understand I have a life outside talking to her?

And all those cousins who talk about how they’re not pregnant yet but they’re “having fun trying,” or people who check out back issues of People from the public library, and the last guy I slept with, who had a DVD of Full Metal Jacket on his bedside table and asked me if I wanted to watch it with him. I just have to keep my blinders up, all the time. Monsters, everywhere.

Then there was my brother, “Spike,” who’s constantly talking about things that are just so boring—his work, his cooking class. He's innocuous over email and in chat but really, such a jerk in real life. So self-absorbed. Just because I work from home doesn’t make me less of a person, you know? To say nothing of the fact that he likes the Black Eyed Peas. I had to stop going to family events so I wouldn’t have to deal with his stream of vacuous nonsense.

But I think I’ve found a good replacement—this guy I met at the post office when he was getting The New Criterion out of a P.O. Box. We haven’t talked yet, but I bet he has a lot of good stuff to say. I bet he’s a good listener, too.

Dan D'Addario is one step ahead of you.

Proven Penis Enlargement

LeBron James is about to announce where he'll be playing on ESPN. Well, at least we hope he spills the beans immediately. The intro for the ESPN special, “The Decision,” is ridiculous, calling him the “most coveted” free agent of all time. ESPN's sources still claim he's going to Miami, but Chris Broussard said there are “so many twists and turns” that he could head to NY, Chicago or stay in Cleveland. Sorry, NJ!

9:05 p.m.: It's still ESPN packages about how great LeBron is. Time to check LeBron James' Ego on Twitter: “GETTIN READY TO DO THE DAMN THING BUT SO MANY THINGS ARE ON MY MIND LIKE WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH LINDSAY LOHAN? GIRL IS LUNCHIN.”

9:07 p.m.: Blah blah blah more ESPN stuff. We get a shot of LeBron in the Boys and Girls Club gymnasium with Jim Gray; LeBron is wearing a gingham shirt. Jon Barry still thinks LeBron should go to Chicago. Broussard agrees that Chicago is a better fit with Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, but says “you can't argue with Miami” given that Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.

9:18 p.m.: ESPN claims that LeBron will be talking after the next commercial pod. We'll see.

9:22 p.m.: Jim Gray asks LeBron what's been going on this summer. To note — there's a huge Vitamin Water cooler in the back of the audience (VM is a sponsor). King James says the process has been everything he's expected and more. He claims not many know his decision.

9:25 p.m.: Blah blah blah, Gray is asking how knows, when James has made up his mind, does the team know. James: The last time he changed his mind was in his dreams; the team apparently just found out.

James says the major factor was for him to “win now…Winning is a huge thing to me, Jim, you know that.”

9:27 p.m.: “I'm taking my talents to South Beach and joining the Miami Heat,” because it's the best opportunity to win championships. “I never wanted to leave Cleveland. My heart will always be around that area. But I also felt this is the greatest challenge for me, to move on… It's not like leaving Cleveland…it's about joining forces with the other guys…and winning for multiple years. If this was a perfect world, I would stay. I've done so many great things for the team, they've done so many great things for me…. This is a very emotional time for me.”

I've been gone from Cleveland almost two years now, but it came as no surprise to me that basketball star LeBron James picked Miami in a quest for slam dunking fortune and fame. If I understood that he would eventually leave the Cavaliers – after living and working in the city for almost a decade – then the good folks who have never left should have understood it even better.

But what does surprise me is the status so many citizens of Cleveland have bestowed on their local hero now that he's departing. Shouldn't Cleveland be proud of more than an extremely gifted man-child athlete? Shouldn't the city seek celebration in something more meaningful to the daily welfare of its populace?

I guess not, given the reactions of spurned fans in Cleveland. The same fanatics who gleefully shelled out hard-earned money for expensive replica jerseys and WITNESS t-shirts set fire to their souvenirs on television cue after James announced he was taking his game to South Beach. No less than the diminutive team owner Dan Gilbert showed how really small and petty he is by posting a blistering letter on the team's website, accusing the object of his affection of “cowardly betrayal.” I wonder what Gilbert might have said if James had pledged to continue to make him and his team wealthy?

LeBron–one of those rarest of American celebrities known by one name–will still be the same person he is today as a future Miami resident. Nothing's changed since a parade of civic leaders from across northeast Ohio begged him to stay close to home. (Curiously, the video has been scrubbed from most Internet sites, suggesting the shame of the failed and humbling effort.) Perhaps the only difference is that some in the region can't lean on LeBron to make themselves feel better. That's the shame of it all.

For some in the Cleveland community to pin its civic pride and ambitions on the whims of one coddled and spoiled young athlete is sad–and dangerous. You don't have to be brilliant or a native to see what's real in Cleveland. Nation-leading levels of poverty. Racial tensions. Corrupt political leaders. Disrespect for the value of education. Resistance to egalitarian and progressive views. Xenophobia. I saw and wrote about it all as a newspaper columnist.

