- As with most things in life, as long as Bode Miller can show up for this thing drunk, he’ll just be fine. The guy has admitted to skiing drunk in the past, a dangerous endeavor when downhill skiing on some of the most treacherous courses and terrains in the world is your profession. Getting hammered seems to take precedence over representing his team and his country more often than not, so making that joke is hardly out of line. Keeping his predilection for booze in mind, the possibility of Miller pursuing a spot in the U.S. Open tennis tournament’s main draw is a relatively good idea. After all, drunken tennis is a lot less dangerous than drunken downhill skiing. The potential for death or serious injury is substantially lower on a tennis court and apparently Miller has a decent background in tennis. He is a former Maine high school singles champion and has long been an instructor at the Tamarack Tennis Camp in Easton, N.H., founded by his mother's family. Miller will take part in a national playoff created by the U.S. Tennis Association in an attempt to drum up interest in the event from casual fans. Miller has announced his intentions to compete and although he won't have any advantage over any of the other competitors because of his quasi-celebrity status, you can bet he’ll receive more than his fair share of attention. “Tennis has always been a part of my life," Miller said. "The U.S. Open National Playoffs is a great concept and I look forward to playing in one of the sectional qualifying tournaments this spring. It will give me an outlet to focus my competitiveness after the Olympics and World Cup season.” The playoff will allow USTA members 14 years of age and over to register for a $125 fee. The qualifying tournament will begin with competitions in 16 of the 17 USTA sections -- all but the Caribbean -- from April through June. There will be a cap of 256 players on both the men’s and women’s side of the draw and there will be no seeding for the event, making it a bit of a clusterf*ck, if you will. "While professsionals are eligible to play, we expect the draws to be filled with top junior players, collegians, teaching professionals and even recreational players who will now have a chance to play themselves into the U.S. Open for the first time," said Jim Curley, chief professional tournaments officer and U.S. Open tournament director. The winners of each of the 16 sections will then play in a 16-draw national playoff to coincide with the summer hardcourt U.S. Open Series of ATP and WTA events. From there, the winners will receive slots in the regular U.S. Open qualifying event. By the time all is said and done, a player could have to win up to 15 matches to qualify for the U.S. Open main draw. For more information and a possible chance to serve it up against a borderline-alcoholic professional skier on the court, visit www.usopen.org. Registration begins Feb. 1, so plan accordingly………..
- I don’t know about you, but I have had just about enough of this damn Eggo shortage that is plaguing the United States. Back in November, Kellogg Co. announced there would be a nationwide shortage of its popular frozen waffles until the summer because of interruptions in production at two of the four plants that make them. Basically, things went south when the company's Atlanta plant was shut down by a September storm that dumped historic amounts of rain in the area. Without the necessary capabilities to deal with massive amounts of water, the plant suffered enough damage to render it inactive for a prolonged period of time. That I can understand, if not be okay with. What I don’t like or accept is that at the same time the Atlanta plant was closed by water damage, several production lines at the company’s largest bakery in Rossville, Tenn. was closed indefinitely for repairs. The remaining two plants, in San Jose, Calif., and Blue Anchor, N.J., have been unable to cope with the added burden and as a result, it will take several more months before shelves around the country are stocked at pre-shutdown levels, a company spokesman said. At first, going to the local grocery store and finding it devoid of Eggo boxes was disappointing, but you could always snare a box of the store brand and make do for the time being. After months of having to do that, I am at wit’s end. The dropoff in quality is marked and steep and I am not the only one who is noticing. Even though the Atlanta plant is back at full production now, the waffles just aren’t being churned out fast enough. Fans of the waffles are lamenting their scarcity on the waffle's Facebook page and others are joking about putting any Eggo’s they find up on eBay because demand is so high at this point. Bottom line here: Eggo is just a tasty waffle that occupies a prominent place in the dietary regimen of myself and many other across this land of ours. As such, the company faces an added burden to keep its supply of waffles consistent and uninterrupted. This sort of disruption is something we just can't have at a time when life is so difficult for so many Americans……………
