Ola's thoughts

07/07/07

2007-07-07T21:49:00.000-04:00

This is one of those days that happens once every century and with seven being such a special number, I just had to say something...

Is this good or bad? We've signed a striker...

2007-07-02T06:37:00.000-04:00

Croatian international striker Eduardo Da Silva from Dinamo Zagreb.

Really cool: makes me wanna get a PS3

2007-06-29T19:18:00.000-04:00

You can install Ubuntu on your PS3. [Via Lifehacker].

Too bad I have already decided to get an Xbox 360 (last paragraph).

Snatch Tevez: what are we waiting for?

2007-06-28T18:01:00.000-04:00

He has said he is interested in coming here and he has turned down an offer from Inter.

S1m0ne

2007-06-28T04:10:00.000-04:00

I just finished watching S1m0ne and it was really funny to me. The audacity of some of the things that were pulled off in this movie is scary. How Viktor Taransky was able to deceive the whole world scares me. Especially the stadium scene where he gave everyone the illusion that there was someone in the stadium singing when it was actually some computer software. I am really scared if it is possible to do something like this in the future. Only God knows if this isn't even being done now in a different form and we have all been dealt some lie that we have all eaten up.

Anyway, let me move from the somber, thought-provoking parts of the movie to the fun parts. The binary numbers seen in the name were cool. You know the 1 and 0 in the name that transformed it from "Simone" to "S1m0ne". One of the first things that made me watch the movie in the first place on TNT. I was curious. Who names a movie like that? And I saw that Al Pacino was in it. So I was hooked.

Another thing from the movie: I am scared of having an eye tumor so I am going to stay away from my computer for a while before I start work. Seriously. Read some of those books I have been meaning to read for a while.

Near the end, when he was trying to kill her character off a few intriguing things happened:

He pulled a movie that was supposed to tank named "I am pig", people still hailed the movie.
She went on national TV and virtually supported every vice that existed in the world, yet she was named Time's person of the year because she was a celebrity who spoke her mind.

Anyway, I am going to bed. What I just wrote here probably didn't tell you enough about the movie or make any sense. You can check it out on IMDB or Wikipedia. And you should watch it if it's showing on TV or you are looking to add to your Netflix or Blockbuster queue.

I see this and I am pissed

2007-06-26T06:00:00.000-04:00

I know everyone is entitled to their opinions but when Vieira and Henry keep on talking about going-ons at Arsenal, I almost always get mad. You guys have left. Let the club be. We are trying to move on to life without you. Okay, I exaggerated there. I have never really gotten mad. Until now.

One of the main reasons Henry cited for leaving was that he wasn't sure Wenger was going to extend his (Wenger's) contract. He said he couldn't bare staying at Arsenal without Dein and Wenger especially considering his age, he will be 31 next year after Wenger's contract expires.

Now, he opens his mouth and says he hopes Wenger stays. Why? Why couldn't he put that hope and faith into the club and stayed and kept on fighting? No, he has to have everything rosy and run at the first sign of trouble. Now, he can sit from his comfy chair in Barcelona and start telling us he hopes Wenger stays. Are you kidding me? He says he and Wenger can talk about anything, even private stuff, yet, they can't convince each other to stay at the club?

I have nothing against Henry and he's still one of my favorite players but c'mon. You don't go around saying crap like he's saying. To cap everything off, he says when he said he'll be a gunner for life, he wasn't lying. See this:

'I said I was going to be a Gunner for life and I didn't lie because once you
are a Gunner you will always a Gunner. The club is in my heart and will remain
in my heart forever.

You must be kidding me. That's a monumental cop out. He could have come up with something way better than that. Really. Or he could have shut up and not said anything.

Anyway, I am off to bed. It's after 6AM and I haven't slept...

Arsenal without Henry

2007-06-23T16:41:00.000-04:00

So it's official. Henry has left and the club has to move forward. I always believed he was going to leave when he said "Right now, I am an Arsenal player". That was the first time he didn't wholly commit his future to the club when speculation came that he was leaving the club. I have no problem with him going. He is a great player and has been great for the club but if he's not happy here, well, he should be allowed to leave. But I have a problem with the amount he left for.

£16 million pounds is way too small for Henry. I don't care if he wanted to go there and that was the only team he wanted to play for. They should have held out for more. And Henry himself should have made it his responsibility that we got what we deserved for him. That should have been his last act as Arsenal captain. In his letters in The Sun and Arsenal.com, he explained his reasons for leaving. Not about to go into them. If you haven't read them, go and read them.