To be sure, a great many people across northeast Ohio are working their hardest to make positive improvements. I met and wrote about them too, the community activists, business leaders, philanthropists and private citizens doing amazing feats with little of the public attention that follows a three-point shot. Why not spend as much attention celebrating and cheering them on? Where are the 20,000 fans, like the ones who filled The Q last season for Cavalier home games, for sincere civic leadership?

The loud and obnoxious Cleveland sport fans who feign hurt feelings from LeBron's foolish spectacle on ESPN, which gave up any pretense of journalism in that hour-long infomercial, speaks more about misplaced priorities than it does about character of a 25-year-old who wears short pants to work. Let's face it, LeBron was never going to be a lifer in Cleveland and folks across the city should have known he wasn't staying any longer than necessary. His passion wasn't in the region; witness his wardrobe of New York Yankee caps and Dallas Cowboy paraphernalia.

What's more, Clevelanders knew–or should have known–he would seek out an opportunity to win an NBA title elsewhere because it seemed unlikely in his hometown. If the Cavs' season-best record didn't produce an NBA title last season, it wasn't going to happen.

I still have warm feelings toward what Cleveland could be. But for that to come to pass, many more residents must put the same level of passion into civic concerns as they do in their beloved, if hapless, sporting teams. I left Cleveland thinking that the people who claim to love the city most do the most damage to themselves by wallowing in prideful denial and taking comfort in palliatives such as sports heroes who eventually and sadly let them down.

So when LeBron decided in the glare of ESPN's klieg lights that the savior's job was too big for him to do alone–and decided to make himself happy by moving to Florida–the entire region felt its stomach sink to its toes. That's not only an unfair indictment of LeBron, it's a sign that folks in Cleveland need a firmer grip on their reality.

Sam Fulwood III is a senior fellow at the Center for American Progress

Entertainment promotions provide your company with a powerful platform from which you can harness your audience's unquenchable desire for digital entertainment. New movies continue to draw enormous crowds. Rising music artists continue to grab the entertainment spotlight. Custom promotions can be designed to deliver digital incentives that leverage the popularity of Hollywood blockbusters, music artists, high-profile television programs, and video games. Your target market is already exposed to these entertainment channels. Entertainment promotions give you a unique opportunity to tap into those channels.

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In this article, we'll describe the most popular entertainment promotions and explain how you can leverage them. We'll also take a closer look at creating custom promotions with specific digital content that delivers a memorable interactive experience to consumers. Lastly, we'll explain how radio promotions and entertainment promotions can dovetail with one another to build promotional momentum and connect with your audience.

Types Of Entertainment Promotions At Your Fingertips

Consider the entertainment channels to which your audience connects. Then, think about the enormous breadth of content they consume through those channels. Each highly-anticipated movie, prominent music artist, and popular television show gives your company an opportunity to connect with viewers and fans. Entertainment promotions deliver digital content that builds upon the popularity and anticipation surrounding these entertainment outlets.

For example, your company can offer music downloads that target fans of an artist who is launching a high-profile tour. Or, you can offer skins, images, videos, and similar digital incentives to ride the wave of anticipation behind an upcoming movie. Each year, blockbuster video games are released that capture that market segment by storm. You can launch entertainment promotions that cater specifically to that market.

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Radio has traditionally been reserved for promoting artists and their labels. However, music labels, sponsors, brands, and retail giants have discovered that radio promotions offer mutually beneficial advantages. For example, you can launch an entertainment promotion that builds upon the anticipation behind an upcoming album release. As the first songs are released on the radio, your promotion can offer free downloads as a consumer incentive. Given that radio stations serve limited geographic areas, your entertainment promotions can target specific cities, improving the refinement of your customer database.

Connecting With Your Audience Through Entertainment Digital Promotions

The world is moving at a faster pace than ever. People are consuming content with their laptops and mobile devices in ways that were unimaginable a few years ago. While many companies seem intimidated by the shift, this new landscape has yielded exciting promotional opportunities. Entertainment promotions leverage this new paradigm and bridge the gap between your brand and your customers. You can form a unique connection with your audience by building upon the popularity of movies, music, video games, and other entertainment content.

Digital entertainment promotions allow you to exploit an inexhaustible pool of licensed digital content. They are an ideal platform from which to connect with your target audience, build brand exposure, and dramatically increase customer loyalty.

Promotional Currency (PC) http://www.promotionalcurrency.com/entertainment-promotions.php is a digital promotions firm that specializes in entertainment promotions. PC merges digital technology, artist licensing and promotional risk coverage to deliver turnkey, fixed-cost solutions. Among product offered are: entertainment promotions, unique customer loyalty programs, promotional incentives, online promotions and mobile promotions. As the operations star at Promotional Currency, Cyndi Walker is the maestro that keeps everything running smoothly and on cue. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Cynthia_Walker

Music is soothing to the soul and we all at one time love to listen to it. To make it even much better is having the ability to make music for your loved ones. The best way that you can make music is through a guitar. If you do not know how to play the guitar, you can simply take on lessons and practice until you learn how to play. You can choose to enroll in a class that teaches music lessons or decide to practice on your own. The new trend of learning guitar nowadays is to learn guitar yourself using “learn guitar DVDs”.

