FOOTBALL TALK-Wild Card Weekend: A Second Take

January 6th, 2009 9:37pm PST

FOOTBALL TALK-Wild Card Weekend: A Second Take
By David Ortega for Football Reporters Online

This Weekend NFL fans will see what looks like a rematch of last weekend when the Eagles-Cowboys, Packers-Cardinals, and Jets-Bengals tango. In the first two matchups it will be a complete repeat with the Eagles and Packers again hitting the road. The difference in the Jets and Bengals, unlike last week's contest in the Big Apple this one will be in Cincinnati.

The Cowboys will be shooting for the Tri-fecta on Saturday when they face the Eagles for the third time this season. With quarterback Tony Romo (311 yards passing and two touchdowns last week) playing well and the Cowboys defense (four sacks last Sunday) coming to life, the boys from Texas look like favorites to complete the sweep.

The Packers and Jets may have only seen a mirage of the teams they will face this weekend. Green Bay's defense barely faced the Cardinals starting quarterback Kurt Warner who exited early and Sunday night it looked like the Bengals starters took all of the night off against the Jets.

The Cards offense was stagnate with Matt Leinart under center last weekend, but you can bet the Packers secondary will have their hands full with Warner in the huddle on Sunday. The question for Cincy will be trying to muster some offense against the Jets stingy defense and shut down corner Darrelle Revis. Last Sunday Bengals wide receiver Chad Ochocinco was held without a catch and quarterback Carson Palmer managed only one completion for no yards and an interception.

It's not often a team gets a chance during the playoffs to exact some revenge for an earlier loss in the season, but this wild weekend will present three opportunities with the Bengals, Cardinals, and Eagles all looking for that chance.

Looking under the hood of Week 17

Vikings flex some muscle on Sunday...
So much for the worry, on Sunday against the Giants the Vikings offense appeared to have cured all of their offensive ills. Quarterback Brett Favre was back to form completing 25 of 31 passes and throwing four touchdowns, while the ground game pounded out 129 yards, including a score by Adrian Peterson. The defense was also stellar forcing two turnovers, recording three sacks, and limiting the Giants to only 181 yards.

Cardinals don't show much in finale ....
With nothing to play for in Week 17, the Cardinals limited quarterback Kurt Warner to a cameo appearance last Sunday. Warner only threw six passes, but he'll need to throw a lot more if the Cards hope to get past a very good Packers pass defense (ranked 5th) that leads the NFL with 30 interceptions this season. Warner is a savvy veteran quarterback with plenty of weapons and he'll have wide receiver Larry Fitzgerald (13 touchdowns) available, but Anquan Boldin (84 receptions) could be a different story with a banged up ankle.

Bengals show very little in finale.....
Whether it was by design or not, the Bengals showed very little in their season finale against the Jets. The performance was so poor it could have many fantasy owners concerned about even considering any starters this weekend. Against the Jets stout defense the Bengals managed only 72 total nets yards, turned the ball over three times, and surrendered three sacks. With quarterback Carson Palmer going one for eleven passing and the offense mustering just five first downs, offense could be a problem on Saturday.


More fantasy Notes

"Inside the Matchups"

The Bengals could have a big problem on Saturday in their rematch with the Jets in the AFC Wildcard round of the playoffs. Last week shutdown corner Darrelle Revis (six interceptions) did a huge number on wide receiver Chad Ochocinco not allowing a single catch in five tries. Whether Ocho plays or not, the Bengals figure to half a tough time completing passes in the direction of Revis. Revis has been stellar all season up against the best and leads the NFL's number one ranked pass defense.

The Cowboys tight end Jason Witten (94 receptions) did not have a big season in the end zone, but he was consistent and one of quarterback Tony Romo's most reliable. Last week against the Eagles Witten was effective catching six passes for 76 yards, including a score. In his last five matchups with the Eagles Witten has been an effective target, so there's little doubt that Romo will be looking his way a great deal on Saturday night.

The Patriots may have suffered a big loss last Sunday with the injury to Wes Welker, but they will still have the NFL's 2007 MVP, quarterback Tom Brady. It was not a Brady-like season, but the Patriots quarterback still finished the year with strong numbers; 4,398 yards passing, 28 touchdowns, and 96.2 passer rating. With Welker out, it will be a lot of Randy Moss (13 touchdowns) and Julian Edelman (10 receptions last week) on Sunday against the Ravens 8th ranked pass defense.

Where will Michael Vick end up in 2010?

Where will Michael Vick end up in 2010 ?
 
By J “The Gambler” Gamble-Contributing Writer-Football Reporters Online
 
 
Three years of turmoil. It was like a nightmare. But after most of the dust has cleared, Michael Vick is still living The American Dream. The former franchise QB is licking his chops to get a crack at a starting job next season. In the meantime, Vick is rebuilding a shattered reputation, on an NFL roster and earning back some of the “love” that was lost when he lied to fans, the Falcons and most importantly owner Arthur Blank.
 
Blank, who gained his fame and fortune as a player in the creation of Home Depot, entrusted Vick with $100 million and the keys to Atlanta. And don’t sniff at that contract. A man of Blank’s business acumen knew deep down that putting a stack on a previously impoverished kid from the ghettos of Newport News Va., and expecting him to be Gandhi with cleats, a helmet and run a 4.2, was a risk. It was a risk that paid high initial returns, but couldn’t sustain in the market and eventually hit rock bottom with Vick admitting to funding a brutal dog-fighting ring, and subsequently doing nearly two years in a Leavenworth, Kansas federal prison. We felt shock, betrayal and eventually anger.  
 
Despite the public backlash, Vick was fortunate to have a revered Tony Dungy mentor and publicly advocate for him, and people like Donovan McNabb and Andy Reid embrace him. Before you knew it he was on the Eagles roster. The cell block closed, and the doors of opportunity are open wide for Vick. Sure, he had to sit behind Donovan McNabb and couldn’t get in any flow. This first season back wasn’t about that. It was about a change in his attitude, and the attitudes of people towards the fallen great. The organizations that were so adamantly against his return are now willing to use Vick as a spokesperson to advance their causes and agendas.  He’s becoming marketable again.
 
Vick plans to work with the Humane Society of the United States on an anti-dogfighting campaign. And part of his release agreement was that he would work on programs aimed at preventing youths from entering dogfighting, and also on programs to assist young people who have already been involved in the vicious sport.
 
Vick has a unique opportunity to be one of the rare athletes and celebrities who can take a precipitous fall, lose everything and then rebuild again with dignity, grace and maturity. An example of resilience, penance, humility and growth that we don’t often get to see when athletes take falls. For most, the opportunity to rebuild never comes. Most of us only get one shot at greatness.  
 
Vick has been paying his dues and he now deserves a shot at a starting job. He played the humble soldier this season, backing up McNabb and saying and doing all of the right things. Vick has used this season to get re-acclimated to the locker room, the speed and toughness of the league, and getting his body back in football shape. There are many teams in the league with big-time deficiencies at QB. Why wouldn’t Washington, or Miami or Seattle or St. Louis or San Fran let Vick come in and compete for a starting gig ? In any event, they’ll have to wait. Vick’s season is still going on as the playoffs begin. He still has a chance to leave a mark on this season.
 
The excuse that he has taken two seasons off and is “probably” a shell of his former self, is irrelevant. If anything he added two years to his career. He saved his body.  He’s still better than anything those teams have got at 80 percent. But if he is anything close to what he was -- with the maturity he seems to have acquired by surrounding himself with positive men -- then he can elevate those franchises to elite status. Either way, he deserves the chance to find out. We do too.   

Giants End Season With One Last Embarrassing Loss

Giants End Season With One Last Embarrassing Loss
By Jon Wagner-Sr. Writer at Large-Football Reporters Online

A long season that once started with much promise is finally, mercifully, over for the 2009 New York Giants.

