DG Entertainment: Gob's Tricks Gone Wrong

This is a great scene from Arrested Development, portraying some of Gob's many blunders in "Office Magic."  In other notes from Hulu.com, not only do they have all three seasons of Arrested Development, as well as shows like 30 Rock and The Office, but they have recently added full episodes and clips of The Daily Show and The Colbert Report.

Congrats Junior on 600th HR!

Future HOF-er Ken Griffey Jr. hit the 600th home run of his career in the first inning of Monday's Reds-Marlins game, becoming only the sixth member of the exclusive club, along with Sosa (609), Mays (660), Ruth (714), Aaron (755), and Bonds (762).  Junior has always been one of the best players in the game, having a flair for having fun and actually "playing" the game.  He invented the backward hat (seen above), and will always be among the games greatest players.

DG Tech: WWDC '08 brings iPhone 3G + AppStore & MobileMe

Today, Apple kicked-off the 2008 World Wide Developers Conference with the usual Steve Jobs keynote to introduce some new, exciting products.  It was much of what was expected leading up to the event, some of which were updates to what we already knew.  The first thing they showed was an update on the three new features to the iPhone: 1)Enterprise features 2)SDK (Software Development Kit) and 3)iPhone Software 2.0.  The Enterprise features included support for Microsoft Exchange (with push email,contacts, calendar), and showed a video of numerous executives praising the iPhones usefulness in corporate America.  Then, the iPhone SDK was updated, with many developers demoing new apps that they will be releasing with the AppStore (which will launch in early July).  SEGA made a game called SuperMonkey Ball, in which you tilt the iPhone to roll a monkey in a ball around numerous levels of an obstacle course.  Pangea ported their game CroMag Rally to iPhone, in which you "steer" the iPhone to race cavemen through numerous entertaining courses.  Then came some more useful apps, as medical companies designed apps in which you can diagram the human body, or even view patient X-Rays and PET/MRI/CT scans on the go.  Perhaps the most exciting new app to me, as well as most readers of this blog I presume, was MLB's new iPhone app.  Through this app, you can keep track of all the day's games through GameDay like interfaces.  In addition, within minutes after big plays happen on the field, you can view a video highlight right on your iPhone, no matter where you are.

Next up, Apple demoed a new service to keep your life in sync, across every platform you utilize.  The new service, labeled MobileMe, will replace .Mac.  Through this service, you can access your Mail, Contacts, Calendar, and Photos no matter where you are--all delivered in desktop-class, Web 2.0 applications on www.me.com.  Perhaps the most useful feature, however, is that all of these features will be synced to all of your devices via "push" technology wirelessly.  If you get an email, it will automaticall be pushed to your computer and iPhone from the MobileMe "cloud."  If you update a contact on your iPhone, it will automatically show up on Me.com and your computer's Address Book app.  This service will be automatically available in early July, as well.

Then came what everyone was waiting for, and expecting, for today...the iPhone 3G.  Jobs returned to the stage revealing the new product to much applause.  He detailed all of the requested improvements for the iPhone, and proceeded to show how these were reached.  First of course, this iPhone is at 3G speeds.  3G is must faster than the current 2G (or EDGE) speeds of the first generation iPhone.  In fact, demos showed that the National Geographic website loads in 59 seconds over EDGE, while 3G loads it in just 21 seconds (which is approaching the 17 seconds WiFi speeds).  Thus, the new iPhone is more than twice as fast as the old iPhone.  Along with 3G capability, Jobs revealed that this iPhone will also incorporate GPS technology.  The Maps app will know exactly where you are, and will be able to guide you anywhere you please...you'll never be lost again if you have an iPhone.  Next, Jobs addressed the issues of Enterprise and third party applications, which had already been taken care of earlier in the keynote.  Both Enterprise support (with Exchange support and Cisco-powered security), as well as third party apps (created by the SDK and distributed in the AppStore) will be fully functional and available out of the box upon the release of iPhone 3G.  The next issue tackled was for iPhone to be available in more countries, and that was addressed with Jobs saying that their goal of 25 countries by fall/winter will be exceeded as in the coming months, over 70 countries will have the iPhone.  This was accompanied by countries lighting up one-by-one on a world map to the song "It's a Small World" (did you know that Jobs is Disney's majority shareholder?).  The last issue was, of course, for the iPhone to be more affordable.  That was addressed with booming approval by the crowd, as Jobs announced that the new 8GB model will be sold for just $199 in a black, plastic casing, while the 16GB model will sell for $299 and come in black or white.  It goes on sale...July 11!  Also, some of the features will be available as a free iPhone Update 2.0 to current iPhone owners, and a $9.95 update to iPod touch owners.