To make it easier and make the learning process more enjoyable is the use of a learn guitar DVD. The learn guitar DVD will offer you a step-by-step guide on how you can learn to play the musical instrument with great ease. It is recommended that you give yourself time to use the DVD and practice well.

At first, you may produce sound that is not so appealing but if you give it ample time to practice you will be able to make sweet music in no time. You can choose to play old classics or some modern popular strings. Everyone loves sweet music and they will love you more if you are able to make songs for them.

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Many people think that playing the guitar is difficult. All that you need is patience and determination and you will prove to them that it is quite simple. You never know for you may produce songs that will get to become great in the billboard charts. Well, maybe not so but there are great guitar players that began without the knowledge that they had such great talent until they learnt to play the instrument.

Check Out The Learn Guitar DVD Today. You Can Also Learn to Play Guitar At GuitarPlayerWorld.com. Article Source: http://EzineArticles.com/?expert=Paul_Gian

Be sure that you check out this Great helper and Contributor

Every morning, for years, my first Internet destination after booting up has been Google News.

Not because it has up-to-the-minute breaking stories, a la CNN. Rather, I've chosen to read Google News with my AM coffee because I've been able to customize the page exactly as I want it — with the exact topics and easily-digested format that I prefer.

Until this week — when Google News rolled out what detractors have called its “New Coke,” which, to my mind, presents a technical nightmare and an aesthetic atrocity.

I have no doubt that a team of diligent techies, somewhere in the bowels of the Google Giant, worked hard to turn out what they were certain was a farsighted innovation, with an array of bells and whistles, unfortunately intelligible only to the proud sires of this mishmash.

I won't go so far as to echo the cynical suggestion of one critic that this so-called innovation represents the curse of all large bureaucracies, public and private – insular group-think and an unconscious need to justify superfluous existence.

No, I will give the Google-ites credit for trying very hard to do something new and exciting.

What I cannot excuse is the blind refusal to admit error.

Hundreds of Google users bothered to take the time to register complaints on a Google Forum page. This was not the usual Internet vitriol, but thoughtful and reasoned explanations of why many people, such as myself, preferred our own way of customization, rather than having the Google Giant “suggesting” it's far superior understanding of what we really want.

Some Google minions generously responded. Be assured, they said, that we would all come to love their New Coke. But, we pleaded, couldn't we at least have the option of reverting to our ancien regime? No way, said the Giant. And frankly, my dear, we don't give a damn.

This is not an issue of war, famine and global warming. It's not even on a par with Google's brave, if wavering, effort to stand up to Chinese censorship.

But it is symbolic in its own way, because Google is the great test case of whether all corporate colossus must inevitably go the the way of arrogant and insouciant insensitivity to the Common User.

I've always had high regard for Google and I very much hope that they can still recover from this blunder.

All it takes is a simple admission – “Sorry, we made a mistake” – and a rollback to the popular and fully functional wheel that didn't need to be re-invented.

For what we know, Berlusconi paid his villa, his drinks and his friends' with his money

WRONG

His villa in Sardinia was heavily modified and rebuilt with taxpayer money for “security reasons”. He uses it to entertain other heads of state on official visits paid, again, by taxpayer money. Oh, and he flies back and forth from it on military aircrafts (usually accompanied by female escorts) paid, yet again, with taxpayer money.

The guy is just a XXI-century Peron who financed his early business success with money from the Mafia, as it was conclusively determined by the judiciary just a few weeks ago. He controls 6 of 7 free tv channels, owns the overwhelming majority of ANY media in the country (press, movie theatres, publishing…), has so many conflicts of interest that it would take several books to explore them all, but is constantly passing laws to make himself even more untouchable. He's responsible, among other things, for the appalling police behaviour during the G8 meeting in Genoa. He was close friend of a previous “uber-corrupted” prime minister, Bettino Craxi. During a court battle to get ownership of the largest publisher in the country, he successfully corrupted the judges, then corrupted his lawyer to lie during the resulting investigation. He was eventually saved by the use of the Italian equivalent of the statute of limitations — after he had managed to stop the trial umpteen times with new laws.

I wonder: would you fight for the privacy of this man to steal your money and your freedom?

This is all very well documented across the web (I Note: guess mostly in Italian, but hey). “For what we know” is not something you should really say.

LeBron James is about to announce where he'll be playing on ESPN. Well, at least we hope he spills the beans immediately. The intro for the ESPN special, “The Decision,” is ridiculous, calling him the “most coveted” free agent of all time. ESPN's sources still claim he's going to Miami, but Chris Broussard said there are “so many twists and turns” that he could head to NY, Chicago or stay in Cleveland. Sorry, NJ!

