DeAndre Jordan

Texas A&M Basketball is a powerhouse of talent with my man DeAndre Jordan at the leading edge. Any 7′0″ human being is going to be better than most at basketball, but DeAndre would be better than most even if he was 5′7″. In high-school, he scored over 30 points in a game and blocked 20 shots. Yes, as in twenty- more than his age.

Last night, #23 Texas A&M knocked off #10 Texas in a blowout game of 80-63. The Aggies led by more than 10 for nearly the entire game. DeAndre didn’t start, though he played 21 minutes and had 10 points and 5 rebounds.

While last night’s game wasn’t the best example of DeAndre’s overwhelming skill, he sure helped and gave his two cents to a team effort that really paid off. If the Aggies play like this for the rest of the season, I can almost guarantee a trip to the Final Four, if not further.

I think DeAndre Jordan will be a great player over the next couple of years if he doesn’t go pro after this one. In addition, I don’t believe that he is NBA-worthy from a maturity standpoint quite yet, though as his first college season unfolds my opinion could very well change.

Super Bowl XLII

Go Pats. Giants have no chance. Despite rumors and reports and media and paparazzi saying that Tom Brady has foot problems because he’s been wearing his funky looking booty, I can almost guarantee that he’ll be playing in the Super Bowl. It’s Tom Brady (“I’m Tom Brady b****…”). The Pats are undefeated this season and will hold that record throughout. Only because it is the Super Bowl, I’m saying that the Pats will win by 7- though I am tempted to say by more. Tom Brady and Randy Moss are going to make it rain all over the Giants and that’s about all I need to say.

Heath Ledger. Dead.

Heath Ledger was found dead this morning in his New York city apartment by his cleaning lady. Apparently there was a bottle of prescribed sleeping pills next to his bed- so an overdose is the immediate assumed cause of death. There is no reason to suspect suicide, said the police. Brokeback Mountain was Heath’s breakout role, although some say that The Patriot was most influential in shaping his career. The Academy Awards are given postmortem, although he’s got some pretty stiff competition (although probably not as stiff as he is right now). I’m a morbid human being, I apologize. Anyway, rest in peace Heath, that’s a bum way to go out.

Edit: Sorry I have no idea what possessed me to say that Heath Ledger was in P.S. I Love You. Really. No idea.

The Clintons

Today, Martin Luther King, Jr. Day, was not a very good day for the Clinton family in the way of public relations. I think these photos and videos pretty much explain themselves so I’ll let you see and watch before I blab about them. The image is to the right, and the video can be found on YouTube here.

I applaud this child acting ruthless because I think I would do the same thing if Hillary was cackling like she does in my ear. Bill, nobody really cares about him any more, but I suppose (God forbid) he could become America’s first lady that isn’t, and that’s just no way to act when you’re in such an esteemed position.

Oh and of course just for fun, President Bush:

Making Money Online

Ever the e-entrepreneur, I’m always looking for new was to make some extra cash on the web. The two newest endeavors that I’ve decided to embark on are Constant-Content and Pay-Per-Post. These two sites alone seem like great ways to earn some solid cash for things I do everyday anyway. Read on for a brief explanation of each of these companies.

Constant Content is quite unique; Authors write articles about anything, of any length, and anybody can buy them for a price set by the author. It’s a great way to get unique, quality content for your site/blog/etc. for a relatively cheap price. The editors of CC read, in its entirety, every article to ensure grammatical and contextual correctness. I submitted my first article yesterday and had it accepted today, so they have a pretty good turn around as well. There will be an update to this post if I actually sell it. You can submit full articles, short blog entries, photography, illustrations, and even videos for purchase. The author gets 65% of the selling price, so at $20, I’ll net $13 for my article upon selling it, assuming I do. If you don’t mind writing you should definitely consider becoming an author on this site for some extra cash. It’s just too easy to pass up! (I’m not getting paid for this plug I swear).

Pay-Per-Post is a company that will probably interest my readers (a.k.a. you) more because I believe most of them are bloggers themselves. While PPP has fairly strict requirements of blogs that qualify to post, you can make a good deal of cash from what I’ve seen by just blogging about the posted topics on the PPP site. I haven’t met the requirements with this blog yet so I’m not currently a PPP affiliate, but I’m working on meeting them so hopefully I’ll be making the big bucks soon :0 Good luck!