Now obviously, these are some exciting  new products and features here today.  However, today's event was very developer focused with the iPhone SDK, and an early, secret preview of Mac OSX 10.6 "Snow Leopard," (which will concentrate on stability, performance, and security).  In addtion, the iPhone 3G provides a fast, affordable way for the iPhone to become more widespread around the world.  But today seemed to be missing the fun and innovation as seen from Jobs' keynotes in the past.  Maybe we'll see some of those products in the coming months, or within the year.  Some things that I was hoping for were:

-updates to the family of notebooks (MacBook,MacBook Pro)

-a Mac tablet.  There were many rumors for these leading up to WWDC.  Rumors of patents for tablet technology, video conferencing on an iPhone-like device, etc.  This has been a long-rumored product that will hopefully see light within the year...perhaps at Macworld 2009?

-a little more enthusiasm/fun/creativity from Jobs like usual...however, this was a very developer-aimed keynote that saw many other Apple executives give talks with a lot of technical information, so this is understandable.  A lot of business and technical information was discussed, but this was the World Wide Developers Conference, so maybe we'll see some fun stuff at Macworld 2009

So that wraps it up from an informative day of Apple news.  We now wait for the July 11 launch of iPhone 3G, and most likely the App Store and MobileMe.  Here are some links to the important products/information of the day:

MacRumorsLive keynote coverage

MacRumorsLive keynote photos

WWDC keynote Quicktime video

iPhone 3G

MobileMe

iPhone Ad

Apple.com

DG '08: McCain-Clinton (Real Change to Believe In)

This past Tuesday, as the primary season came to a close, Senator Obama has won enough delegates to make him the presumptive Democrat nominee for President.  Now, we begin the general election season as Senator McCain will take on Obama for the presidency.  The first order of business that is usually taken care of is the selection of each candidate's running mate.  Many names have been thrown out there on each side, most notably Condoleeza Rice and Rudy Giuliani with McCain and Hillary Clinton with Obama.  However, with the seemingly different crowds attached to Senators Obama and Clinton, there have been some doubts as to whether that relationship would work between them.  When looking at the primary figures, however, we can see that both candidates received rougly around 18 million votes (some say Senator Clinton received more).  With this information, there had been an interesting proposition that I had been thinking about.  It struck me as far from possible, however I saw it brought up in a Daily Show interview with John McCain, and most recently in this Wired.com article.  The idea was for John McCain to offer his V.P. position to none other than Senator Clinton.  I think that this is a brilliant idea, actually.  John McCain is already known for being a maverick in the Republican Party, and taking some not-so-typical-conservative stances on things.  He has pushed for both parties working together, and has actually disagreed with many of his GOP colleagues on numerous important issues.  HIllary Clinton could help give McCain not only the Republican voters, but maybe a majority of her 18 million Democrat votes.  In the presidency, they would be a dynamite ticket.  Barack Obama has been criticized for his lack of national security experience, and how he would handle the responsibilities of being President, after being in Washington for such a short period of time.  With a McCain/Clinton ticket, you have a huge amount of experience.  McCain is well-versed in politics, national security, and many of the major issues.  Hillary, meanwhile, could bring some of her experiences as First Lady with her (along with the expertise of her husband, Former President Bill Clinton), and can also contribute on some of her stronger issues.  Together they could form a very strong tandem that could be tackle numerous issues, and bring both parties in Congress together to make sure things get done.  According to sources cited in the above linked Wired article, if Hillary accepted this proposal then it would be beneficial for all the reason previously disscussed; if she said no, then "McCain will look like the guy who really works across party lines," something that Obama has tried to preach.  I, for one, believe that this would be an amazing situation if both McCain and Clinton could accept the "maverick-ness" of it, and come to see how brilliant it would be.  Senator McCain is the "straight-talk express" who has a plethora of experience in both Washington and national security, and would know how to get the job done and tell the American people the truth.  Senator Clinton, meanwhile, could play a great balance with him, and help him with many other "new" issues like scientific breakthroughs, women's issues, and climate change.  Together, both Senators McCain and Clinton (along with Bill Clinton), would truly make a "dream ticket" that could actually be a big "change" Americans could believe in.