9:05 p.m.: It's still ESPN packages about how great LeBron is. Time to check LeBron James' Ego on Twitter: “GETTIN READY TO DO THE DAMN THING BUT SO MANY THINGS ARE ON MY MIND LIKE WHAT THE HELL IS UP WITH LINDSAY LOHAN? GIRL IS LUNCHIN.”

9:07 p.m.: Blah blah blah more ESPN stuff. We get a shot of LeBron in the Boys and Girls Club gymnasium with Jim Gray; LeBron is wearing a gingham shirt. Jon Barry still thinks LeBron should go to Chicago. Broussard agrees that Chicago is a better fit with Derrick Rose, Carlos Boozer and Joakim Noah, but says “you can't argue with Miami” given that Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh.

9:18 p.m.: ESPN claims that LeBron will be talking after the next commercial pod. We'll see.

9:22 p.m.: Jim Gray asks LeBron what's been going on this summer. To note — there's a huge Vitamin Water cooler in the back of the audience (VM is a sponsor). King James says the process has been everything he's expected and more. He claims not many know his decision.

9:25 p.m.: Blah blah blah, Gray is asking how knows, when James has made up his mind, does the team know. James: The last time he changed his mind was in his dreams; the team apparently just found out.

James says the major factor was for him to “win now…Winning is a huge thing to me, Jim, you know that.”

9:27 p.m.: “I'm taking my talents to South Beach and joining the Miami Heat,” because it's the best opportunity to win championships. “I never wanted to leave Cleveland. My heart will always be around that area. But I also felt this is the greatest challenge for me, to move on… It's not like leaving Cleveland…it's about joining forces with the other guys…and winning for multiple years. If this was a perfect world, I would stay. I've done so many great things for the team, they've done so many great things for me…. This is a very emotional time for me.”

 

LeBron James has made his decision and he chose the Miami Heat. Now in earnest the LeBron backlash can begin.

In the history of sports perhaps no athlete has destroyed their image in just eight days, barring being arrested. In just 24 hours no sports network has sold their soul to the devil quicker than ESPN for airing “The Decision”.

The backlash that will hit LeBron will also land on ESPN. Mainly, on ESPN for helping him drag out this decision and go on national television to rip the heart out of Cleveland and his home state of Ohio.

No athlete in the history of sports has enjoyed a love-fest from the media and fans, like LeBron has enjoyed for a player with no championship rings. Now that he has ripped the heart out of his home state and the team that drafted him, the love-fest will end.

For two years, James has more than likely known he was going to leave. He just strung the city of Cleveland along while he bid his time to free agency.

After being bounced in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2009 and the second round of the NBA playoffs in 2010, the die was cast for LeBron to leave. LeBron’s last two seasons in Cleveland saw the Cavaliers with the best record in the East and James won two MVPs.

But Cleveland could not get past the Orlando Magic in 2009 and the Boston Celtics in 2010. The weight of those defeats fell on James; much like the finals defeat in 2007 fell on him as well.

That is the kind of heat (no pun intended) that superstars have to take. Much like Kobe and Shaq had to take the heat for their loss in the NBA finals to the Detroit Pistons.

Several questions come to the forefront since LeBron made his decision. The first question is that is James the great player we think he is if he cannot win a title without the help of Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh?

There is no question that Wade is a great player. He is the only player of this trio to have a NBA title.

Bosh on the other hand has not done much in his seven year NBA career. Before you go nuts, Bosh has only two playoff appearances and he led his former team the Toronto Raptors to one .500 season and one season with an above .500 record.

The media or fans cannot declare a player a superstar with a record like Bosh. Also Bosh has led his team to two playoff appearances but was bounced in the first round both times.

If LeBron wins a title with the Heat can he really call himself the “King” anymore? Most of the NBA’s greatest players won a championship with the team that drafted them.

Michael Jordan made the Chicago Bulls by winning six titles there, Larry Bird restored the Boston Celtics by winning three titles there, and Magic Johnson bought back the luster to Los Angeles winning five championships there. Well you get my point.

These players can truly call themselves “King” of their cities and during their playing days of the NBA. That is something LeBron will not be able to say.

Now the title of king must be bestowed on D-Wade. Because Wade, like a true king had LeBron and Bosh come to him and not the other way around.

Some credit, no matter how bad you hate LeBron; you will have to admit is that he did not go for the money. For once an athlete that said winning titles was their main goal did not go to the team that could pay them the most money.   

But in all fairness the NBA’s salary cap does not allow for that. The only way James would make the most money he could is by staying in Cleveland.

That being said there was a fair amount of a chance that LeBron could win a title in Cleveland if the team had been retooled. James might have been able to take the money and the titles if he stayed with the Cavaliers.

James actions and comments during his special “The Decision” when asked about fans in Cleveland burning his jersey, shows just how out of touch he is. How can LeBron not realize how much he hurt the fans in his home state?

Unless you are a Miami Heat fan, the LeBron-a-backlash will be on full force for the next couple of years. Media people and fans in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and most of all in Cleveland will rip LeBron.