MacBook Air

I’m so getting one of these. I’ve been looking at Macs for awhile envying them and I think they finally came out with one that suits me and my tastes. At less than an inch thick at its thickest point, the MacBook air is ‘the world’s thinnest computer’ (according to Apple). You can watch a demo of the new device here. As you will see in the video, this product is literally cutting edge. It has an upgrade option of having a 64GB solid state drive installed, which has no moving parts, and thus less things that can break. These are the new thing in the hard drive world, although at an upgrade price of $999, you can see why cutting edge isn’t for everyone. Of course, all Airs come with the new Mac OS X Leopard installed as well. Apple’s selling point is the light-weight, portable aspect of the computer, with an emphasis on wireless. They don’t include a CD/DVD drive but they have a brand new ‘Remote Disc’ feature that allows you to install and read software from other computers’ drives, all wireless. This is an awesome feature although I doubt its very fast to install things. In addition to that, they included some new touchpad features similar to those of the iPhone that allow you to zoom in and out by spreading your fingers and bringing them back together as well as a page forward and backwards by using three fingers side to side. I’m excited to get this when its finally released, as you’re only able to pre-order now. If you’re considering buying a new notebook computer and you’re always on the go, I highly recommend the MacBook Air.

Open Source Living

This place is awesome! I’m an avid supporter of open-source everything because I think you get the best quality work from it. Sure you don’t make money but hey, if you’re good at what you do, whatever it is you do, you can make enough money to live on. But I digress. OSL is a new site that surely has many predecessors but very few that are presented as simply as it is. It lists the very best open-source software for various different categories such as web, graphics, video, documents, entertainment, and more. I used to go there quite frequently but now I have all of the software and I only check on occasion to see if they’ve added any new software to the list. It’s a great place to find solutions for your software (or lack there-of) problems and a great way to support open-source. As of posting time they have 130 resources listed and available for the public. Great site, check it out.

100 Views

I’ve had this blog going for 5 days and I’m already at 100 views. I feel special . Let me revise, I started this blog about 4 months ago but I only had 7 views when I started posting 5 days ago. My post on Hillary Clinton below seems to be the most popular, bringing me 29 views from the search engine today. SEO works -.0 Anyway, thank’s everyone for reading this it makes me feel like I’m not just wasting my time, and whats infinitely more important, yours.

Firenze, Italia

Known as Florence, Italy in English-speaking countries, Firenze has by far the best collection of dead people on the face of the planet. In the Basilica di Santa Croce (pictured at right) alone are the following, some of which make up the ‘Sons of Florence’:

• Dante
• Galileo Galilei
• Niccolo Machiavelli
• Guglielmo Marconi
• Enrico Fermi
• Michaelangelo
• Julie Clary, wife of Joseph Bonaparte, and their daughter Charlotte Napoléone Bonaparte

And those are just the most notable in that Basilica alone- there are far more that under any other comparison would be very notable indeed. I was very fortunate to be able to get to see this and take pictures of all of these amazing tombs.

After a five minute walk you can be at the door of Vivoli Gelato tucked away in a back alley just a couple blocks from the basilica. I was referred to this place by a former teacher that had been there and tried the Rice Gelato. It sounded like a bio hazard to me but I went ahead and got it; of course, I loved it. I recommend it to anyone that can make it out to Florence, which I also recommend as a tourist location.

If you don’t like to visit churches/basilicas/cathedrals, then Italy probably isn’t a great place for you to visit. Sure there’s plenty of other things to do, places to see, etc., but you really can’t get the cultural and historical experience without looking at the religious places. The Basilica di Santa Maria del Fiore, better known as ‘The Duomo’ (‘duomo’ is Italian for cathedral), is an absolutely astounding work of Renaissance architecture. It is still today the largest free standing masonry domed building in the world. You can climb the stairs all the way to the top of the cupola where, needless to say, you have a view of the entire red-roofed city. What astounded me the most was that it took 140 years to build, meaning that not a single person was alive both when it started and when it finished.

One last feat of Florentine architecture that amazed me was the Ponte Vecchio bridge. This is by no means an ordinary bridge. On both sides of the bridge are buildings, now shops, that are supported on stilts off the sides of the bridge. They are mostly jewelery shops and people, mostly tourists, can walk down the center street and shop. All of this occurs on a bridge (over troubled waters… I’m not kidding the water is disgusting).

Sidney Poitier

Perhaps one of the most influential screen actors of the 20th century, Sidney Poitier has been a Prince, a doctor, a reverend, and even Nelson Mandela. Mr. Poitier has been in several far reaching films, including his three 1967 blockbusters In the Heat of the Night, Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, and To Sir, With Love. Sidney Poitier played these parts in a time when there weren’t many black men on set, much less in leading roles. He broke the racial boundaries and was a subtle leader in destroying segregation and racism alike, becoming the first black male to win Best Actor for his role in Lilies of the Field. In 2002, the Academy gave Sidney Poitier the Honorary Award for his “extraordinary performances and unique presence on the screen and for representing the industry with dignity, style and intelligence.” More recently, Sidney Poitier has been seen on Oprah discussing his book The Measure of a Man, seen at right. The book is a spiritual autobiography in which Sidney evaluates himself as a person and the path that he has chosen to get where he is today. Both an American icon and intriguing individual, Sidney Poitier.