- Hey, this idea of moving the NFL’s Pro Bowl from Hawaii to the city hosting the Super Bowl and to have it played on the Sunday prior to the Super Bowl is working out great. What’s not awesome about a record 32 Pro Bowl players pulling out of the game, either due to (bogus) injuries or because they are on one of the two teams playing in the Super Bowl? No position illustrates this point more perfectly than the quarterback position in the AFC, where Tom Brady (claiming an injury), Peyton Manning (playing in the Super Bowl) and Phillip Rivers (also claiming an injury) have all pulled out of the game. Nothing like the conference’s three best quarterbacks and three of the best four signal-callers in the game ejecting from an event. Worse still, Pittsburgh Steelers quarterback Ben Roethlisberger was named to replace Brady and he too pulled out of the game because of an (alleged) injury. That leaves luminaries such as Matt Schaub, Vince Young and David Garrard at quarterback for the AFC, ironic because those three are the quarterbacks for the three teams Manning’s Colts boat-raced to win the AFC South this season. Over in the NFC, the top two quarterbacks, Drew Brees and Brett Favre are also out of the Pro Bowl, as are top receiving targets like Dallas Clark of the Colts and Randy Moss and Wes Welker (actually injured) of the Patriots. If the NFL thought players and fans had no interest in the Pro Bowl when it was in Hawaii and held a couple weeks after the Super Bowl, they must be loving the way this year’s event is unfolding. As one of the few people who watched any of the Pro Bowl in years past, I can honestly say that this game is a dying relic and although the NFL clearly needed to do something to revive it, the moves they have made were not the right ones. I can’t say for sure what those right moves are, I just know that the alterations made this year have failed and failed miserably. Seeing some of the league’s most middling, less-than-great players line it up and play a meaningless exhibition game just doesn’t do it for me and from the looks of it, I am not alone…………
- So Apple’s big announcement finally came today as CEO Steve Jobs unveiled the iPad, the much-hyped tablet computer that he called "a truly magical and revolutionary product." A lot of people, myself included, don’t share that assessment, but let’s allow Jobs to have his say. "What this device does is extraordinary," Jobs said. "It is the best browsing experience you've ever had. ... It's unbelievably great ... way better than a laptop. Way better than a smartphone." That last phrase, better than a smartphone, is ironic because a great way to describe the iPad is as a giant, oversized smartphone. It’s basically an iPhone or iPod touch on steroids, to be blunt. The iPad has a nearly 10-inch screen, runs existing apps from the Apple apps store and is available in 16-gigabyte, 32-gigabyte and 64-gigabyte versions. . Pricing will start at $499 for the 16-gigabyte version, $599 for the 32-gig version and $699 for the 64. The price points are actually the most attractive point of the iPad, because as details of this device come out and people become increasingly disenchanted with it, Apple would have been absolutely annihilated if it had slapped a high price tag on the iPad. As is, the tablet computer is merely a disappointing device that does not allow users to multi-task (one app at a time, folks), requires all sorts of adapters and plugs for things like power and USB and will cost you an extra $130 for 3G mobile access. The iPad will have a 1 GHz processor, meaning it should be fairly fast – for a device that can only run one app at a time, that isn’t too hard to do. They are scheduled to begin shipping in 60 days, although you can obviously order one now if you’re hip to throwing away a few hundred bucks on a purchase you’re bound to regret – and that’s from someone who is an Apple guy. Jobs also announced several new apps designed specifically for the iPad -- including the New York Times and Major League Baseball. Having said that, I expected much more from Apple after it waited so long to enter the battle in the tablet computer world. Its laptops and desktops are superior, but the iPad doesn’t appear to continue that tradition. Sure, it’s razor-thin (actually, half an inch), but complaints are already flying in about the über-wide bezel (the border around the screen) and other structural and design issues with the iPad. It is worth noting that the device also has an electronic reader function, which could take a bit of market share from the Amazon Kindle and other similar devices, although I wouldn’t bet on that. In short, an announcement that was awaited so eagerly by so many proved to be a major letdown and for once, Apple doesn’t look like the computing powerhouse it normally is………….
No comments:
Post a Comment