Mainly he will get ripped for his arrogance and how he led everyone on for the last two years. James has brought this on himself and by proxy has lumped Bosh and Wade in with him.

Unlike the thinking of the ESPN talking heads, the Miami Heat has no other choice but to win the NBA title next season. There is no way that you can bring in the LeBron, Bosh and resign D-Wade and not win a championship.

There is no way that the lack of championship in year one of the El Tri cannot been seen as a complete failure. If LeBron could not handle the pressure of leading the Cavaliers to a title how will he handle the failure a huge not winning a title in year one with Wade and Bosh.

One thing is for certain, the NBA landscape has changed. The Orlando Magic and the Boston Celtics, the last two teams to win the East, now face a major threat to their dominance of the East.

For all those thinking the cupboard is bare in Miami, if the Heat signs their draft picks they will have a nice roster in the making. The Heat drafted three college seniors in the second round of the draft.

In the second round Miami drafted Dexter Pittman out of Texas, Da’Sean Butler out of West Virginia, and Jarvis Varnado out of Mississippi State. Pittman became a dominate center in the Big-12 after dropping nearly 100 pounds of weight.

Butler will be battling back from an injury sustained in the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and will not be available in year one of El Tri. Varnado became the NCAA leader in shot-blocking and the only NCAA player to ever have 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 500 blocks in his senior year.

As long as the Magic have Dwight Howard and the Celtics have their big three they will not just roll over and let the Heat take the East. The Los Angeles Lakers are on the verge of a threepeat and the fourth threepeat of Phil Jackson’s career.

The Heat could be the team to derail that goal but Kobe Bryant knows what it takes to win a championship. That is something only D-Wade knows in Miami.

LeBron better start winning rings or the backlash will not be confined to just a few. It will be a full blown epidemic from coast to coast.

Duke James has turned his back on his home and now turned off most of the country over the last eight days. It will be interesting to see if this backlash hits the companies LeBron endorsees.

James better win a championship quick or he and those companies just might find out. 

http://priceslapper.com/blog-host/theliljournal/

All three network evening news broadcasts saw their ratings decline in the second quarter, the New York Times' Bill Carter notes.

Both ABC and CBS saw their lowest-rated second quarters on record (since 1987), and NBC saw its lowest-rated Q2 since 2007.

NBC's “Nightly News with Brian Williams” maintained its first-place position, averaging 7.620 million total viewers/2.260 million A25-54 viewers for the quarter, while ABC's “World News with Diane Sawyer” placed second with 6.990 million total viewers/1.980 million A25-54 viewers and CBS's “Evening News with Katie Couric” placed third with 5.210 million total viewers/1.600 million A25-54 viewers..

One bright spot, Carter notes: while Williams was down 5% and Sawyer down about 4% from a year ago in both categories, Couric lost only 30,000 viewers in the A25-54 demo (despite a 6% drop in total viewers).

The quarterly win was Williams' 11th consecutive quarter atop the evening news ratings.

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Al Yeganeh, the man who is the inspiration for Seinfeld's infamous “Soup Nazi” character, is reopening his West 55th Street location of his soup chain Original SoupMan after closing it 6 years ago. The Wall Street Journal reports that the “Soup Nazi” is living up to his name, and refusing to give interviews about the new spot. Check out the “Soup Nazi's” strict press rules:

1.) NO Tabloids

2.) NO Nazi “N” WORD

3.) NO PERSONAL QUESTIONS

4.) NO FOLLOW UP QUESTIONS

5.) ONLY SOME OF THE QUESTIONS EMAILED MAY BE ANSWERED

6.) METHOD & TIMING OF INTERVIEWS BY AL’S DISCRETION

Finally the president of Yeganeh's franchise responded to the Journal letting them know that the rules for ordering will remain but won't be enforced at the store.

http://priceslapper.com/blog-host/theliljournal/

Truly, I am sorry to be writing yet another article discussing LeBron James and this ridiculous circus he and our media machines have created. Please don’t hold it against me.

It’s tiring listening to ex-players, analysts, and professional sports writers pat LeBron for making what was sure to be an “incredibly tough decision.” Saying things like “this clearly wasn’t about money, because all three superstars will be taking pay cuts in the tens of millions to play together.” 

That’s a better argument saved for espousing Dwayne Wade as a selfless superstar, as his recent history with persistent injuries suggests that this is probably his last shot at a big payday. 

But saying that “it’s not all about money” for LeBron because he’s taking a pay cut is absolutely inane. 

LeBron James is worth nearly $100 million, he’s only 25 years-old and he's moving from cash poor Ohio to the major market of Miami. That is certainly going to cushion his landing, not to mention the fact that he’ll have at least one more contract to sign in his career.

Along with all of his endorsement deals, LeBron James has no money worries. 

It’s that fact alone that made it possible for him to make this choice—he didn’t have to make money a big piece of the equation.

I’m sure, like any man, it was hard for him to let (potentially) tens of millions of dollars go uncollected, but again, his wallet allows him the luxury of not having to make the decision solely based on financial considerations.