Following a 5-0 start which had the Giants pointing toward the playoffs and contending for Super Bowl XLIV, New York (8-8) ended its season with its eighth loss in eleven games on Sunday.

Like most of the previous seven defeats, the final one wasn’t pretty.

New York saved perhaps its worst for last, as the Minnesota Vikings (12-4) tuned up for the playoffs with a 44-7 manhandling of the Giants, who showed almost no fight for the second straight week after dominating Washington 45-12, only two weeks ago.

After leading the Redskins 24-0 at the half, the Giants trailed by the same score at halftime to Carolina last week, en route to a 41-9 home loss which ended Big Blue’s playoff hopes.

Though Giants’ head coach Tom Coughlin stressed professional pride with his team reduced to a spoiler role in the regular season’s final week, the first half in Minnesota was even worse than last week.

The Vikings took the opening kickoff, and needed just 2:03 to go 60 yards on five plays, for a 7-0 lead on a 10-yard touchdown pass to former Giant, tight end Visanthe Shiancoe, from quarterback Brett Favre, who had numbers that would have been good for a whole game, all in the opening half.

Favre completed 19 of 23 passes for 271 yards and three touchdowns, while avoiding a turnover, to lead Minnesota to a 31-0 halftime advantage.

By then, the Vikings, controlling the ball for 18:59 to the Giants’ 11:01, had scored on five of six possessions, had outgained the Giants 343-82 (271-66 through the air, 72-16 on the ground), had 18 first downs to the Giants’ four, and made seven plays of at least 15 yards (New York made just one of those in the first half).

Favre finished with a passer rating of 148.7, going 25 of 31, for 316 yards, with 4 TD’s and no INT’s before being lifted after his fourth touchdown pass, which gave Minnesota a 41-0 lead with 6:13 left in the third quarter.

After kicker Ryan Longwell’s third field goal in as many attempts, the Vikings took a 44-0 lead into the final quarter, having scored on seven straight possessions, and eight of nine.

The season finale was obviously a team effort that was one to forget, as the Giants allowed at least 40 points for the fifth time this season, the most times they’ve done that since 1966. They also missed the postseason for the first time in five years and became the fifth NFL team since 1970 to miss the playoffs after a 5-0 start.

Still, a few Giants reached individual milestones or had some career firsts:

- On his 29th birthday, Giants’ quarterback Eli Manning (17-23, 141 yards, 0 TD, 1 INT, 1 lost fumble) became the third quarterback in team history to throw for 4,000 yards in a season, finishing 2009 with 4,021 yards (although even that was overshadowed by the Vikings, as Favre received an ovation for becoming the fourth Viking in history to pass for 4,000 yards in a season, finishing the day with 4,202 yards for his sixth 4,000-yard season; Favre, who now has 33 touchdowns and just 7 interceptions this year, also extended his record NFL record for seasons with at least 30 touchdown passes to nine seasons).

- Wide receiver Steve Smith, on the first play of the Giants’ second possession, caught a ball over the middle, making him the first Giant ever to catch 100 passes in a season. He finished with a game-high 10 catches (for 57 yards), giving him 107 receptions for the year.

- The Giants avoided a shutout on, a one-yard run, the first career touchdown, by third-year running back Danny Ware.

- Rookie wide receiver, Ramses Barden, a 6-foot-6 third-round draft pick in April, out of Cal-Poly, who holds an NCAA record with touchdown catches in 32 consecutive college games, played in his third NFL game and began the Giants’ only scoring drive of the day with his first career reception, a 16-yard grab from Manning.

Giants head coach Tom Coughlin didn’t believe that another poor performance was from a lack of trying. “I do think we tried,” he said. “Where the effort and the purpose wasn’t there last week, I thought we had that this week. I do [think we had pride]. They all came to the stadium wanting to play. I really don’t think for one minute as we went to the field, that anyone was not giving effort.”

Coughlin felt instead, it was simply mistakes that helped let the game get away. The Giants committed 13 penalties for 95 yards.

“I am disappointed in the penalties in this game,” Coughlin said after noting that the Giants had recently done a better job of cutting down on such miscues.

And, in the first half, Coughlin said, “Two turnovers, two scores” turned the game early.

“You can never ever, ever accept what happened on the field [today],” he added.

Manning commented on the disappointed ending to the season after being eliminated from playoff contention last week. “We wanted to finish the season strong, at least,” he said. “And really, just poor play on our part. [I’m] just frustrated and kind of confused and I don’t know what went wrong [since the win in Washington].”

He’s certainly not the only one, as the Giants head into the offseason trying to figure out who to keep, who to let go, and how to get back to where they were as Super Bowl champions only two seasons ago, as NFC East champions last year, and the team they were through five weeks this season.

Artie Lange suicide attempt - Lange had "so much to live for"

An Artie Lange update. The Hoboken Police confirmed and the Associated Press reported that Howard Stern Show sidekick Artie Lange tried to commit suicide using a 13-inch Wolfgang Puck kitchen knife. Artie Lange was found by his mother unconscious but breathing last Saturday. Lange stabbed himself 9 times, six of them described as hesitation wounds and the final three complete stabs.

What is so troubling about the news of Artie Lange's suicide attempt is that he told the New York Post he had so much to live for and made statements that generally signaled he was on the upswing in life in an interview posted October 30, 2009. (The statements were broken up into paragraphs to make it easier to read that what appears in the NY Post, but this is not the entire interview, just portions for this post.)

In the NYPost interview Artie Lange said:

I had a heroin problem. And I’ve been clean since April. Off of everything. And I’ll tell you, I was taking Subutex to combat that, and I put more weight on me than I ever have, and I got off of that, I got off of heroin, and I lost about 50 pounds, and I tell you I’ve never felt better. I’m completely clean and sober now.

But in this statement, Artie Lange gave a window into a possible episode that caused his suicide attempt;

I think a lot of comedians would tell you that they suffer from depression and are addicts, and I don’t know, it’s the most surreal thing to do for a living. Because you know you’re on stage being the life of the party and trying to get laughs and then in a lot of ways, you don’t have anything to give once you give it to the people.

And for the last decade I’ve been doing it on the radio for five hours a day and then on the road all over the country on stage, you know what I mean? So, you know, you have a lot of dark times.

The road is a lonely place and that sounds like a cliché, you know, like what is my life? I’m like the master of ceremonies being funny and then sometimes people you’re with, girlfriends and stuff are like, ‘God I wish I had the person on stage to be with all the time.’

I have a girlfriend now who’s like a saint, or she’s very supportive of me, I see her and I smile, and that helps too but sometimes you drain a person. It’s so easy to take advantage of a person like that if they’re so giving because you can be selfish.

You’re like well, there’s a lot of times where I’m like, you know what, I can’t go out and have dinner with some of our friends and have fun because I just did five hours of radio all week and then I went to Pittsburgh and flew back and stuff and you know, comedy without question, as another cliché, comes from tragedy.

And so much of my material is very dark. I talk about my problems, I talk about my drug use, I talk about a lot of things, especially on the Stern show and the book is very honest. When I became a standup comic my hero, one of them, was Richard Pryor and you know, I think that comedians like, comedians talk about hacks, and what a hack is, is someone who does stuff that’s not original.

For the entire interview, visit the NY Post here.

Meanwhile, this is a 10-minute video recording of Howard Sterns reaction to the news in New York Post Page 6:



Stay tuned.

Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums should not run for reelection

There's rumor and talk - uncomfirmed - that Oakland Mayor Ron Dellums is considering a run for reelection as Mayor of Oakland. Mayor Dellums should not run again.

In all of the post war, post 1964 Civil Rights Amendment history of Oakland, there has never been a more unpopular Mayor of Oakland than Ron Dellums. The reasons for Oaklanders dislike for Ron Dellums the Mayor, but not Ron Dellums the person, is Dellums now legendary failure to been seen as a leader. It started even before the Oscar Grant Murder in 2009 and the riots that followed, and really has its roots in the formation of Dellums' own plan for Oakland.

