- Size does matter in the tablet world. Of course, smaller
tends to be more desirable when it comes to the junior version of a laptop
computer, but Microsoft is heading the other direction and CEO Steve Ballmer is
leading the way. Not long after Samsung introduced its 11.6-inch Windows 8 preview tablet, the
maker of the world’s worst operating system revealed that Ballmer uses an
80-inch touchscreen with Windows 8 for communications and productivity. “He's
got rid of his phone, he's got rid of his note paper,” spokesman Frank Shaw
said. “It's touch-enabled and it's hung on his wall.” The über-tablet sounds
like wretched excess for the wealthy top executive of a major corporation and
who the hell needs a tablet larger than any computer screen or most any flat-panel
TV on the market, but Shaw said the company eventually plans to sell the device.
He refused to name the manufacturer, the price or a release date, but like all
Microsoft releases, this one is certain to disappoint sooner or much sooner. Right
now, Microsoft lists 27 inches as the largest common screen size it expects for
Windows 8 PCs, billing these large touchscreens as “family hub” devices.
“Families might opt for an all-in-one desktop with a huge touch screen to view
and organize all of the family photos,” Microsoft senior program manager David
Washington wrote in a March blog post. An 80-inch tablet would obviously be
more business-oriented and Shaw knows the average consumer would not need or be
able to afford such a device at present. "It's not a consumer thing now,
but we know historically that that's how all things start," he explained. "The
idea that there should be a screen that's not a computer, we'll laugh at that
in two years. Integrating some of its other product, such as the Xbox, could be
one way of making the 80-inch tablet idea more appealing to the masses…………
- Everyone has their talent, that one skill which sets them apart from
the pack. For Knoxville, Tenn. resident Desmond Hatchett, his skill set is
both a blessing and a curse. On the one hand, Hatchett has clearly had a lot of
sex in his 33 years on this planet. He’s good at picking up women and getting
them to sleep with him. However, lots of sex can lead to lots of children if
one doesn’t take the proper precautions and Hatchett definitely doesn’t
specialize in protection or planning ahead. See, he is on a record-setting
fathering binge and there is no end in sight. Hatchett has 30 children with 11
women, putting every other procreator in Knox County to shame. The past three
years, he has cranked out nine children and become something of a local
celebrity in the Knoxville area. His procreating proficiency has continued even
after he vowed "I'm done!" in a 2009 TV interview. So why is he back
in the news? Because Knox County’s judicial system has been given the difficult
task of trying to figure out how to get a man working a minimum-wage job to
adequately support all 30 of his kids, none of whom are even in high school
yet. Predictably, Hatchett is struggling to make child support payments on such
a meager salary and thus he finds himself making regular court appearances. "Yes,
we've got several cases with Mr. Hatchett," confirmed Melissa Gibson, an
assistant supervisor with the Knox County child support clerk's office. Sadly,
there are no legal means to keep Hatchett from sexing it up. Relying on the
intelligence of women he meets to keep their pants on doesn’t work, so there is
little to do but sit back and enjoy the most prodigious child-producing career
of our era. Hatchett’s children range in age from newborn to 14 years old and child
support payments are based in part on the ages and needs of the children. Some
of his baby mamas receive a mere $1.49 a month. When asked in a recent TV
interview how he had accrued so many children in such a short time, Hatchett
bluntly replied, "I had four kids in the same year. Twice." That
about sums it up………….
- Does any college or NBA franchise want or need a hall of fame player
who has run an entire league into the ground, run an NBA team financially
aground and been fired from a low-level Div. I program for compiling
a 26-65 record in three seasons? If so, former Continental Basketball
Association owner/New York Knicks executive and coach/Florida International
coach Isaiah Thomas is available…really available. Really, really available.
Thomas was fired by FIU in April for three lackluster seasons in which he tried
to take a job as a consultant for an NBA team (the Knicks) and keep coaching,
failed to crack the .500 barrier and generally was as incompetent as he’s been
in any stop during his post-playing career. He previously coached in the NBA
with Indiana Pacers as well and served as the general manager for the Toronto
Raptors and has been terrible at every stop. His career lowlight just might be
the massive sexual harassment suit he incurred while running the Knicks, but
that doesn’t mean he isn't hankering for a return to the Association….or any
place else that might hire him. "I
definitely want to be in basketball again whether it be coaching or as a
general manager," Thomas said in an interview this week. "My gift is
basketball. I would love working with the kids. If it's the right college
program, I would consider it. If
it's the right GM job or coaching job in the NBA, I would consider it. I love
the game. I just want to be in
the game." He’s actually half-right when speaking about what his gift is.
