- The cities and uniforms may change, but one thing that doesn’t change with Allen Iverson is that AI is, was and always will be about one thing: AI. He’s bounced from Philadelphia to Denver to Detroit and now to Memphis, but as his skills and athleticism have declined with his career coming to a close, his reluctance to face the reality of those declines has strengthened. In Denver, the Nuggets never won anything with his shoot-first, me-first mentality manning the point guard position. Once he was traded to Denver four games into the 2008 season and replaced with a real point guard, Chauncey Billups, the Nuggets galvanized, took off and made the Western Conference finals. Meanwhile, he managed to wear out his welcome in Detroit faster than anyone had imagined and by season’s end, the team made up a bogus injury and told him that he wasn’t welcome because his malcontented attitude was only bringing everyone down. The issue in Detroit was AI not being willing or able to accept that he was no longer and elite player, no longer good enough to be an effective starter and much better coming off the bench. When the offseason rolled around, not a single team stepped up to express an interest in AI. The man who had become famous for his “practice” rant (Google Allen Iverson and practice and you’ll see it) couldn’t find a team that wanted him at its practices. Not even his former coach in Philly and noted admirer Larry Brown, now coaching the Charlotte Bobcats, wanted to bring AI in. Eventually he found a taker in the hapless Memphis Grizzlies, who inked AI to a one-year contract but refused to hand him the starting spot he so badly wanted but didn’t warrant. The standoff between AI and his new team was postponed temporarily when he missed the first few games with a hamstring injury, but now that AI is healthy and ready to play, things aren’t going very well. He played in all of three games, coming off the bench in all three and averaging 12.3 points per game. He has made no secret of being unhappy with his role coming off the bench and after doing so for the third straight game in the Grizzlies' 114-98 loss to the Los Angeles Lakers, he did not hesitate to point out his non-existent relationship with head coach Lionel Hollins. "I think that's probably the worst part of all this," Iverson said Friday. "That while all this is going on, we have never talked to each other. That's probably why it's at this point right now. We've just never had a conversation, so it's probably going to always be hard for me and him to see eye-to-eye, because we've never even talked to each other. Obviously that's what you do if you're trying to accomplish the same goal." In the wake of his comments, Iverson was granted permission to leave the team to “deal with a personal matter.” That announcement came after Iverson had a meeting with Grizzlies owner Michael Heisley following the loss to the Lakers. I would love to tell you that AI is being shortchanged here and that one of the NBA’s most consistently inept franchises is doing another player wrong, but that’s not the case. In fact, AI is either incredibly stupid or just plan oblivious if he in fact believes, as he has stated, that nobody told him the Grizzlies would be rebuilding after a 24-58 season. Anyone with an IQ above 41 who saw their act last season, saw the moves they made prior to this season and knows even the most basic things about basketball knew the Grizzlies would be terrible again this season. Making matters worse, Iverson doesn’t appear to give a damn about fitting in with his new team and figuring out how to make them better, which, hello, should be the goal of every player. "I'm not trying to figure out how to contribute to no team," Iverson said. "I contribute to a team by just playing. That's it. I don't have to figure it out. Obviously, they signed me for a reason. They've been watching me play this game for 13 years, and they know what I do on the basketball court, so I don't have to figure out how I'm going to play or anything like that. I just go out and play basketball." Sorry AI, but that’s not how it works. Teams – good ones anyhow – don’t just sign 12 dudes, not attempt to mold them into a cohesive unit and allow them to go out with total autonomy and do their best to accomplish what they think will help the team win. In case you forgot, there’s a guy called the coach (the one you don’t talk to) who is supposed to help everyone get on the same page and following his direction. But hey, no one expected anything different from AI. When it comes to basketball and his career, AI has always been about AI and AI alone. Odds are he always will be…………
- Warning! Warning! Strollers of death! If you or someone you know, love or even somewhat like owns a stroller made by Maclaren, you need to listen up. Maclaren, the international stroller-manufacturing conglomerate, and the Consumer Product Safety Commission are recalling approximately 1 million strollers after the company received a dozen reports of children's fingertips getting amputated by a hinge on the strollers. What? What’s the big deal? So a dozen kids had portions of their fingers lopped off by your product, what’s the rush to recall them? Making matters worse, the affected models have literally been sold at points ranging back an entire decade. The models involved include Volo, Triumph, Quest Sport, Quest Mod, Techno XT, TechnoXLR, Twin Triumph, Twin Techno and Easy Traveller. The scope of the recall is massive, but given the irreversible nature of the injuries that can be caused, it makes sense. If you own one of the affected strollers, you should stop using it immediately until you can get a repair kit from Maclaren. Maclaren will provide a hinge cover that can be ordered through its Web site, along with a special phone line. For the engineering-stunted among you, the hinge mechanism is located on the side of the strollers. According to complaints received by the company, injuries have occurred when children are getting into the strollers as well as when they're already seated in the strollers. The recall includes all Maclaren single and double umbrella strollers, and the word "Maclaren" is printed on the stroller. Hopefully some users of this Stroller of Death are reading this story and I will help avert some involuntary finger amputations. As such, I will consider my day a success and move on………