The plan was formed after a number of task force groups were formed. But Dellums error was in an insular approach where only supporters and cronies were invited to staff them. Then, rather than have the task force documents available online for everyone to see, Dellums' people placed them in the Oakland Public Library, thereby assuring their invisibility from ready public view in the 21st Century.

The next error was in Dellums lack of understanding and desire of how to issue a message via both new and old media. Many Dellums staffers have openly complained to me about his dislike for the media. Those persons have worked to change Dellums, and have made major headway, but its too little too late. Councilmember Jean Quan, for all of her faults, does at least "get" media and constantly issues her weekly newsletter, weekly.

Dellums failure to be the "first voice of Oakland" on so many issues has cemented his fate. But beyond that, his wishy-washy handling of the Deborah Egderly matter was a case study in Dellums failure to make a clear, swift, decisive move. First she was in, then out, then in, then out.

If that wasn't enough, Dellums failure to come out and make a statement right after the murder of Oscar Grant was horrible. But even worse was the legion of errors made during the Oscar Grant controversy. So many that it led to this rant by Hip Hop Journalist Davey D:



Davey D speaks for a lot of people. Again, it's not personal, its the business of running the City of Oakland that's the focus.

If Mayor Dellums runs for reelection, he has to answer for what must be the most draconian and expensive parking fine and enforcement system in America. A system that has allowed City of Oakland Parking Enforcement workers to tickets almost at will, causing more Oaklanders to get more than five tickets, and making them car tow candidates. Taking their cars away at the time they need them to find work.

Why?

Oakland has a 17 percent unemployment rate. And where Dellums would point to the $65 million in economic stimulus money gained, evidence shows that a good portion of that money is not being used to create new jobs or save private sector jobs, but to maintain City of Oakland government jobs. In other words, to help the City of Oakland make payroll

That's not an economic stimulus.

But the main reason Mayor Dellums should not run for reelection is that his certain election loss would be an embarrassing end to a legendary political career.

Google Nexus One Phone like iPhone but not in retail approach

The Google Nexus One Phone was released this week of CES 2010 and to rave reviews. At CES, many are touting it as an iPhone killer, and TechCrunch Michael Arrington (who's tech start-up award event called "The Crunchies" is tonight), wrote that he uses the Google Nexus One Phone (or "G-phone") as his main mobile phone, having switched from Apple's iPhone.

The Google Nexus One Phone looks like the IPhone and operates in ways that are not far removed from the iPhone. It's a sleek, elegant, even sexy design that is worthy of the considerable buzz it's caused. It's a welcome addition to the smartphone market and promises to give the iPhone a challenger. But there's one thing that could hold it back: it's online-retail only availability.

When the iPhone was introduced in 2007, part of the considerable rush to buy one came from seeing long lines of people at Apple Stores and AT&T retail outlets. TV news cameras captured the event, and happy video-blogging buyers made videos that showed then tearing open the box to show their new iPhone tech toy. The result has been a number of "iPhone unboxing" videos, like this one:



The live-action, ground level, want-it-so-buy-it retail strategy was Apple's genius. With Google's desire to challenge the iPhone, it would seem logical to mimic such an approach.

Google didn't and this is a big mistake.

The Google Nexus One Phone, as of this writing, is available only online. The desire to obtain one by walking down to the local T-Mobile store was blunted by the fact that they're not there. Because of that decision, legions of G-Phone fans that would be walking down the street with their proud new device, aren't. They're waiting for the Google Nexus Phone to be shipped to them.

While not aligning the Google Nexus Phone to one network, as Apple did with AT&T, was a great move, restricting purchases to online-only status as of this writing is a marketing error that actually kills the G-Phone buzz.

If Google wants the Google Nexus Phone to supplant the iPhone as the smartphone king, it should change its retail strategy. The sooner the better, so I can satisfy my desire to have one.

Stay tuned.

Casey Johnson's daughter with Johnson family, not Tila Tequila

Casey Johnson's daughter will be raised by the Johnson family and not Tila Tequila, according to TMZ.com. Casey Johnson adopted three-year-old Ava-Monroe (named after Casey's idol Marilyn Monroe) two years ago but she has been living with Casey Johnson's mother Sale for several months in 2009.

The Johnson family wants Ava to remain with Sale Johnson (who was married to billionaire New York Jets Owner Woody Johnson) for the rest of her life. Sale's married to former Minnesota Vikings Wide Receiver and NBC Sports Announcer Ahmad Rashad. (The same Ahmad Rashad who was married to Phylicia Rashād from The Cosby Show.)

Prior to this news, Tila Tequila said she would take care of Ava, which would have completed a process that saw her fly to New York City with Casey to reclaim Ava in December, according to the New York Post.

Tila Tequila's claim was in part at the center of her dispute with blogger Perez Hilton, who claimed that she would do it just for attention and publicity.

Here Casey Johnson talked about adopting Ava two years ago:

The Bay Area earthquake never felt - 4.1 in Milpitas

There are reports of a Bay Area earthquake never felt that was a 4.1 on the Richter Scale, described as a "medium-sized earthquake" and centered in Milpitas. A slew of reports claim the tembler hit this morning, but it can't be of much importance because only now are people searching for information about it and its almost 6 PM PST.

There are many earthquakes that strike the Bay Area and California on a regular basis ranging from 2 to 4 in size and up and down the coast. The only special thing about this one is it put Milpitas on the map.

Maybe it engineered the whole thing.

Kind of like Perez Hilton picking fights with celebrities, just on a much larger scale. And perhaps its the only way Congress and the Federal Government will give massively broke California the additional economic stimulus money the state badly needs.

Hate to think it takes an earthquake to get the Feds attention, but one has to wonder these days.

The earthquake didn't get everyone' attention; some of us were still asleep. Soundly.

Stay tuned.

Marin's Industrial Light and Magic to get Oscar Technical Award

According to The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences, Marin's Industrial Light and Magic (who's website has of all things the terrifying image of a Tripod menacing Dakota Fanning in War of The Worlds), has won one of 15 Scientific and Technical Achievement Awards and will receive the prize at a special Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation to be held at The Beverly Wilshire on Saturday, February 20, 2010.

ILM (as Industrial Light and Magic's is called) won for the development of the Imocap on-set performance capture system. Originally developed in 2006 for Pirates of The Carribean: Dead Man's Chest, the system combines hardware and software to track live actors on-set movements and transfer them to animation for CGI characters. This video discusses the Imocap system:



There are 14 other awards and all of them reveal significant changes in film. For example, if you've ever wondered how the light that shines by as one travels through space in Star Trek is developed, it's called "Ambient Occlusion Rendering" and the Oscar for that goes to Hayden Landis, Ken McGaugh and Hilmar Koch for "advancing the technique" according to AMPAS. Here's a video from Star Trek, watch the sunlight flash during the attack on the USS Kelvin - that's an example of mbient Occlusion Rendering:



Here's the total list and description of all of the winners as described by AMAPAS:

Technical Achievement Award (Academy Certificate)

To Mark Wolforth and Tony Sedivy for their contributions to the development of the Truelight real-time 3D look-up table hardware system.

Through the use of color management software and hardware, this complete system enables accurate color presentation in the digital intermediate preview process. The Truelight system is widely utilized in digital intermediate production environments around the world.

To Dr. Klaus Anderle, Christian Baeker and Frank Billasch for their contributions to the LUTher 3D look-up table hardware device and color management software.

The LUTher hardware was the first color look-up table processor to be widely adopted by the pioneering digital intermediate facilities in the industry. This innovation allowed the facilities to analyze projected film output and build 3D look-up tables in order to emulate print film, enabling accurate color presentation.

To Steve Sullivan, Kevin Wooley, Brett Allen and Colin Davidson for the development of the Imocap on-set performance capture system.

