Author Archives: tlianza

Ladanian Tomlinson is pissed

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So, LT is pissed after the Patriots beat the Chargers yesterday. All over the news he was quoted as saying:

When you go to the middle of our field and start doing the things that Shawne Merriman is known for, that’s disrespectful.

However, I watched the game, I’ve searched google, searched youtube, watched NFL Primetime, and seen quite a bit of news coverage and I have yet to see any pictures or videos of that happening. Where are they? It wouldn’t terribly surprise me if it happened, but for the thousands of cameras on that game I am surprised I haven’t seen any pictures of it.

I think this article is a pretty good response to LT’s comments. Not only does Shawn Merriman dance after celebrating a play against a competitor, but in fact he does it so often that he’s known for a particular dance, is evidently ok by LT. If an opponent does the exact same thing, it becomes “classless.” I’m also not so sure preventing non-in-state residents from buying tickets is a classy move… nor was Drayton Florence headbutting Daniel Graham in front of a referee. There were a lot of things that went down this weekend that weren’t exactly “classy”, but they went down on both sides.

Football predictions – part 3

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I went 3 of 4 again this week. The game I’d listed as “the toughest one for me to call” was indeed the one I got wrong – the Colts beat the Ravens. I was surprised how well the Seahawks played against the Bears, but indeed they lost. The Patriots game was nerve-racking but they came through.

Next week – Pats over the Colts, Bears over the Saints. I don’t feel great about either prediction. All of the teams are excellent. I’ll be in Vegas frantically looking for a good place to watch the Pats game. Maybe I’ll even make a wager or two.

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Hopefully a fun trademark battle to watch

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The SVP/General Counsel for Cisco blogged about the iPhone trademark. I love the fact that he brought up this point:

How would Apple react if someone launched a product called iPod but claimed it was ok to use the name because it used a different video format? Would that be ok? We know the answer – Apple is a very aggressive enforcer of their trademark rights. And that needs to be a two-way street.

Apple has been famously protective of their trademarks, which brings a sense of hypocracy to the whole issue. Leo Laporte often uses the term “Netcast” instead of “Podcast” for fear that Apple will one day try to go after that word.

It seems like most of the “experts” think this will get settled quickly, and out of court. Although then I read this from an Apple spokeswoman:

“There are already several companies using the iPhone name for VoIP (voice over IP) products,” Kerris said. “We’re the first company ever to use iPhone for a cell phone. If Cisco wants to challenge us on it, we’re confident we’ll prevail.”

That sounds like a fight to me. I hope it’s entertaining.

Small World

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So I’m listening to last.fm and a life track from the Red Hot Chili Peppers comes on with crowd noise in the background. Last.fm tells me this was from their Live In Hyde Park album. So I go to Amazon and it says “Taken from their mammoth shows in June 2004…”

It’s funny going back and reading this post of mine from June 19, 2004 when I was in London:

I found a bunch of young drunk people and figured I’d follow them to where the fun is. After a few minutes of walking, we ended up in a park where still more young people were walking. It was clear that we were going somewhere where things were happening. I took a quick look around to make sure I wasn’t accidentally walking to a British KKK rally or something. I saw enough ordinary-looking people to assure myself I wasn’t going somewhere out of the ordinary.

It turned out the park I was in was Hyde Park and the reason everyone was going there is because the Red Hot Chili Peppers were playing. It was an outdoor concert so you could see the show (albeit at a distance) without paying to get into the fenced-off area.

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Football Predictions – Part 2

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I did a mediocre job of predicting the outcome of this weekend’s games. I got 3 out of the 4 outcomes correct. The one I didn’t get right was the game I went to, and the Cowboys would have won that game if Romo hadn’t made a historic blunder. I had also expected the Chiefs-Colts game to be close, which it was for a little while (Chiefs forced 3 Peyton Manning interceptions) but the Chiefs offense was amazingly absent, and the final score reflected that.

Next weeks matchups are even harder to predict, so in the interest of embarrassing myself further, my predictions are:

  • Patriots upset the Chargers (I can’t bring myself to say anything different)
  • Ravens beat the Colts (this is the toughest one for me to call)
  • Bears beat the Seahawks (almost totally dependent on how Rex Grossman plays. They slaughtered the Seahawks during the year)
  • Saints beat the Eagles