DG Photo Quickie-Your Sports Update in a "Flash"

This week was a fun week in sports, and that fun is only just beginning.  Let's recap some of the big events in photos.  Starting with Tuesday's big news out of the NBA Draft Lottery:

With this pick, the Bulls have gained the potential to improve drastically next year.  They can now draft one of the two elite players in the June's draft: Derrick Rose, PG out of Memphis, or Michael Beasley, PF out of Kansas State.  Then, the pick would give them flexibility to trade a couple of guards/forwards they already have for other key pieces.  It is still early, but at this point I would choose Rose; the Chicago kid looks poised to follow in Chris Paul's and Deron Williams' footsteps as the next elite, NBA point-guard to lead his team to big things.

Next, we had Wednesday's UEFA Champions League Final, which pitted the two English clubs against each other for the title:

Late into the Moscow night, Manchester United and Chelsea FC battled for the crown in the pouring rain.  During regulation, Christiano Ronaldo headed in the goal for Man U, but after over 120 minutes, the teams were locked in a 1-1 tie.  For the fourth time in eight years, the UEFA final went to a shootout, as Manchester United took the crown after seven rounds.

Next up during the week, we started the Conference Finals in the NBA, as both the Lakers and the Celtics took leads over their opponents.  The Lakers, dominating the Spurs with good team play led by Kobe Bryant are 2-0 and will play Game 3 on Sunday.  While the Celtics, after losing their first game at home in Game 2, came right back to win on the road in Game 3 to go up 2-1 in their series.  They'll challenge the Pistons in Game 4 Monday night on ESPN.

In the other playoffs underway right now, the Pittsburgh Penguins and Detroit Red Wings started their final journey to hoisting the Stanley Cup on Saturday night.  The Pens came into Hockeytown and took a 4-0 loss to the Wings, as the 2008 Stanley Cup Finals started with authority.  The star power was also on hand for the ceremonial puck drop, as past Pen and Wing captains Super Mario Lemieux and Stevie Yzerman kicked off the festivities by dropping the pucks to current captains (and former teammates) Sidney Crosby and Niklas Lidstrom.

And finally, tomorrow it's time for ladies and gentlemen to "start their engines" as the 92nd running of the Indy 500 starts.  Danica Patrick, Tony Kanaan, Marco Andretti, and Helio Castroneves are all positioned to start towards the front, as a thrilling day of racing should be expected.

Home-Cooking Sends Cubs on the Road on Fire!

The Cubs are one HOT team.  They just completed a 10-game road stand with an 8-2 record; the last time the Cubs have won eight games on a homestand was way back in 1978.  This team, everyone included, is just too hot for any team to handle right now.  With everyone clicking on all cylinders, the Chicago Cubs are atop the MLB Pole-Position.  Did I mention they are hot?  Okay, enough of the much-deserved love-fest for now, let's get down to the real business.  The Cubs, at 27-17, now sit atop their perch of the NL Central Division by 2.0 games.  After a homestand that saw great pitching performances by starters (Dempster is 5-1) and bullpen alike (are you ready for some Marmolade?), Soriano hit .525 with 7 HR and 16 RBI, some helpful acquisitions and call-ups (Jim Edmonds, Micah Hoffpauir), and every player contribute, things are only looking up on the North Side.  Just to appreciate the dominance of the Cubs' performance thus far, consider that they are leading the entire Major Leagues with 255 runs scored (Boston is second with 239), a .373 team OBP leads the majors, and have a pitching staff that is currently ranked in the Top 3 in the NL in Wins, ERA, and Strikeouts.  As far as individual performances, the aforementioned Alfonso Soriano is on one of his patented hot-streaks, in which he has launched 7 HR in just 6 games while hitting .525 over the last 10 games (video here and here).  The rookies Geovany Soto and Kosuke Fukudome have been on-base machines, playing like they are the only two rookies in the league that deserve the ROY award (there homers can be viewed here and here).  Pitching wise, Carlos Marmol has been absolutely filthy, striking out 40 batters this year over just 28.0 innings.  Ryan Dempster, meanwhile, has 5 wins and is third in the NL with a 2.35 ERA, just ahead of the fourth place Carlos Zambrano's 2.45 ERA.  There have been a hand full of surprises, as well; such as DeRosa's versatile defense, Sean Gallagher's emergence over this homestand as a viable 5th starter, and the bargain-acquisition by Hendry of veteran Jim Edmonds to share playing time in center while Felix Pie develops in the minors.  Now, on to Houston where the Cubs can continue the fun and give themselves a little separation in the Central between themselves and the 2.5 game-back Houston Astros.

DG Quickie: Sergio Wins! Cubs Sweep!