Developed at Industrial Light & Magic and consisting of custom hardware and software, Imocap is an innovative system that successfully addresses the need for on-set, low-impact performance capture.

To Hayden Landis, Ken McGaugh and Hilmar Koch for advancing the technique of ambient occlusion rendering.

Ambient occlusion has enabled a new level of realism in synthesized imagery and has become a standard tool for computer graphics lighting in motion pictures.

To Bjorn Heden for the design and mechanical engineering of the silent, two-stage planetary friction drive Heden Lens Motors.

Solving a series of problems with one integrated mechanism, this device had an immediate and significant impact on the motion picture industry.

Scientific and Engineering Award (Academy Plaque)

To Per Christensen and Michael Bunnell for the development of point-based rendering for indirect illumination and ambient occlusion.

Much faster than previous ray-traced methods, this computer graphics technique has enabled color bleeding effects and realistic shadows for complex scenes in motion pictures.

To Dr. Richard Kirk for the overall design and development of the Truelight real-time 3D look-up table hardware device and color management software.

This complete system enables accurate color presentation in the digital intermediate preview process. The Truelight system is widely utilized in digital intermediate production environments around the world.

To Volker Massmann, Markus Hasenzahl, Dr. Klaus Anderle and Andreas Loew for the development of the Spirit 4K/2K film scanning system as used in the digital intermediate process for motion pictures.

The Spirit 4K/2K has distinguished itself by incorporating a continuous-motion transport mechanism enabling full-range, high-resolution scanning at much higher frame rates than non-continuous transport scanners.

To Michael Cieslinski, Dr. Reimar Lenz and Bernd Brauner for the development of the ARRISCAN film scanner, enabling high-resolution, high-dynamic range, pin-registered film scanning for use in the digital intermediate process.

The ARRISCAN film scanner utilizes a specially designed CMOS array sensor mounted on a micro-positioning platform and a custom LED light source. Capture of the film’s full dynamic range at various scan resolutions is implemented through sub-pixel offsets of the sensor along with multiple exposures of each frame.

To Wolfgang Lempp, Theo Brown, Tony Sedivy and Dr. John Quartel for the development of the Northlight film scanner, which enables high-resolution, pin-registered scanning in the motion picture digital intermediate process.

Developed for the digital intermediate and motion picture visual effects markets, the Northlight scanner was designed with a 6K CCD sensor, making it unique in its ability to produce high-resolution scans of 35mm, 8-perf film frames.

To Steve Chapman, Martin Tlaskal, Darrin Smart and James Logie for their contributions to the development of the Baselight color correction system, which enables real-time digital manipulation of motion picture imagery during the digital intermediate process.

Baselight was one of the first digital color correction systems to enter the digital intermediate market and has seen wide acceptance in the motion picture industry.

To Mark Jaszberenyi, Gyula Priskin and Tamas Perlaki for their contributions to the development of the Lustre color correction system, which enables real-time digital manipulation of motion picture imagery during the digital intermediate process.

Lustre is a software solution that enables non-linear, real-time digital color grading across an entire feature film, emulating the photochemical color-timing process.

To Brad Walker, D. Scott Dewald, Bill Werner and Greg Pettitt for their contributions furthering the design and refinement of the Texas Instruments DLP Projector, achieving a level of performance that enabled color-accurate digital intermediate previews of motion pictures.

Working in conjunction with the film industry, Texas Instruments created a high-resolution, color-accurate, high-quality digital intermediate projection system that could closely emulate film-based projection in a theatrical environment.

To FUJIFILM Corporation, Ryoji Nishimura, Masaaki Miki and Youichi Hosoya for the design and development of Fujicolor ETERNA-RDI digital intermediate film, which was designed exclusively to reproduce motion picture digital masters.

The Fujicolor ETERNA-RDI Type 8511/4511 digital intermediate film has thinner emulsion layers with extremely efficient couplers made possible by Super-Nano Cubic Grain Technology. This invention allows improved color sensitivity with the ability to absorb scattered light, providing extremely sharp images. The ETERNA-RDI emulsion technology also achieves less color cross-talk for exacting reproduction. Its expanded latitude and linearity provides superior highlights and shadows in a film stock with exceptional latent image stability.

To Paul Debevec, Tim Hawkins, John Monos and Mark Sagar for the design and engineering of the Light Stage capture devices and the image-based facial rendering system developed for character relighting in motion pictures.

The combination of these systems, with their ability to capture high fidelity reflectance data of human subjects, allows for the creation of photorealistic digital faces as they would appear in any lighting condition.

The Oscars for Scientific and Technical Awards Presentation will be presented at The Beverly Wilshire on Saturday, February 20, 2010.

Avatar, Hurt Locker, Precious head Directors Guild nominees

The Directors Guild of America just announced their five director nominees for the DGA Award for Outstanding Directorial Achievement in Feature Film for 2009. They are in alphabetical order, Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker, James Cameron for Avatar, Lee Daniels for Precious, Jason Reitman for Up In The Air, and Quentin Tarantino for Inglourious Basterds.

Kathryn Bigelow

The Directors Guild is historically a major precusor award for who will take home the Best Director and by extension Best Picture Oscars at The Academy Awards. In all but six of the 61 years of Oscar has the winner of the DGA Award not taken home the Best Director Award. That was true last year as Danny Boyle won Best Director at both the DGA and The Academy Awards and his film Slumdog Millionaire won Best Picture

But with the addition of five more films in the Best Picture category, even this historic statistic has to be thrown out. But given her Oscar Awards Season success, the front runner in this category has to be Kathryn Bigelow for The Hurt Locker. Already Bigelow has won awards from a number of organizations including the New York Film Critics Online, Boston Society of Film Critics, San Francisco Film Critics, Los Angeles Film Critics Association, New York Film Critics Circle, and the Southeatern Film Critics Association.

The surprise nomination goes to Lee Daniels for his riveting Precious. The story of a young teenage African American girls battle with self-esteem in the face of withering domestic violence has won critical success, but a question of to what degree American audiences are ready to embrace a realistic film about an aspect of African American life seldom focused on as much as it should be. Moreover, the involvement of both Oprah Winfrey and Tyler Perry as executive producers turned off some film critics during its festival run. But all of that was far removed from the masterpiece of a movie Precious is.

James Cameron, Jason Reitman,  and Quentin Tarantino were expected to receive nominations for Avatar, Up In The Air, and Inglourious Basterds.  But of them, Tarantino's film is described as an  elegantly directed, modern cult classic.    

What does this say about the other top-rated films including Star Trek, District 9, and A Serious Man?   It's still too early to tell this year, but if we ignore the Best Picture race and just focus on Oscar: Best Director, it says the competition's primarily between the already much-decorated Kathryn Bigelow, Quentin Tarentino, and James Cameron.    If there's any logic to this, Kathryn Bigelow should take home both the DGA and the Oscar.

But something says this is going to be a year of surprises.

Stay tuned.

Tiger Woods bisexual? Playboy model Loredana Jolie says yes

The explosive claim that Tiger Woods, The World's Greatest Golfer, is bisexual has been raised by Tiger Woods Mistress Number 10 (or 11?), former Playboy model Loredana Jolie (or Loredana Jolie Ferriolo), in today's New York Post Page 6 and from a blog post that originated at Radaronline.com.

In the same Page six that claims Howard Stern sidekick Artie Lange stabbed himself, the NY Post reports that Loredana Jolie's representative Teisha Dynell said she's going to publish a tell-all book about her alleged trysts with Tiger Woods.

Loredana Jolie

(A momentary aside, it's usually easy to find an online trail for a publicist, but not for Teisha Dynell. When her name's Googled, only this story comes up. That means Teisha Dynell may very well be Loredana Jolie herself or someone's making up the story unless Loredana Jolie steps forward to refute the Page 6 entry, which is doubtful.)