Now, let’s move on to his status as one of the greatest of all-time, as “King” James.

I don’t think he has any business being involved in the same conversation with the likes of Michael Jordan, Dr. J, Larry Bird, Kareem, Wilt, Jerry West, Oscar Robertson, Moses Malone, Kobe Bryant, and Magic, to name a few. 

Sure, skill-wise, and talent-wise, he’s clearly one of the best to ever play the game. And watching him with Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh is undoubtedly going to be fun for Miami fans. But I think LeBron has just locked himself out of the “Greatest NBA Player of All-Time” discussion by agreeing to seek out his championships with two other top-tier talents like D-Wade and Bosh.

He just ruined the potential to build his legacy.

Whatever team they put on the court might find their way into discussions of the greatest teams of all-time, if they're able to string together a series of championships, but he'll always be known as “LeBron James and…” from now on. 

Michael had Pippen, Magic had Cooper, Worthy and Kareem, and Kobe had Shaq and Fish, and then Gasol, Bynum and Fish. All of the supporting players listed were/are great players, but what is brewing in Miami is nothing different than what the Celtics did a few years back bringing in Garnett and Allen, or what the Yankees have done repeatedly over the years.

There’s nothing wrong with teams doing it. There are no laws against it. And in fact, as the Yankees mixed success and the Celtics recent playoff dismissals show, it doesn’t always work out the way they intended.

The Miami Heat and Pat Riley are brilliant for figuring out how to lure the top three free agents of the year—with James being quite possibly the biggest free agent of all-time—to Miami, which required all three to take big pay cuts. This is not to be overlooked. Big kudos to the Miami front office.

Speaking of front offices, I want to throw a special shout-out to Cleveland’s majority owner, Dan Gilbert for his pot-stirring response to LeBron’s announcement.

That is exactly the response and rallying point that the Cleveland fans needed after such devastating news. (Now all he needs to do is lure Kobe and Phil Jackson to Cleveland to make good on his promise that the Cavs will win a trophy before the new Miami Heat does).

The fact that LeBron didn’t have the respect to call the Cavaliers owners and management himself before the decision, goes to show a lack of professionalism and character on James’ part.

When you quit your job, you give your boss two-weeks notice and you do it in person. If you can’t, you certainly do everything you can to communicate appropriately

What LeBron James did last night, is like having a random stranger break up with your high school sweetheart that you’ve been with for seven years via text….or, I guess it’s like telling your boss that you quit via national television with the entire world watching in bore and agony.

He tried to shield himself by making the announcement in a Boys & Girls club in Connecticut, instead of holding the press conference at home in Ohio, as he should’ve done. The delay in announcement, the location, the style, the delivery—it was all just a big spectacle to perpetuate the hype. 

And ESPN gets a big assist on that one. 

With that said, these are just my opinions and musings. I understand that LeBron James is an adult. He doesn’t owe anyone anything. As he said, in the end, it’s only he that needs to live with his decision, so he needs to do what’s best for him. His choice made that brutally clear.

And besides, I needed a team in basketball to hate as much as I do the New York Yankees and the Dallas Cowboys. So, thanks LeBron. The Miami Heat will do just fine in that role moving forward.

 

LeBron James has made his decision and he chose the Miami Heat. Now in earnest the LeBron backlash can begin.

In the history of sports perhaps no athlete has destroyed their image in just eight days, barring being arrested. In just 24 hours no sports network has sold their soul to the devil quicker than ESPN for airing “The Decision”.

The backlash that will hit LeBron will also land on ESPN. Mainly, on ESPN for helping him drag out this decision and go on national television to rip the heart out of Cleveland and his home state of Ohio.

No athlete in the history of sports has enjoyed a love-fest from the media and fans, like LeBron has enjoyed for a player with no championship rings. Now that he has ripped the heart out of his home state and the team that drafted him, the love-fest will end.

For two years, James has more than likely known he was going to leave. He just strung the city of Cleveland along while he bid his time to free agency.

After being bounced in the Eastern Conference Finals in 2009 and the second round of the NBA playoffs in 2010, the die was cast for LeBron to leave. LeBron’s last two seasons in Cleveland saw the Cavaliers with the best record in the East and James won two MVPs.

But Cleveland could not get past the Orlando Magic in 2009 and the Boston Celtics in 2010. The weight of those defeats fell on James; much like the finals defeat in 2007 fell on him as well.

That is the kind of heat (no pun intended) that superstars have to take. Much like Kobe and Shaq had to take the heat for their loss in the NBA finals to the Detroit Pistons.

Several questions come to the forefront since LeBron made his decision. The first question is that is James the great player we think he is if he cannot win a title without the help of Dwayne Wade and Chris Bosh?

There is no question that Wade is a great player. He is the only player of this trio to have a NBA title.

Bosh on the other hand has not done much in his seven year NBA career. Before you go nuts, Bosh has only two playoff appearances and he led his former team the Toronto Raptors to one .500 season and one season with an above .500 record.