- Tonight may have been the best Heroes episode of the season, even if it wasn’t quite on the same level as the show’s first season. The comedy and bloodshed were both at high levels as Matt Parkman and Sylar made one of the more unorthodox cross-country road trips in memory. Sylar is on a quest to find out what happened to his body and why his consciousness is now trapped inside Parkman’s head. Two episodes ago, he seized control of Parkman’s body, turning the tables and leaving Parkman as the one displaced and without a body. Now, Sylar is en route to New York to find Peter Petrelli because Peter stabbing him in the neck with a syringe inside a limo after posing as the President of the United States to take down Sylar, intending to kill the POTUS. It was shortly thereafter that Parkman used his powers to force Nathan’s memories into Sylar’s body and let Sylar’s shape-shifting power finish the job. To prevent Sylar from making it to NY, Parkman first sabotages him at the airport by hiding a gun in Sylar’s suitcase. That gets Sylar (although his outward appearance to everyone else is still Parkman’s) booted from the flight. The next option is to rent a car and drive, but along the way Parkman uses his mind-control powers to make Sylar not see a large piece of metal lying in the road, which results in a flat tire. Parkman, operating outside his body as an apparition visible only to Sylar, is happy with himself for becoming a thorn in his adversary’s side. Sylar doesn’t like being one-upped and when a tow-truck operator stops to help with the flat tire, he turns the tables again by using a tire iron to bludgeon and kill Hank, the tow truck driver. He tersely explains to Parkman that he’s in charge and that there is a line that only he, Sylar, can cross. Parkman backs down when it comes to killing people and the journey forges ahead. Its next stop is the always-popular Burnt Toast diner in Odessa, Texas. It’s a place where, as Sylar tells Parkman, “I once tried to kill a waitress here.” After ordering the Tahiti pancakes and hanging around for a while, Sylar issues an ultimatum: Parkman must tell him exactly where his body is and how he became separated from it or Sylar, inside Parkman’s body, will kill Lynette, the waitress. Parkman calls his bluff but when Sylar goes ahead with his threat, Parkman caves and tells him the whole story. An incensed Sylar says he was headed to see the wrong Petrelli brother, vows to find Nathan, take his body back and then kill everyone who was involved in taking it from him. Parkman proves he has one last ace up his sleeve on the way out of the diner, an ace with deadly implications. While he and Sylar chatted in the diner, Parkman used his power to compel Sylar to scrawl a message on his napkin about having a gun and planning to kill everyone in the diner. Lynette finds the napkin, calls the police and a half-dozen squad cars surround Sylar/Parkman on the street outside the diner. Parkman smugly vows to end things right here and now and laughs off Sylar’s admonition that if he dies, so does Parkman. Willing to sacrifice his own life to stop a monster, Parkman uses his power once more to move Sylar’s arm inside his jacket as if reaching for a gun and pulling it out, prompting the police to open fire. Sylar/Parkman goes down and the displaced version of Parkman fades away too. The last we see of him/them is in the ambulance as the paramedics try futilely to revive Sylar/Parkman. Speaking of paramedics, Peter Petrelli is having an interesting night of his own in the back of an ambulance. As he works on a man injured in a train accident, Peter somehow absorbs a power from the man that allows him to take on the pain and illness of others, a la Green Mile and Michael Clarke Duncan’s character. The man in the ambulance is able to move his toes for the first time since the accident, signaling that his spine isn't too badly damaged. He’s Peter’s first save, soon followed by a man in the emergency room whose blood pressure and pulse keep dropping to dangerous levels until Peter takes hold of his arm, absorbs his pain and suffering and the man begins to recover. Following the save, Peter spots his new friend Emma, the deaf, “sees sounds as colors” girl who works in the hospital records office. She too is pitching in with a glut of train accident victims hitting the ER, using her background as a former med school student to do a quick suture job on a patient. Peter sees her do her thing and when their paths cross later on in the night, he asks her about it. She admits to having once been in medical school but having dropped out. In turn, Peter shares about his new power and even though he looks like crap and feels about the same, he vows to keep using it. However, it’s Emma’s medical background that proves truly powerful when she finds an unconscious little girl lying on the floor in the ER and yells for help. Peter hears her cry and comes running, but it’s Emma who asks for a thorachotomy kit and uses it to help get the