The book, which as of this writing is without a publisher, will explain his alleged desire for "threesomes" and "girl-on-girl sex". Both Radaronline and New York Post Page 6 report that the book will also include Loredana Jolie's claim that Tiger Woods had "sexual encounters with men" according to Page 6.

The Page 6 account concludes with this:

Her rep said, "She wants to use part of the proceeds and the exposure from the Tiger Woods scandal to promote healthy living by opening a transitional home for women who wish to escape or who have already escaped the sex industry."

Stay tuned.

Artie Lange stabs himself? Howard Stern upset with NYPost Page 6

Artie Lange, the sidekick of radio star Howard Stern who was rushed to the hospital for "undisclosed reasons" is now the focus of a New York Post Page 6 claim that he stabbed himself a shocking nine times.

 The first video by CelebTV has the recent news, the next video by Independent Feature claims Artie Lange had not been on the Howard Stern show and was thinking of quitting it altogether. The following video by PIX News goes a step beyond, mentioning an alleged history of "cocaine and heroin use".







The New York Post Page 6 claims that Lange's mother called 911 Saturday morning after entering his Hoboken, New Jersey apartment and found him "bloodied". He reportedly had "six hesitation wounds and three deep plunges".

On his show, Howard Stern preferred to reflect on the positive aspects of Artie Lange's life and contributions to The Howard Stern Show. But Howard Stern also expressed a great deal of anger toward New York Post Page 6. This is what Stern said according to the show's website:

Howard revealed that his hand has been forced by a story about Artie's suicide attempt in Page Six ("I was actually hoping it wouldn't come out.") and had to offer his comment: "I don't know what to think. I'm angry about it. I'm sad about it. I'm all over the place emotionally." Howard directed most of his anger at the worm who leaked the details of Artie's condition: "I'm pissed off at the shithead who got paid by – who? Page Six."

Howard hoped the story would go away and allow Artie to heal privately: "This is a family matter. I don't know what to do. I don't know what to say...just remember who Artie is and what a wonderful guy he is...he's wrestling with some serious stuff...I only wish him well." Howard tried reading the Page Six item, but stopped after just eight words: "I just feel sick about this. I don't even wanna read it."

Fans of Artie Lang have went to his Facebook and MySpace pages to leave comments wishing him a swift recovery.

Stay tuned.

Glenn Beck loses another sponsor: ING DIRECT UK

According to the website Stopbeck.com, dedicated to "holding Glenn Beck accountable for vitriol and race-baiting. (and) Our purpose is to bring together people and organizations who are fed up with Glenn Beck’s hate speech", Glenn Beck has lost another sponsor: ING DIRECT UK.

ING DIRECT UK's decision to drop Glenn Beck reportedly came as a result of extreme pressure applied by the one member of Stopbeck.com (which also has a YouTube channel). According to Stopbeck.com's "Angelo" (who's law student, anti-Glenn Beck activist, and one-man-gang Angelo Caruseno, according to The DailyKos), ING DIRECT UK Corporate Communications Head Martin Rutland wrote:

“ING Direct UK has confirmed they do not sponsor or endorse the Glenn Beck show. Additionally, no ING Direct advertisements are being screened during or either side of this show and there are no plans to do so in the future.”

Angelo Caruseno reports that the ING DIRECT UK action brings the total number of sponsors lost to 96, and provides an extensive list you can see here. Some of the notable firms on it are Campbell’s Soup Co., Oakland-based Clorox, DirecTV, GEICO, Johnson & Johnson, Verizon Wireless, AT&T, Bank of America, Concord Music Group, Best Buy, HSBC, Mercedes-Benz, Men’s Wearhouse, Radio Shack, Subaru, Travelocity, United States Postal Service (Unbelievable that the postal service would hook-up with Glenn Beck!), Walmart, and Vonage.

Angelo's next targeted Glenn Beck sponsor is Angie's List

Angelo must be effective because his efforts have spawned a blog called Stopbeckisaliar, which works to refute some, but frankly not all, of Angelo's claims.

Stay tuned.

CES 2010 - Alienware M11x laptop $1000, runs Modern Warfare fast

CES 2010 (the Computer Electronics Show in Las Vegas) has this bit of shocking news: Alienware, the Dell company brand known for producing powerful computers for gaming, as well as having a really massively cool logo, has introduced a blockbuster new laptop called the Alienware M11x, which reportedly costs less than $1,000.

At a CES 2010 Dell press conference attended by CNET's Scott Stein, the 11.6 inch Alienware M11x was touted as a light, powerful laptop with six hours of battery life and powered by a Nvidia GT335M GPU. The battery life reportedly and logically drops with the power requirements of the game; Engadget reports that switching to "gaming mode" drops the batterly life from six hours to two hours of "intense gaming." It's said to run Modern Warfare 2 in high def at over 30fps.

That claim has drawn the attention of a lot of skeptical gamers. "Quadzilla" at Notebook.com's forum wrote:

Those performance numbers were probably taken with everything on LOW@1024x768 ... It says Modern Warfare was in HD but im not sure what HD(Highly Doubtful ?) they are talking about lol..

Still, at $1,000, the Alienware M11x just placed itself in competition with the education-oriented Apple Mac Book.  The comparison is appropriate because a good portion of college students play online games and that means using a computer.  Pew Research estimated that 70 percent of college students "reported playing video, computer or online games at least once in a while, and 65% of college students reported being regular or occasional game players."

So which computer is a college student who's most likely to play Modern Warfare going to pick, an Apple Mac Book or an Alienware M11x?

Apple better wake up, Alienware M11x's coming.

Stay tuned.

Miley Cyrus wins People's Choice Award for ...movie actress?

Miley Cyrus has earned a high place in pop culture for her songs like Party In The USA, a melodic voice, and her role as Hanna Montana on television. But Miley Cyrus winning an award as a movie actress in the People's Choice Awards is a shock.

 

Miley Cirus and pole at Teen Choice Awards

Miley Cyrus beat out the following for the People's Choice Awards of Breakout Movie Actress:

Anna Kendrick
Emily Osment
Ginnifer Goodwin
Zoe Saldana

That Miley Cyrus beat out Zoe Saldana, who plays top acting roles in two 2009 blockbuster movies, Avatar and Star Trek for a movie actress award is worthy of conversation because Cyrus appeared in Hannah Montana: The Movie. Hannah Montana: The Movie earned just $32 million at the box office and received at best luke-warm reviews.

Miley Cyrus is an incredible singing talent, but to put her in a space with Zoe Saldana and Ginnifer Goodwin is unfair to them. Ginnifer Goodwin is known for her roles in movies like Mona Lisa Smile.

It's even less fair to Anna Kendrick, who's a decorated Broadway actress, who has a list of movie credits, from Up In The Air to The Twilight Saga.

For Miley Cyrus to be in the same list as Emily Osment makes sense because they were both in Hannah Montana: The Movie, and both sing. But other than Osment, the deck was stacked, especially against Zoe Saldana, who's really should have got the award.

Zoe Saldana doesn't have a legion of 13 to 17 year old girls who follow her every move. She also doesn't have daring and controversial actions like Miley Cyrus' stripper pole dance at the 2009 Teen Choice Awards, either.

>

Follow that with her Twitter following (before she took her page down) and product endorsement commercials, her concert tour, and a crack publicity team and you have an automatic win in a category she really should not have been in at all.

That leads to this question: was the People's Choice Award just some kind of setup to make sure certain celebrities won awards? If so, by whom? How? Why? Why does Taylor Swift show up the winner on so many award programs?

At some point this appearance of our pop culture taste having the appearance of being engineered can and should be the subject of a Congressional investigation.

Stay tuned.

Good Girls Go Bad from People's Choice Awards

The popular American Pop band Cobra Starship gang Good Girls Go Bad at the People's Choice Awards, Wednesday night. Former Pussycat Dolls star Nicole Scherzinger helped burn up the stage.