The media or fans cannot declare a player a superstar with a record like Bosh. Also Bosh has led his team to two playoff appearances but was bounced in the first round both times.

If LeBron wins a title with the Heat can he really call himself the “King” anymore? Most of the NBA’s greatest players won a championship with the team that drafted them.

Michael Jordan made the Chicago Bulls by winning six titles there, Larry Bird restored the Boston Celtics by winning three titles there, and Magic Johnson bought back the luster to Los Angeles winning five championships there. Well you get my point.

These players can truly call themselves “King” of their cities and during their playing days of the NBA. That is something LeBron will not be able to say.

Now the title of king must be bestowed on D-Wade. Because Wade, like a true king had LeBron and Bosh come to him and not the other way around.

Some credit, no matter how bad you hate LeBron; you will have to admit is that he did not go for the money. For once an athlete that said winning titles was their main goal did not go to the team that could pay them the most money.   

But in all fairness the NBA’s salary cap does not allow for that. The only way James would make the most money he could is by staying in Cleveland.

That being said there was a fair amount of a chance that LeBron could win a title in Cleveland if the team had been retooled. James might have been able to take the money and the titles if he stayed with the Cavaliers.

James actions and comments during his special “The Decision” when asked about fans in Cleveland burning his jersey, shows just how out of touch he is. How can LeBron not realize how much he hurt the fans in his home state?

Unless you are a Miami Heat fan, the LeBron-a-backlash will be on full force for the next couple of years. Media people and fans in New York, New Jersey, Chicago and most of all in Cleveland will rip LeBron.

Mainly he will get ripped for his arrogance and how he led everyone on for the last two years. James has brought this on himself and by proxy has lumped Bosh and Wade in with him.

Unlike the thinking of the ESPN talking heads, the Miami Heat has no other choice but to win the NBA title next season. There is no way that you can bring in the LeBron, Bosh and resign D-Wade and not win a championship.

There is no way that the lack of championship in year one of the El Tri cannot been seen as a complete failure. If LeBron could not handle the pressure of leading the Cavaliers to a title how will he handle the failure a huge not winning a title in year one with Wade and Bosh.

One thing is for certain, the NBA landscape has changed. The Orlando Magic and the Boston Celtics, the last two teams to win the East, now face a major threat to their dominance of the East.

For all those thinking the cupboard is bare in Miami, if the Heat signs their draft picks they will have a nice roster in the making. The Heat drafted three college seniors in the second round of the draft.

In the second round Miami drafted Dexter Pittman out of Texas, Da’Sean Butler out of West Virginia, and Jarvis Varnado out of Mississippi State. Pittman became a dominate center in the Big-12 after dropping nearly 100 pounds of weight.

Butler will be battling back from an injury sustained in the 2010 NCAA Men’s Basketball Tournament and will not be available in year one of El Tri. Varnado became the NCAA leader in shot-blocking and the only NCAA player to ever have 1,000 points, 1,000 rebounds, and 500 blocks in his senior year.

As long as the Magic have Dwight Howard and the Celtics have their big three they will not just roll over and let the Heat take the East. The Los Angeles Lakers are on the verge of a threepeat and the fourth threepeat of Phil Jackson’s career.

The Heat could be the team to derail that goal but Kobe Bryant knows what it takes to win a championship. That is something only D-Wade knows in Miami.

LeBron better start winning rings or the backlash will not be confined to just a few. It will be a full blown epidemic from coast to coast.

Duke James has turned his back on his home and now turned off most of the country over the last eight days. It will be interesting to see if this backlash hits the companies LeBron endorsees.

James better win a championship quick or he and those companies just might find out. 

http://priceslapper.com/blog-host/theliljournal/

Entertainment Weekly:

While Larsson's survivors are wrapped up in an estate dispute, his fans are buzzing about a more pressing question: Who should play computer hacker Lisbeth Salander and the crusading investigative journalist Mikael Blomkvist in the Fincher movies? “I think it's hugely important that these parts be immaculately cast,” says Rudin. “Because to me, yeah, the stories are great, the plots are fantastic, the twists and turns are completely delicious, but the relationship of the two characters is it. That's what it's about.”

Read the whole story: Entertainment Weekly

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weatherman I think you missed the point, pehaps because you are fixated on number of sexual partners or some more traditional vision of how relationships are supposed to work (or what people are supposed to look like in those relationships – i.e. women who “look like a teenage boy” may still want to have a relationship). You seemed to have missed the nature of the relationships, especially the question of equality and respect. Unless you think sleeping with someone is in itself a sign of disrespect?

Regardless of who he sleeps with Blomkvist has healthy relationships with women, he doesn't coerce them, he respects their choices, he is pretty much the only person who treats them as full autonomous human beings.

This was one of the best things about the book, largely left out in the current movie, which will still likely be better than the US remake.

I don't see how you could look at the depiction of female characters in the book and conclude the author hates women. The title of the book “men who hate women” is about the power of those men in society at large. While not at all propagandistic, the book is simultaneously a great crime novel and one that does not degrade women for the sake of the plot like so many crime novels do.