One key thing that came out of this situation is that we really miss David Dein. We need to find a way to bring him back now that the Arsenal board seem to like Kroenke. Wenger seems hell bent on leaving now and might even have sold Henry to himself at Barcelona. We'll see about that in due time. So, we need to bring David Dein back and put him on the board with Stan Kroenke to move the club forward possibly even phasing out Hillwood, Fiszman and the rest of the Board. They have taken the club as far as they can and we need to move forward.

Moving on, we need to buy another striker who will obviously be compared to him. Wenger should continue in his tradition and give the #14 jersey to someone in a different position. Maybe a goalkeeper or something ridiculous. Anyway, Arsenal News Blog has a list of possible replacements. I like Anelka. He's familiar with the English game, will score goals and would suit the way we currently play. However, I think Wenger has an unwritten rule of not buying former players that we have sold. Let's just wait and see.

Good luck to Henry in Barrcelona. Here's to the future of Arsenal.

PS: How come we didn't get Eto'o in exchange for Henry? What happened to Eto'o plus £17 million for Henry?

Kobe needs a timeout

2007-06-21T13:31:00.000-04:00

Decent read.

You have to read this

2007-06-19T04:11:00.000-04:00

Funny article on Pacman Jones and his stripclub shooting incidents

Colts get their rings

2007-06-17T01:02:00.000-04:00

Excellent.

Mobile YouTube

2007-06-16T05:16:00.000-04:00

YouTube now has a mobile version. Cool!!! You can read more at Google OS.

As soon as you go to the site, you are warned to upgrade to an unlimited data plan to use it to avoid additional charges. That's why I use Sprint. They have unlimited data access for just $15 compared to the other guys.

What is Tiger Woods endorsing?

2007-06-14T20:13:00.000-04:00

Sports Illustrated released its list of 50 top-earming American athletes and most of the results look normal except the endorsements for the top golfers. Tiger Woods will make $100 million from endorsements this year, Phil Mickelson $47 million. Wow. What make golfers so attractive that companies are spending so much money on them? I don't get it. I always knew Tiger cleaned up but that's major cleaning up. Maybe because I don't follow golf or never seen the attraction in it, hence my confusion.

Other interesting things I noticed from the list:

Lebron has the highest endorsements of other players. I can see that. I see his ads and he's the supposed heir to the Jordan throne.
Garnett is the highest paid player in the NBA. I thought it was Shaq.
Kobe and Shaq still rule the NBA
Peyton Manning is the highest earning NFL player at #12. See this article on Free Money Finance for analysis on the spread in the different sports.

The top 20 international athletes are obviously dominated by soccer stars. The next generation can be found here.

This rocks: Blabberize

2007-06-14T16:39:00.000-04:00

Have a picture? Want to make it talk? Blabberize is what you want.

I couldn't test it as I don't have my microphone with me. But I'll try it as soon as I can.

Here's one funny one. OK, maybe it's not that funny. But there's potential for some very funny ones. It's embedded below...

[Via Yodel Anecdotal]

IPhone ads

2007-06-13T12:12:00.000-04:00

The IPhone ads are looking good. Not getting one (yet) though. And I am still testing Safari on Windows.

Safari on Windows

2007-06-12T03:37:00.000-04:00

Everyone is talking about it. I thought I'd chime in. It's really fast. Not sure what Joel was talking about as it was never slow for me even when starting up. But I'm on Windows XP SP2. I agree with Jeff Atwood that the font is weird. I have used a few Macs before but I have never noticed it, maybe it's more obvious because he mentioned it or because I am running it on Windows so I can compare it to the native Windows look and feel.

However, I don't see myself using Safari that much for a lot of reasons. First, it doesn't have that native feel and a few shortcuts I have tried in the few minutes I have been using it don't work.

Ctrl+Enter to fully expand a URL from “apple” to “www.apple.com”
Ctrl+Tab to switch between tabs in the browser.
Alt+Space+x to maximize a window.

Those are the ones I have tried and I tried them not because I was looking to test them but because I am used to them and I expected them to work without thinking twice. This could be frustrating for someone who knows and depends on shortcuts. I know this is a beta and they would sort out the issues later but still...

Another reason why I might not use it a lot is because of the number of Firefox extensions I have come to depend on. Enough said. But you never know!!! Right now, my browsing is shared between Firefox and IE because of Firefox's memory issues.

As a Software Engineer / Web developer, this is very good as I now have access to the four major grade A browsers on my Windows box. Cool. I am assuming that the rendering and everything is the same for Safari in both Windows and the Mac so there shouldn't be any problems in testing something for Safari on the Windows and it then breaking on the Mac.

2007 NBA Finals

2007-06-07T22:17:00.000-04:00

I don't think Lebron or Daniel Gibson (or any other Cavalier) has any hope in hell of repeating what they did in the Eastern Conference finals to Detroit in this series. The Spurs are way too good any have too many options on defense AND offense to allow Lebron have his day in the sun.