Still, it did not win Favorite Music Collaboration; that went to Jay-Z, Rihanna, and Kanye West’s Run This Town.

Nonetheless, here's a kick-ass video of the performance of Good Girls Go Bad thanks to PCDworlddotcouk on YouTube:

2010 People's Choice Award winners show voting youth

The 2010 People's Choice Award is over and the winners show the youthful demographic of the voters. Congratulations to Taylor Swift, who's continuing her 2009 awards success, in 2010 winning "Favorite Female Artist". Ashton Kutcher is wins as "Favorite Web Celeb", a category that reflects how media has changed over the past decade. Taylor Lautner was "Favorite Breakout Movie Actor" for Twilight: New Moon, which itself was voted the favorite movie franchise. And, not surprisingly, Lady Gaga is Favorite Pop Artist.

In this, it must be noted that Quentin Tarantino's Inglourious Basterds was voted "Favorite Independent Movie", thereby cementing its cult status with the people who voted. It's the largest grossing of all of Quentin Tarantino's movie creations.

Celebrity Gossip Blog has this complete list of the winners:

Favorite Talk Show - The Ellen DeGeneres Show

Favorite On Screen Team - The Twilight Saga

Favorite TV Obsession - True Blood

Favorite TV Competition Show - American Idol

Favorite Animal Show - Dog Whisperer

Favorite Family Movie - Up

Favorite TV Comedy - The Big Bang Theory

Favorite R&B Artist - Mariah Carey

Favorite TV Comedy Actor - Steve Carrell

Favorite TV Comedy Actress - Alyson Hannigan

Favorite Country Artist - Carrie Underwood

Favorite TV Drama Actor - Hugh Laurie

Favorite TV Drama - House

Favorite Movie Actress - Sandra Bullock

Favorite Breakout Movie Actor - Taylor Lautner

Favorite Action Star - Hugh Jackman

Favorite Movie Actor - Johnny Depp

Favorite Male Artist - Eminem / Keith Urban

Favorite Female Artist - Taylor Swift

Favorite Comedic Star - Jim Carrey

Favorite Breakout Music Artist - Lady Gaga

Favorite Breakout Movie Actress - Miley Cyrus

Favorite Rock Band - Paramore

Favorite Music Collaboration - Run This Town

Favorite Comedy Movie - The Proposal

Favorite New TV Drama - The Vampire Diaries

Favorite Movie - Twilight: New Moon

Favorite New TV Comedy - Glee

Favorite Web Celeb - Ashton Kutcher

Favorite Frandchise - The Twilight Saga

Favorite TV Drama Actress - Katherine Heigl

Favorite Sc-Fi / Fantasy Show - Supernatural

Favorite Independent Movie - Inglourious Basterds

Favorite Pop Artist - Lady Gaga

Casey Johnson death - Tila Tequila battles Perez Hilton on Twitter

While the LA County Coroner's Office continues its examinations related to the death of Caset Johnson, and celebrities from Paris Hilton and Nicky Hilton to Lindsay Lohan share their grief online, blogger Perez Hilton has launched a full-scale Twitter attack on Casey Johnson's wife-to-be, Tila Tequila.

Perez Hilton, who on his blog describes Casey Johnson as "drug plagued" and having recently "left a stint in rehab" and filed the post under "Drugs", started the tweet attack 14 hours ago from the writing of this blog post.

Perez Hilton believes and has said that Tila Tequila is using the passing of Casey Johnson to promote herself:

@officialtila Tweet away, honey. The more you Tweet, the more your true colors reveal themselves. And they are vile!
about 14 hours ago from web

@officialtila I'm amazed you're not broadcasting live, showing us you're "grieving"! That's totally something trash like you would do!
about 14 hours ago from web

Tila Tequila responded back with a slew of tweets, starting with this one:

@PerezHilton have some decency! You love poking fun at people who have passed away dont you? First Mocking MJ's Death & now My FIance's?
about 14 hours ago from web in reply to PerezHilton

Which Perez elected to answer back with...

@officialtila You should try and get custody of her daughter. That'd be GREAT publicity, all you crave in life!
about 14 hours ago from web

Tila responds:

@PerezHilton Actually Casey & I were going to do that next. That was my Wife's wish was for me to adopt ava. Ur jus jealous nobody loves u.
about 14 hours ago from web in reply to PerezHilton

And..

Lonely @perezhilton Cant find anyone else to pick on so now he thinks he can pick on me cuz I'm in a vulnerable state with my wife passing
about 14 hours ago from web

But Perez Hilton has to "up" the nastiness:

@officialTila OF COURSE that's what she wanted! Suuuure! Why would anyone believe YOU???? You are a PATHOLOGICAL LIAR!
about 13 hours ago from web in reply to officialTila

@officialTila And I DO have decency. That's why I will NEVER mention you on my site again. I care too much about my readers!
about 13 hours ago from web

@officialTila Go back to grieving and exploiting her death. You're great at being soulless!
about 13 hours ago from web

And Tila continues her tweets in kind:

@PerezHilton oh after watching your bitch crying snot throwing video about how my friend @Iamrealwill punched U..it was 2 embarassing!
about 14 hours ago from web in reply to PerezHilton

Truly a sad individual @perezhilton first u Mock the death of Michael Jackson and now this? U seriously need God. Wait. God Rejected you.
about 14 hours ago from web

And it went on for some time this morning, with Twitterers taking sides. But this is one place where Perez Hilton's best move would have been to leave Tila Tequila alone. The death of a loved one is sacred ground, even in the blogosphere.

While it's certainly true that Tila Tequila has done some questionable things over the past year (and surely didn't have to call 911 on Paris Hilton in the matter of Casey Johnson's dog)  it does not give Carte Blanch for the kind of attack Perez Hilton has leveled on her.

 Moreover, there's a certain way a man should talk to a woman, and that way should not stop because Perez Hilton is gay.

The "news" here is that the exchange is a path-breaking moment in New Media. Seeing how far Perez Hilton stretches the bounds of decency without being hit with a defamation lawsuit is interesting. It's not an approach bloggers should adapt at all, regardless of whatever traffic it produces.

Has Perez been sued? Yes, and for $25 million in the case of Wargo v. Lavandeira but that was dismissed. The reason is that the plaintiff, Diane Wargo, had claimed that Perez did not have the right to print an email she wrote which contained homophobic slurs. As a result of the posted email, which contained Wargo's place of work, address, and contact information, Wargo claims she was fired from her job.

Wargo sued Perez Hilton, aka Mario Lavandeira and 25 anonymous comment posters. The case was dismissed after several motions because of lack of "personal jurisdiction": the lawsuit was filed in Ohio, but because Perez Hilton does not transact business there, the lawsuit was considered invalid.

In other words, Perez prevailed on a legal technicality.

Even with that, while it's true that celebrities are public figures - and anyone that attracts "Internet chatter" is called a limited purpose public figure - the law does not mean that you can just tee-off on someone as Perez has done.

Moreover, as one who's lost six friends over the past two years, the most recent funeral on Tuesday of this week, the key word is always sympathy. If Tila Tequila's destiny is to have a larger audience because of the death of Casey Johnson, so be it. That may very will be God's will; Perez Hilton has no power to reverse the outcome. Indeed, his tweets just helped it along.










Related topics:

johnson and johnson death, johnson death, johnson and johnson heiress casey johnson, johnson and johnson heiress, how did casey johnson die

Tom Hayes: Is Gary Hart downplaying the threat?

I disagree that the tea-baggers and others referred to in Hart's Huffington Post OpEd today, "Getting the Government We Seem to Want," hurt only themselves - by acting to disrupt civil discourse and undermine the effectiveness of our government they drag the country toward a path that will parallel the outcomes of "no taxes but no government" as currently practiced in Somalia.