Instead the plot becomes about how society allows & perpetuate's women's abuse – it shows the power of men who hate women, and society's complicity in allowing them to express their hatred. Such a far cry from crime novels that rely on women's suffering as a sort of natural, expected part of modern life, or someting that inspires a male investigator to philosophical musings or world-weary conclusions about “some people.”

Thanks

Unlike its current TV and movie sales through iTunes, the new service will move content into the cloud and stream it to users, rather than having them download videos. By doing so, Apple will merely be following a broader industry trend. After all, almost all web video providers today — including industry heavyweights like YouTube, Netflix, and Hulu — use streaming technologies rather than downloads for video delivery.

And there are indications that Apple might be forced to start streaming, based on reports about the technology specs of the next Apple TV set-top box. Earlier this year, Engadget reported that the next-generation Apple TV will use iOS, the same operating system used by the iPhone and iPad, and Flash memory, as opposed to a hard drive for storage. Due to a massive reduction in storage capability, it shouldn’t be a surprising move for Apple to launch a streaming service in place of its current download service.

If it can get content providers to allow it to rent episodes for half the price that they’re getting for consumers to own those shows, Apple is hoping that it can increase the volume of TV shows that are watched through iTunes. But is it already too late?

Apple’s foray into the low-price TV rental market is coming not long after Hulu announced its paid subscription service Hulu Plus, which gives users access to full seasons of many broadcast TV shows for just $9.99 a month. But Apple TV will have access to a lot of cable network content, like episodes of popular shows like Mad Men and True Blood that won’t be available through the Hulu Plus offering.

Even so, Hulu Plus will be available on multiple consumer electronics devices and platforms, such as Samsung, Sony and Vizio connected TVs and Blu-ray players, the Microsoft Xbox 360 and Sony PlayStation 3 gaming consoles and even Apple’s iPad and iPhone. Meanwhile, iTunes TV rentals will only be available on Apple TV and other associated Apple products.

Based on the massive growth of Netflix and its Watch Instantly streaming service, consumers have shown that they are drawn to the convenience of a subscription online video service they can watch on their TV for a low monthly fee. But Apple TV rentals could be instrumental for users that want to watch content they can’t get through Netflix, Hulu or other subscription services.

Related content on GigaOM Pro: The Case For Removable Media on the iPad (subscription required)

Much has been made of Twitter and Facebook’s potential as online advertisers, but have you ever considered that they may one day play an important part in TV advertising too? According to a new report, that’s a distinct possibility.

The Social TV report from media analysts Futurescape features interviews from figures across the media and technology industries and puts forward an argument that as our TVs make the transition to being online devices, social media will provide both a huge opportunity, and a big challenge to broadcast networks.

The “Social EPG”

Online TV services like Google TV, Project Canvas and Yahoo Widgets will allow social media to “enter the TV value chain”, offering social recommendations for viewing directly on your TV screen. As Robin Sloan of Twitter’s media partnership team notes in an interview for the report:

“At some point in the past, people used a printed-out TV guide to decide what to watch and find it on their TVs. Now, most people use the EPG built into their cable boxes. But increasingly, people are also using Twitter. Think of it as a kind of live, living, breathing social EPG. You see which shows your friends are talking about, and you see which shows the whole world is talking about – all in real-time. Increasingly, we think that kind of behavior is going to drive ratings in a significant way.”

Imagine seeing viewing recommendations from your Facebook friends displayed directly on your TV screen, or having the option to watch the currently most-discussed TV show on Twitter, simply by selecting it from its on-screen hashtag. These are very real possibilities.

Social ads come to your TV

By integrating with our TV viewing, Twitter and Facebook have a real opportunity to grab a significant slice of the reported $180bn global TV ad spend.

The report notes that “Connected TVs will enable Facebook to launch socially targeted advertising on the TV set itself. Twitter’s forthcoming (sic) Promoted Tweets have similar potential”.

Social networks have a huge advantage over traditional TV advertisers. They’re sitting on top of a goldmine of realtime, social information that allows them to display just the right ad at just the right time for it to have maximum impact on the audience. Everyone’s talking about weddings after two soap characters decide to get engaged? That could be just the right time to appeal to viewers’ emotional side with romantically themed ads, for example.

Of course, that data could be a real asset for traditional advertisers too. The report notes that Twitter and Facebook “have the ability to provide social graph data to the TV industry, either free or in paid-for services.”

Facebook and Twitter aren’t the only ones with a chance to make a big splash in the Internet-conected TV world. Google is making a big play in the sector via its Google TV service as well as offering TV advertising itself.

Many other players will undoubtedly emerge, but Futurescape’s report shows how the mass appeal of social media services like Twitter and Facebook gives them an advantage. They’ll be all over every TV platform out there, from Google TV to Project Canvas and beyond. That ubiquity, combined with the valuable social data they hold puts social services like Twitter and Facebook in a very strong position indeed.

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