Basketball is his gift, but not as a coach or executive. Like many former
greats when their playing days are done, he has struggled mightily out of
uniform. The perfect storm of disaster would be Michael Jordan, a former peer
and also one of the best ever to play the game, hiring Thomas to coach the team
Jordan now owns, the Charlotte Bobcats. The Bobcats are 7-55 this past season,
posting the highest losing percentage in NBA history. By hiring Thomas for
their now-vacant coaching position, the Bobcats could easily bomb out and lose
95 percent of their games next season. Knicks owner James Dolan, the one who
tried to re-hire him for a consulting position while Thomas was at FIU despite
having fired him from the Knicks a few years prior, has a disturbing fondness
for Thomas despite his consistent failings and just might hire him back.
Certainly no one is going to hire him for his success as a coach or executive,
so Thomas’ best hope is that another small-time program enamored by the chance
to make a big splash with a big-name hire will bring him in. He is of the
opinion the he simply didn’t get enough time at FIU and would have turned the
team around given another season or two. Instead, turning around his sinking
career is his next big project…………
- There are few situations in life more terrifying than a
1-year-old Humboldt penguin on the loose. Penguins, the noted badasses of the
flightless bird world, terrify most everyone and the idea of that 1-year-old
penguin terrorizing Tokyo like a modern-day Penguin-zilla was frightening. The
penguin escaped from a Tokyo aquarium three months ago and had remained on the
loose since then. It was finally captured by hand when it set foot on land in
Ichikawa on Thursday night. An observant aquarium employee was walking
alongside the Edogawa River in Chiba Prefecture at 5:30 p.m. and spotted the
renegade penguin, which was seen swimming in the river near the Kanamachi water
purification plant in Katsushika Ward earlier in the week. Other spotting put
the bird hanging out and snacking on small fish in Tokyo Bay. The common thesis
was that it was resting some place along the shore at night. Un-creatively
named Penguin 337, this avian escape artist scaled a 13-foot wall and got
through a barbed-wire fence to get into the bay to find freedom. Aquarium
officials now believe the bird escaped through small gaps that cats and frogs
can pass through. Tokyo Sea Life Park personnel worried the penguin would not
survive in the waters of the bay, which sees heavy marine traffic bound for
densely populated Tokyo. Somehow, three months on the run don’t appear to have
taken a major toll on Penguin 337. "It didn't look like it has gotten
thinner over the past two months, or been without food. It doesn't seem to be
any weaker. So it looks as if it's been living quite happily in the middle of
Tokyo Bay," said Kazuhiro Sakamoto, deputy director of the park. Now that
Penguin 337 is back, maybe the zoo can answer the pressing question of why it
is named Penguin 337 when there are only 135 penguins at Tokyo Sea Life Park……….
- At long last, the mystery has been solved. The bridge that inspired
the classic 1992 Red Hot Chili Peppers song, “Under The Bridge” has been
identified. While it has been widely known for years that the bridge was
somewhere in Los Angeles, no one was quite sure which bridge it was. The song
itself centers on frontman Anthony Kiedis' battle with drug addiction and his
own autobiography, “Scar Tissue,” provided the clues needed for inquiring minds
to track down the bridge . In the book, Kiedis tales the story of how he spent
"downtown with f**king gangsters shooting speedballs under a bridge."
Kiedis has steadfastly refused to name the location, but music fan and
researcher Mark Haskell Smith has figured out the puzzle. Smith has pinpointed
the bridge as , a pedestrian bridge that is fairly nondescript. “Inside, it
looked like a school art project had been painted over decades of tagging,
layers of violent history under a family friendly mural… but not that long ago
it was the stomping ground of gangbangers and dope slingers,” Smith theorized. "It
must be the bridge in the song. It links Sixth and Union — the intersection
Kiedis claims he was walking toward [in Scar Tissue]— with the drug dealers at
Seventh and Hoover. And, unlike the other bridges, it provides a discreet
location for private time with personal demons." Whether that revelation
adds meaning to the song for RHCP fans is unclear, but a few are sure to make
pilgrimages there to see the inspiration for one of the band’s best-known
tracks……….
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