"...the cynics and trolls who scream like banshees at town hall meetings and scan the blogosphere to post cynical put-downs of their country's government are hurting no one but themselves."

I'm forced to disagree: They hurt me. They hurt everyone else living in the U.S. In fact, it goes beyond today; such actions threaten the well-being, liberty, standard of living, and the intent of the founding fathers when they inserted the language pertaining to "pursuit of happiness" for my descendants (and yours, and theirs.)

I do share Hart's concern that, "the most qualified Americans will continue to choose not to serve their country and we will continue to be weaker for it."

Under the adopted camouflage of the Boston Tea Party, which was about the unfair nature of being taxed without representation not anarchy, these short-sighted, loud-mouthed, anti-government anarchists threaten the values predicating, and described in, the Constitution of The United States.

Thomas Hayes is an entrepreneur, journalist, and political analyst who contributes regularly to a host of web sites on topics ranging from economics and politics to culture and community.

Avatar, Star Trek, two of seven films in Visual Effects Oscar race

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced today that seven films remain in the competition to pick three nominees for the Oscar for Best Visual Effects. Here's the list of films:

2012
Avatar
District 9
Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
Star Trek
Terminator Salvation
Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen

That list came from the original tally of 15 movies competing for the Visual Effects prize. Coraline, Angels & Demons, Disney's A Christmas Carol, G-Force, G.I. Joe: The Rise of Cobra, Sherlock Holmes, Watchmen, and Where the Wild Things Are did not make the cut.

It also means the buzz for Avatar,  Star Trek, and District 9 continues to grow, as Tuesday, the Producers Guild annouced that the popular 2009 Sci-Fi epics were part of its list of the 10 best films vying for the Zanuck Award of Best Picture.  

On January 21st, Academy members representing the Visual Effects branch will gather to look at 15-minute excerpts  from the seven films; from that review, three nominees will be selected for the 2010 Academy Award for Visual Effects.

2010 Oscar nominations will be announced Tuesday, February 2, 2010 at 5:30 PM PST.   The Oscars will be presented Sunday, March 7, 2010.

Stay tuned.

Chicago to try Oakland-style parking strategy

The cash-strapped City of Chicago is turning to an Oakland, California-style way of raising money for its coffers: parking meter rates around Chicago go up 75 cents to $4.25 per hour  to park in downtown Chicago in 2010. According to the Chicago Tribune, residents are not happy.

Melody Fillier, a a pharmaceutical salesperson, told the Chicago Tribune "I think it's really expensive. It just blows me away."

Parking rates have quadrupled in some areas of Chicago. And before the meter rate change, the old meters broke down; more tickets were written as people stuffed coins in broken meters.

Meanwhile, Chicago Mayor Richard Daley has drawn fire for a parking meter lease deal that has given the City a cash windfall but led to the increased meter rates. But the parking deal was defended as giving money to a Chicago that needed it. But the result is a parking fee cost that threatens to drive away residents from using stores in downtown Chicago and harm Chicago's poorest citizens.

Still, the Chicago approach is not anywhere near the level of harm that Oakland's exacts on its citizens. Oakland has not only high parking meter rates, but aggressive ticketing and towing policies.

Plus, Oakland's consideration of a new parking study reveals a concern for parking as a revenue generator, but no mention of the fact that it's a regressive tax on the poor. That is shown in this Oakland City Council Staff Report that was considered by the City of Oakland at last night's City Council meeting. You can download a copy of the report, which calls for a comprehensive city-wide parking study, here at this link:

http://clerkwebsvr1.oaklandnet.com/attachments/23626.pdf

Meanwhile, talks forming an Oakland Parking Initiative continue; the date of the next meeting has not been set as of this blog report.

Stay tuned.

Avatar and Star Trek up Oscar buzz in the air - producer's guild

The Producers Guild of America announced its ten nominees for the Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award and three of them, Avatar, District 9, and Star Trek have the Sci-Fi World buzzing in the hope that a film representing that genre will earn a Best Picture Academy Award.

The Producers Guild award takes on a special significance this year for two reasons: first because its an important (not perfect) "precursor" in predicting which film will get the coveted Best Picture Oscar, and second, because there will be ten nominees competing for the prize this year.

Here's the overall list from the Producers Guild of America's website:

Darryl F. Zanuck Producer of the Year Award in Theatrical Motion Pictures:

AVATAR
Producers: James Cameron, Jon Landau
DISTRICT 9
Producers: Carolynne Cunningham, Peter Jackson
AN EDUCATION
Producers: Finola Dwyer, Amanda Posey
THE HURT LOCKER
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.
INGLOURIOUS BASTERDS
Producer: Lawrence Bender
INVICTUS
Producers: Clint Eastwood, Rob Lorenz, Lori McCreary , Mace Neufeld
PRECIOUS: BASED ON THE NOVEL PUSH BY SAPPHIRE
Producers: Lee Daniels, Gary Magness, Sarah Siegel-Magness
STAR TREK
Producers: J.J. Abrams, Damon Lindelof
UP
Producer: Jonas Rivera
UP IN THE AIR
Producer(s): Awaiting final credit determination.

Will Star Trek and District 9 cause Avatar's elimination from a win?  Avatar's a beautiful movie but Star Trek and District 9 have tight story lines. Star Trek, of course, has a multi-generational legion of fans.  


Stay Tuned.  

Casey Johnson's death like Brittany Murphy's appears linked to diabetes

Johnson and Johnson Heiress Casey Johnson, who was in the news for a reported engagement to reality TV show star Tila Tequila, died tragically at the age of 30, Monday.

According to CNN, Johnson's passing was first reported on Tequila's Twitter page, then confirmed by police. As of this writing there's no official cause of death, but like that of Actress Brittany Murphy, Casey Johnson's problems appear to have been related to a battle with diabetes and according to TMZ, not suicide or fowl play as of this writing.

Casey Johnson has a history of diabetes which she allegedly did not handle well. Fox411.com reports, "Casey had very severe diabetes and was not taking care of herself properly. With her condition she should have been closely monitoring her health, taking insulin, monitoring blood sugar levels, and she wasn't."

After Brittany Murphy passed away on the Sunday just before Christmas, it was revealed that she too was fighting a battle with diabetes.



Stay tuned.

President Obama's Hyde Park, Chicago house and neighborhood

While President Obama and First Lady Michelle Obama were enjoying their "vacation" house in Hawaii over the holidays, I was in Chicago with my Mom and her friend, who's daughter and husband are friends of the First Couple and live not far from the Obama's other home in Hyde Park, Chicago.

Chicago is my hometown, so the area around Greenwood and Hyde Park, where the Obama's home is located is familiar territory for me. Because of that, it was heart-warming for me to walk the grounds near their home because there's is such the American success story.

To be acquainted with someone who becomes President of The United States and to know people who really know that person and for everyone to be either alive and in essentially the same generation or forward of it, is just plain exciting and affirming of a life path - in this case, mine. I had to capture the moment in my video blog.

What's weird about the neighborhood is what's necessary: the security. There are barricades, government cars, and the overall feeling of constantly being watched. Overall, massively cool; that's the way it should be.

In another weird way that feeling of a presence lends itself to Hyde Park's newfound uber-coolness. I know Hyde Park, but not this Hyde Park. It's buzzing with people, stores, shops, and eateries. Real estate prices have increased to reflect the demand to live in the area, even in the lousy economy and all because of Barack Obama's assent to most powerful person in the World.

Nice.

Google Nexus One Phone draws a lot of reviews

Google's Nexus One Phone is officially out and thankfully it's not exclusively on the iPhone-user-hated AT&T Network (cheers!).   It's already drawing a lot of reviews, some comparing it to the iPhone, others to Droid, or just by itself.

The Nexus One Phone's on the T-Mobile Network, and the best news is that existing T-Mobile customers like me are eligible for an upgrade to what I will now call "The G-phone". Verizon mobile users will have to wait until spring of this year for service activation.