girl’s lungs working again, saving her life. Afterward, she takes a moment to unwind by playing the piano in the hospital’s rec room and Peter joins her. That’s when she shares her story of having her nephew die while she was babysitting him, just prior to the second year of her residency, and dropping out of med school because of it. He encourages her to go back and later on we see her pulling her old, white doctor’s coat from the closet, smiling and looking every bit like she intends to resume her medical career. Life is not as happy for Claire Bennet at lovely Arlington University in Arlington, Va. Her roommate Gretchen is so rattled by the apparent attempts to off her by sorority president and PWP (people with powers) Becky that she’s leaving school, possibly never to return. Those attempts reached their zenith during last week’s Halloween scavenger hunt from pledges at an abandoned local meat packing plant, but Claire vows to protect her roomie and BFF at all costs. To that end, she goes on a fact-finding mission to the Psi Alpha Chi sorority house and meets up with some reinforcements she’s called in: her dad, H.R.G, and the Haitian. The Haitian, a.k.a. Rene, has already wiped the memories of the PAC sisters and H.R.G. lays out a plan for dealing with Becky. He plans to canvas her room for clues to who she is while the Haitian stays with Claire to keep her safe in case Becky attacks again. Back at her dorm room, Claire tries to convince Gretchen to stay but to no avail, even when she explains that the Haitian can use his ability to block others’ powers to keep Becky from going invisible again. After Gretchen leaves, Claire is visited by Samuel Sullivan, who tries to convince her that he understands her because he’s special too and suggests that he come to be a part of his family at the carnival. Claire proves too smart for him, keeping him talking only long enough for H.R.G. to finish up at the sorority house. While there, he does have a face-to-face with Becky, who reveals that she’s actually out for revenge against he and Claire because when Becky was five years old, H.R.G. killed her father in his role as an agent for the Company. She wants revenge by harming his daughter, but H.R.G. says that isn't happening. He’s about to Taser her when another PAC sister walks in, forcing him to abort. Back at Claire’s dorm room, a tense showdown between Samuel, H.R.G. and Claire unfolds in which Samuel fingers H.R.G. for his role in ruining Becky’s life. H.R.G., having already apologized to Becky, is having none of it. He demands answers from Samuel, specifically about the compass he found in Becky’s closet that is Samuel’s trademark. Samuel explains that it is to help protect his family from men like H.R.G. and Emile Danko, whom Samuel accuses of killing his brother Joseph. H.R.G. finally decides he’s heard enough, cuffs Samuel and is about to load him into his SUV (to take him where, I don’t know. H.R.G. doesn’t work for the Company anymore, remember?) when Becky attacks. She knocks down both H.R.G. and Claire, but loses her invisibility when Samuel picks up H.R.G.’s Taser and shoots her. H.R.G. uses the chance to draw his gun, but Claire convinces him to let Samuel and Becky go. They flee back to the carnival, where Samuel assures her she will eventually get her revenge. That talk is interrupted by Lydia, who informs Samuel that Sylar, who has been staying with them (well, his body occupied by Nathan Petrelli’s mind and memories is gone). Nathan/Sylar fled earlier in the day after waking up from a bad dream in looking like Nathan instead of Sylar. Rather than allow himself to be see, Nathan/Sylar summons his power to fly, takes off and by day’s end is knocking on Peter’s door. Nathan confesses that he’s in trouble and needs Peter’s help as the episode comes to an end. Of course, Adrian Pasdar will soon be killed off the show, so Nathan won't be around much longer, that we know. So it was a solid episode and a pretty interesting one from top to bottom. Definitely don’t miss next week’s episode, when my boy Mohinder Suresh makes his return. Until then………
- Even Apple isn't immune for the tech f**k-up, as its multiple releases of iPhone models the past few years have shown clearly. This particular f**k-up is for a different product: Apple TV. Only a few hours after Apple released version 3.0 of the software that runs its Apple TV set-top box, the crap began to hit the fan and the company’s online discussion boards were flooded with complaints. By the time Nov. 7 rolled around, which was the date when Apple advised owners by e-mail to immediately update to version 3.01, the discussion topic TV 3.0 — Many Problems had drawn 134 posts and been read more than 10,000 times on the discussion board. A related topic, Apple TV lost all media, had 108 posts and more than 3,000 reads. The 3.01 update only addressed the "lost all media" issue and left users to deal with the other problems - periodic freezes, random restarts, overheating, sluggishness, disappearing networks, screens going "blocky red" etc. — for the foreseeable future. "3.0.1 has actually made things worse for me," wrote user "laozi" late Saturday evening. "Now iTunes won't see the AppleTV at all, and no combination of rebooting/resetting is helping. Totally stuck. Apple, please fix this." Users are calling it the most problem-prone software upgrade they have ever experienced with an Apple product, which can't possibly be good. Just goes to show you that no tech company, big or small, reputable or not, is immune from f**k-ups and problems when you are upgrading, installing new software or breaking in a new product………
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