Zathras

There was TONS of hype over here. There were strategic leaks as well as rampant speculation all over the place. Gawker was offering several thousands of dollars as a reward for just photos of the damn thing. You don't need to have publicly confirmed hard info for hype. It's not comparable to a netbook, though, because you'd have to buy an (expensive) keyboard attachment and dongle in order to type on the damn thing, and then you'd have to have a separate iPod to listen to music while you did it. a 10" touchscreen keyboard just isn't practical. 3G is nothing special when the surroundings are so limited. It's less portable than an iPhone, and doesn't provide enough extra to be worth it. Some people wanted a bigger screen, fine, but there's nothing new here, which is a major disappointment. And don't say it has great access to apps and media and such. It has restricted access to everything. It all must be done through Apple, which is my biggest complaint. If it weren't so closed, people could innovate solutions for stuff, but as it is, it's totally locked.

With all the hype, I was hoping for something actually innovative, instead of a giant iPod touch. It's very disappointing that it cannot multitask. Without that basic functionality, it's not as useful as a netbook. Especailly since it cannot run flash. If you could put other stuff on its OS, then it might be made more useful through development, but with the closed-system that Apple runs, even that isn't possible. I probably wouldn't have bought one anyways, since I tend to get frustrated with being locked out of all things Apple, but I had a Newton years ago which I liked a lot. I was hoping that there would be something actually *new* that would lead to innovation across the board. This is just more of the same.

Meh. Ends up just being an oversized iPod touch. Still doesn't even run flash. Weak sauce.

Gave up after abbout 120 and 10 minutes--got bored.

Haiti truly has been in absolutely dreadful shape in terms of corruption for at least a decade. While I'm not really a fan of US troop involvement and interference in most places, the situation in Haiti was downright depressing and not very well publicized. If some good comes out of the situation, meaning that Haiti ends up differently than Antigua, then I'm for it.

Frickin pansies! Last night's low was somewhere around -30 C.

Not only old, but inaccurate as all you Geordies who think you can deal with cold are a bunch of frackin sissies.

Bob Bradley, who picks his son for the national team its glorified kids football Just like Paolo and Cesari Maldini, eh?

Someone was making the point about only 15 English players played in the CL last season, whereas something daft like 100 Brazillians had. So what though, its just squad depth which is our issue in that case since most of our starting 11 have lots of CL games under their belts. I'd be delighted if we make it to the semis. Not good enough to win it. Why not? We have the best midfielder, in my view the two best centre halfs, best manager, you'd put Rooney in the top 10 players in the world. We are inifinitely better than Italy and Greece were who won two of the last three tournaments, and this is the first time we've played a WC in years in a climate condusive to our footballing way. On a separate note, I think it will be interesting to see if a European team can win it outside of Europe for the first time.

it looks like he dropped something down his shirt to provoke the slap.

I'm going to be in Nashville when that's on. Yeehaw. England and Italy got the best out of that then. And Brazil-Portugal-Ivory Coast-North Korea is a peach of a group. Couldn't be happier for the Portuguese. Meenzer, if you like, I ought to be able to track down an appropriate venue for you to watch the match with England supporters. That'd be good. No rush obviously. We're at the CMA Fest in the evening (I know, I know) but I assume with the time difference kick-off will be mid-afternoon at the latest in the US. Just send me a reminder closer to the event. I'm planning to be in South Africa for the cup, so you'll have to give me a little lead time The game is, I believe around 1:30 PM Nashville time. Based solely on me being there, I'm pleased to avoid South Africa, as the opening match ticket price hike is ridiculous. I like that the venues are relatively close for group C, which should help save some travel expenses; can't see us (US) winning the group, so unfortunately would (best case) have to go to Bloemfontain.

I'm going to be in Nashville when that's on. Yeehaw. England and Italy got the best out of that then. And Brazil-Portugal-Ivory Coast-North Korea is a peach of a group. Couldn't be happier for the Portuguese. Meenzer, if you like, I ought to be able to track down an appropriate venue for you to watch the match with England supporters.

Fantastic draw for England. Should be interesting to see how the group shakes out. My prediction is this: England: 7 Slovenia: 4 USA: 2 Algeria: 1 But we'll see, I can see it easily finishing something like: England: 7 4 4 1 With any of the remaining teams ending anywhere in the lower three places. US will be happy with the draw, but presumably so are Slovenia and Algeria.

Not dreadfully impressed as a "fundamental shift in communication" but it is interesting. I can see the application of it in rather mundane situations, such as a shopping list for a group/family. Not sure about business applications yet.

Saunders played last year in the same league as my local team. His nickname was "Moses" as in, couldn't hold the ball because he was holding two big stone tablets... lots of rebounds.

If you think he's bad you should see Saunders...

That Daniel Beckman character seems to be fairly anonymous thus far.

My local club was sold by its original owner, who had owned the club for 14 years in 2003. The new owner at that point was a tight-fisted guy who took a team which had been consistently challenging for the title (four final appearances, one championship between 1999-2003) and had it finish last or second-last for three years. In late 2006 he sold to a couple of new investors who promised big things including more money. The main guy was a real estate investor. He moved the team to a new (beautiful) stadium, and paid out a lot more for players. We made the playoffs for the first time in years last year. This year we were pretty poor, as money was much more tight from the new guy. Then he had a row with the league's management (a legitimate one, actually, over the sale of the league) and along with the owners of four other teams of the 12 in the league refused to pay franchise fees, and vowed to create their own new league. Then it came to light that he hasn't paid the players or staff since August, the coach has resigned because he has to have income from *somewhere*, the General Manager has left for another team (which will pay him) and several establishments around town are owed a lot of money by the team. Yesterday, the team released all players from their contracts. It looks as though the team will no longer exist after this just past season. There is no alternative team to follow closer than 400 miles away. I'm really quite gutted over all this. It seems my four month old son will not have any chance to watch live soccer/football without having to make special trips.

I have the 9/30/1996 match against Aston Villa (4-3, Les 2, Shearer 1, Howey 1, Yorke hat trick for Villa) and the Barca 3-2 game. They're NTSC, though.

I'm sure Australia does. Indonesia I would doubt. Japan and Korea each have at least half that number from hosting in 2002 Russia undoubtedly does. The USA has at least twice that many 60,000+ stadia. Belgium/Netherlands and Spain/Portugal would surely have that many between the two also. Couldn't say either way about Qatar, but they could build them no problem.

Can be, but usually is fine.

www.hawtness.com just in general.

Truly brutal stuff from Mexico with Vela and Dos Santos featuring. Of course, neither team really brought their full squads (for whatever reason, even though this is their equivalent of the African Nations Cup, they don't seem to value it very highly.) This was an off-year. The Gold Cup is held every two years for some reason (reason: to line Jack Warner's pockets). Since only every other cup counts as qualification for the Confederations Cup, the "off-year" cup is always a chance for the US, Mexico, and maybe a few others to try out some "developmental" players. Mexico brought a B team to be sure. The US, I'd say a C team at best, but that was damned embarrassing. Worst loss since 1985. They just stopped playing after that (ludicrous) Penalty. Vela was excellent when he came on. Dos Santos was much better second half as well, once he wasn't asked to shoulder the entire attacking load.

Cheers. I'm already fighting off an auntie who wants him to support Liverpool. I'm introducing him to a long lifetime of disappointment though as a Newcastle Fan, a Minnesota Twins fan and (recently) a Minnesota Thunder fan (local team; he'll be going to his first match tomorrow .) The NUFC.com link doesn't have anything under 1 year size, and I'm loathe to give Ashley a damned cent of my money. He'd be luck to get a pint of my piss at this point.