There are a slew of reviews of the videoblogger-ready Google Phone by everyone except Iron Man 2's Robert Downey, Jr, as "Tony Stark".

TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington explains that he's (like Fred Wilson) had a G-Phone since mid-December and has used it as his primary mobile phone. That's quite a switch for Arrington, who could be seen using an iPhone as his primary mobile device for some time before the introduction of the G-Phone.

Arrington says that while the G-Phone looks like the iPhone, it's better "in most ways" and is the fastest and "most elegant smartphone" available to date. Michael's main reason is the Google Voice provision in the G-Phone. With it, Google Voice users can use their number and use it to make outbound calls and messages. And the phone comes with something called Google Voice Keyboard.

Google Voice Keyboard is such that according to Michael Arrington, you can talk into the phone and it converts your speech to text. He says it's "90 percent accurate".

Engadget is less excited about the G-Phone, stating "it's not in any way the Earth-shattering, paradigm-skewing device the media and community cheerleaders have built it up to be" and in some cases prefers Droid over it. Yikes. But in reading Engadget's review, it seems as if authors Joshua Topolsky and Chris Ziegler were so, well, nit-picky, that they left themselves without a way to escape with anything other than a somewhat negative assessment.

The New York Times' David Pogue, channeling Engadget, writes that "the Google news this week is not quite as earth-shaking as Google seems to think it is".

Interesting.

Sometimes this is done as a way to achieve what the writer feels is a certain element of "cool" but the approach has grown tired of late. It's OK to be genuinely excited, guys.

A lot of video about the Google Nexus Phone

The Google Nexus Phone is already the subject of a slew of videos, some of which are below:

Official Google Video:



MacWorld:



Even kids get into the act:



Stay tuned!

Rory Markas dies but lives on in movie, The Yankles

The main play-by-play man for the Los Angeles Angels of Anaheim and a broadcaster for USC Basketball, the Milwaukee Brewers, and the Los Angeles Clippers and Pacific Coast League baseball , Rory Markas, passed away this week, but he's immortalized in a new movie called The Yankles.

The Yankles is about Charlie Jones, a washed up, ex-major league baseball player, and an Orthodox Jewish academy who lets him start a new baseball team.



According to ESPN, Rory Markas died suddenly Monday, the cause of his passing not known as of this writing. He was just 54 years old. Markas is survived by his mother, Billie, and brothers Gary and Troy Markas.

Markas graciously provided his vocal talents for The Yankles when its producers wanted a big-name play-by-play announcer. According to the LA Times, film producers Zev and David Brooks sent an email to Markas asking if he would help them in such a role; he responded and was more than helpful. Markas' voice is the first one and the last one in the movie.

tpempir at YouTube made this moving video tribute to Rory Markas:

Chicago plane crash at Chicago Executive Airport

A LearJet cargo plane has crashed near Chicago Executive Airport in Wheeling, Illinois, outside of Chicago, and just north of O'Hare International Airport. According to the Chicago Tribune, both the pilot and co-pilot were killed, but their names have not been released as of this writing.



The aircraft was reportedly making an approach to a runway at 1:30 CST when it crashed near Euclid Avenue and fell into a forest preserve surrounding the Des Plaines River just south of the airport. Airport spokesperson Laura Witlox said the plane belonged to Royal Air.

If that is the case Royal Air Freight, based out of Waterford, Michigan runs a fleet of small planes for cargo-only use, including six LearJets.

According to CNN the flight was on its way to Atlanta, from Pontiac, Michigan with a stop in Chicago.

Stay tuned.

Google Nexus One phone to be released; better than iPhone?

Google's much anticipated Nexus One phone "iPhone killer" is to be released today, which happens to be the week of CES 2010. (In fact, TechCrunch's MGSigler is already rocking out at the "Android Press Gathering" as I write this. And oh, does TechCrunch answer emails anymore?)

But the phone is already out and used by a select few in the public. Just ask Fred Wilson, a venture capitalist who received his Nexus One phone last December as a Christmas gift. Wilson took to his blog Musings of a VC in NYC to brag about his good fortune and share the advantages of having a Google Phone:

In mid December as holiday gifts and cards were arriving daily in our office, I received a gift from Google. It was a Nexus One. I have been using it since that day as my primary phone. In the box was a note from Google asking me to keep quiet about the phone until Jan 5th. Well today is Jan 5th and so I can tell you what I think. So here goes

This is not going to be a hard core review of the phone. Engadget has one of those up this morning. Thus is about how I use it and why I'll most likely stick with this phone for a while longer.

Then Wilson explains the advantages and disadvantages of the Google Nexus One Phone. He praises its effortless connection to available wifi transmissions and observes that you can run multiple apps in it, which isn't true for the current iPhone. However Wilson then lists the Google Phone's disadvantages to the iPhone, namely the onscreen keyboard which he writes is "good but not as good as the iPhone" and notes the lack of an iPhone-like "multitouch" feature.

Beyond that, he praises the phone for being able to remember passwords and how well Google apps run on it.

Stay tuned.

Tiger Woods in Vanity Fair amid rehab reports

This Tiger Woods update from O'Hare Airport has Tiger Woods allegedly in rehab (!) and on the cover of the February Vanity Fair in a photo that caused Entertainment Weekly's Adam Markovitz to write "seems more than a little menacing to me", which strikes me as racist, and opens the question if Markovitz would have even had such a thought in his head if Tiger Woods was white?

Tiger Woods in Vanity Fair 

Or let's say he was Robert Pattison, from Twilight: New Moon or Taylor Lautner for that matter? My guess is he would use adjectives like "beefy" but nothing like "menacing" as was used for Tiger Woods.

But I digress.

The photo was taken pre-Tiger Woods sex scandal and the article (called "Tiger In The Rough") was written by Buzz Bissinger without Tiger Woods knoweldge or approval. My quick pre-flight blogging scan of Buzz' work reveals that it's really just an overview of what happened to Tiger Woods and speculation if he will return to Golf. That's it; just two pages online. (Which is disappointing for Vanity Fair as I'd expect six pages, but this is a bad economy.)

Meanwhile the VF works come amid new unconfirmed allegations that Tiger Woods has entered rehab. The whole email deal behind us and largely disproven (I could not care one way or the other), we now have a fresh field of rumors and sitings to deal with.

The rehab stuff does not have the TMZ or Radaronline.com seal of approvel, so it can't be taken seriously because those two organizations have the best track record of getting the Tiger Woods (or Michael Jackson or whatever celebrity) story right.

Stay tuned.

Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz "Another Day" - update

Greetings from a typically busy O'Hare Airport! This Michael Jackson and Lenny Kravitz "Another Day" update comes from TMZ.com, which reports that the leaked new song "Another Day" has caught the eye of The Jackson Estate, Sony, and Lenny Kravitz.

While Sony takes steps to remove the video images, Lenny Kravitz made this video below to say that he did not release the song for Internet ears to hear. He says:

Good morning. I just want to reach out to you, so I can set the record straight regarding the Michael Jackson track "Another Day". As you know and have heard, the song, part of the song leaked. The version that's out , roughly a minute and thrity seconds of the track, not mixed but it is the track. Not by me, because mine has been locked in a vault.

The DJ who's speaking over the track (shrugs); I don't know who that person is. I don't know how they obtained it or what their purpose is, but that person has nothing to do with the track.

That song was recorded by me - I produced it. For him (Michael Jackson). I wrote the song. I played all the instruments. It was one of the most amazing musical experiences I've ever had. It was a bunch of people who respect each other and love music. I'd like to see this thing get straightened out as soon as possible. I'd like for you the fan who love Michael to be able to hear the track in its entirety as it was intended to be. That's all being worked out as I sit here in the bush. I'll get back to you.

Here's Lenny Kravitz' video:



Stay tuned.

Related link: TMZ.com