In a great Sunday of sports, two events stood out.  At the iconic TPC Sawgrass, for one, Sergio Garcia captured this years Player's Championship, as he also got his first win in three years.  He played extremely well the entire tournament, placing 1st in Driving Accuracy and GIR.  It was a much deserved, and emotional win for the Spaniard, whose opening comment to NBC's Bob Costas was, "First I'd like to thank Tiger for not being here."...comical Sergio as always.  Congrats to him.  You can check out Sergio's scorecard here, and the tournament leaderboard here.

Also, over at 1060 W. Addison, the Cubs completed a three-game sweep of the Arizona D'Backs, exacting some revenge from last years early, playoff exit.  In the three games, the pitching was solid, paired with clutch, late-inning rallies of runs.  Derrek Lee had a nice weekend with 2 HR, while Alfonso Soriano started to pick it up going 5-9 with 2 RBI, 2 R, and an IBB in a PH-appearance on Sunday.  Kosuke Fukudome also clubbed his 2nd HR of the season with a 2-run shot on Saturday.  The Cubs, at 23-16, are now tied atop the NL Central Division with the Cardinals, and are about to go into a 4-game series vs. the Padres at Wrigley this week, followed by another home series vs. the Pirates going into next Sunday.  They are set to face Greg Maddux on Thursday's contest.

Oh, yeah...Happy Mother's Day!

DG Wild Card: Colbert Universe!

Watch as Stephen Colbert talks live to an astronaut on the International Space Station.

DG Thriller: Stars harpoon Sharks in 4 OT Classic

In a marathon game that started at 8:04 pm CDT in Dallas Sunday night, and ended over 5 hours later at 1:21 am CDT early Monday morning, the Dallas Stars knocked the San Jose Sharks out of the 2008 Stanley Cup Playoffs, and themselves advanced to the Western Finals v. Detroit.  After regulation ended in a 1-1 score, the teams proceeded to play into four more 20 minute periods of play to decide the winner.  In the overtime periods, both goaltenders turned in stellar performances.  The games first star, Marty Turco, turned away 61 of 62 shots.  Everyone grinded it out, as the OT periods kept passing by with the score still locked in at 1-1.  There was some exceptional performances by Dallas' Brad Richards and San Jose's Jeremy Roneick in particular, as both kept setting their teams up for chances to score.  In the 4th OT, the dagger finally came when Dallas captain Brenden Morrow tipped in a blast by Stephan Robidas to get past the also stellar Evgeni Nabokov.  Both teams battled to the end, in a game that is surely to go down in hockey history as one of the classics of all-time.  Now, the final four of the Stanley Cup Playoffs are set.  The Eastern Conference Finals will feature two teams from Pennsylvania: the Flyers v. the Penguins, while the Western Conference Finals will feature perennial powerhouse Detroit Red Wings v. the Dallas Stars.  It should be a good one.  As a final note from this early morning's broadcast, it was revealed that in between overtime periods, the players are given pizza, gatorade, and IV fluids to replenish their bodies and keep them going through the night.

DG @ the Movies: IRON MAN

In possibly the best superhero movie yet, Marvel gets it right with Iron Man.  An action packed, quick-witted movie, it also has a stellar performance by Robert Downey Jr. as Tony Stark.  The quick lowdown:  Tony Stark is a mega-rich playboy who heads up Stark Industries; a weapons manufacturerer.  When he's not overseeing a new project, or working in his workshop, he's out partying or at his cliff-top, Malibu home.  While on a business trip in Afghanistan to demonstrate his newest weapon- The Jericho- he's captured by terroists who demand he build them this new weapon.  Instead, Stark and another captive build the Iron Man suit that helps him escape.  After seeing how his weapons are actually in the hands of the enemy, he returns home to perfect the Iron Man suit and fight this evil in the world.  He can now fly faster than an F-22 Raptor, easily take-out tanks and armed militants, and be in constant, technological comfort with his state-of-the-art suit.  Along the way on this story of betrayal, love, humor, coolness, and kick-ass superheroing, Tony Stark puts a new face on the superhero.  Also starring alongside Stark are his best friend, and chief military liason to Stark Industries James Rhodes (Terrence Howard), and his assistant and (kind of flirting romantic interest) Pepper Potts (Gwenyth Paltrow).  This movie is a great movie for anyone, and it also has some great twists that you will never see coming.  You will definitely want to be Tony Stark with his awesome house, Audi R8, Rolls-Royce Phantom, private jet, lavish life, and...oh yeah...Iron Man!!  Final tip: You will want to stay after the credits!!!!!!