I think the Spurs will win in six games stealing one of the three games in Cleveland. I know the Cavs were 2-0 against the Spurs in the regular season but I don't see that being a factor in this series. The Spurs are the ultimate postseason team and they'll figure out the Spurs during the series if they need to. I know I said that the Mavs would be able to defeat the Warriors despite their regular season series but the Spurs are a different beast. Lebron is going to have wait a little more for his first ring.

I knew this was coming...

2007-06-04T16:17:00.000-04:00

Kobe should take a page from LeBron's book

Daniel Gibson is the man

2007-06-03T00:03:00.000-04:00

In the last game, it was Lebron who stepped up. Tonight, it was rookie Daniel Gibson who had a career high 31 points with 19 in the fourth quarter that carried the Cavs to victory in this game. The Cavs came back from 2-0 down to win the last 4 and win the series upsetting the much vaunted Pistons.

I predicted that the Pistons would win. I was wrong and I am very happy about that. I have never liked the Pistons especially since they defeated the Lakers in 2004.

I still think San Antonio would win the NBA finals and I want them to win but I wouldn't mind Lebron winning his first title. I still think Kobe is better than he is but not for much longer. At the end of their careers, Lebron should be the more accomplished player.

And what can we say about Flip Saunders? Three times he has reached the Conference finals (Timberwolves in 2004, Detroit last 2 years) and he has been unable to take his teams to the NBA finals...

Lebron goes crazy

2007-06-01T13:51:00.000-04:00

Lebron was Jordanesque yesterday scoring the Cavs' last 25 points and 29 of the last 30 against the Pistons. They couldn't stop him and almost every shot he attempted went in except one air ball. How the Pistons didn't try and double-team him and get the ball out of his hand, I have no idea. The few times other players attempted shots, they didn't go in, yet, it didn't occur to them to have the other players beat them consistently.

Lebron's performance last night is chronciled below:

Google Gears

2007-05-30T20:03:00.000-04:00

It seems I have so many secrets hidden deep in the recesses of my brain that I have forgotten about. Earlier, it was Microsoft Surface Computing, now it's Google Gears. Google Gears is an extension that allows web applications to add offline functionality to the experience. It's good for when you are offline or know you are about to have bad internet connection. More information can be found on TechCrunch or Scoble.

I remember going to a Google tech talk (or talking to a Googler) about this, can't remember any technical details so will have to read the docs like everyone.

Microsoft Surface Computing

2007-05-30T02:18:00.000-04:00

Back in the summer of 2005, when I was an intern at Microsoft, there was this Microsoft product codenamed “Playtable” that all the interns were so excited about. Only few had seen it. I actually don't know anyone who got to see it. And as I wasn't so geeky back then, I was only slightly interested in seeing it just to know what all the hype was about. I saw other things that blew my mind away but that's a story for another day.

I completely forgot all about it until Mary Jo Foley mentioned it a couple days back. Well, it's out and it's stunning. It's called Microsoft Surface. You can get more information from this press release from Microsoft. It's not available to the general masses yet but you can plot your way to using it either by lodging at Sheraton very soon or switching to T-Mobile to interact with it in T-Mobile stores.

It's very expensive so it will be a while before regular folks can afford it or find it useful.

AllFreeCalls resurrected

2007-05-23T01:21:00.000-04:00

I have been meaning to post this for a while, here it is.

Remember AllFreeCalls, it's back online again with a twist: you have to register and save up to ten preset numbers to actually use it. I haven't tried the new version yet so I can't say much, however, you can find more information at TechCrunch.

2007 NBA playoffs: Conference finals predictions

2007-05-22T18:49:00.000-04:00

I always seem to wait until the round of matches have started before giving my predictions. I think the reason for this is that I am not as excited about this NBA season as I was in the past.

Anyway, here are my predictions... I think the Spurs and the Pistons will come out victorious against the Jazz and the Cavs respectively with their experience from past playoff years proving vital. I think San Antonio would win it all beating the Pistons in the finals.

Arsenal ladies are perfect

2007-05-20T14:05:00.000-04:00

Apart from winning the quadruple, the ladies had a perfect season winning all 22 games. That got me wondering on how they fared in all competitions this season. From the fixture list, they were almost perfect as they only failed to win twice in the UEFA cup drawing those games.

Congratulations!!!

I graduated

2007-05-13T20:59:00.000-04:00

One of the main events for this year has passed. I graduated from college.

Pictures coming later. Right now, I am tired right now and recovering from lost sleep.

Here are some of the pictures (5/16):