Mumblings

New meaning to the phrase...

2006-09-01T13:17:00.000-07:00

"Even the trees have ears."

I know, companies have been doing this for a while. I find it a little creepy, I like the cell towers in church steeples more than any of the other examples. They could put them inside minaret towers and give the mosques free text messages to "call worshipers to prayer." That would be awesome.

Photo by kevinzim
under Creative Commons License: Attribution.

Imploding Trojan

2006-05-17T22:21:00.000-07:00

On May 21, the 499 foot tall cooling tower at the Trojan nuclear plant north of Portland will be demolished using more than two thousnad pounds of explosives. Just to give you an idea of how massive this demoliion is, the cooling tower is only a little smaller than the tallest building in Portland. Yet Portland General Electric, which owns the Trojan plant, doesn't want people to come and watch.

I find this very dissapointing; I've been to a number of implosions and each one is a very memorable expirience. I don't understand why PGE is taking such extreme levels of precaution--yes this is a nuclear power plant, however the nearest radioactive material is 900 feet away from the tower, sealed in concrete casks that can withstand collision with a locomotive. The reactor itself is in a concrete burial hundreds of miles up the Columbia River.

My friends and I are trying to find a good spot to watch the demolitions. If anyone has any thoughts on where there are loopholes in PGE's lockdown that would enable a decent sight of the implosion, please tell me. As far as I can tell, the best options are: (a) on the other side of the river from the site, either way up in the hills east of I-5 or (b) right on the river itself or (c) on the same side of the river as the plant, up in the cliffs above (there's a log road that gets you within a mile of the cliff, the rest would be walking). I'm not even sure if the last option would give a good viewing point: it may be wooded in, or the cliffs may be much softer than the maps are showing.

Anyhow, I would really like to see the demolition, so if you have any thoughts, send me a line.

Annoying

2006-05-15T19:55:00.000-07:00

You would be surprised how six tiny squares, no wider than the width of two hairs, could become such an annoying pariah. This Saturday, I opened my aforementioned macbookpro to find that six pixels sat, utterly lifeless at the bottom of my screen, just to the left of the shiny "MacBookPro" label. This adds to another dead pixel in the upper left corner of the screen, but these six are not only right next to eachother, forming a nice big speck on the screen, but they're right in the center of the dock. Grr! I'll be calling AppleCare pretty soon about it. Hopefully they can fix (replace) the screen without having to ship it off to some far away factory for days on end. I would feel naked without it. What's more, I think they might make me back up all my data before I send it to them: which means about five more hours for me.

Attempted fix for MacBookPro heating isues.

2006-05-09T13:51:00.000-07:00

I have used my MacBookPro (MBP) for the past three weeks and, overall, I am quite satisfied with my experience. Before I get to my problems with the laptop, I would like to highlight some of the really nice features.

OS X: On the first day of owning my Mac, I thought to myself, "God what have you gotten yourself into...is that restocking fee worth it?" It took me about two days, from 3 pm to 11 pm to get all my songs, documents and photos from my windows desktop onto the laptop. Thankfully I had my iPod, but that ended up being more of a problem because I ran into several issues with the Auto-update and bad libraries. However, after the first few days were over, I started to get used to the Apple UI and the one-button mouse. Today, I'm much faster on a Mac than I ever was on windows, particularly after I installed quicksilver.
Design: Like the iPod, this Apple product is truly gorgeous. Every surface of the exterior feels right: from the smooth plastic case to the size of the speaker holes. I really appreciate the small tolerances this machine is built off of: when I run my finger over the power button, I don't feel it sunken into the body or butting out, it's perfectly level. Oftentimes I find myself inadvertently cleaning small specks of dust off the palm rests or screen--not even a nice car inspires this much affection out of me.

While there are plenty more reasons why this is a good laptop, I'll stop short with those two. I have had some problems with the laptop. Aside from the transitioning problem above, I ran into two other problems.

My screensaver preferences panel would crash whenever it was opened. After about a week of this, I brought it into the Applestore and they fixed it by deleting some system files--sweet.
Like some other people, my MBP will get very hot after an hour of heavy use. The top fifth of the laptop, where the function keys are sitting, gets pretty painful to the touch. The good thing is that, for me, the bottom is still bearable so I can put it on my lap while wearing shorts. Now, thinking about my physics lessons in thermodynamics, I know that the free moving air will transfer a lot of heat. Just sitting on my desk, the laptop is almost completely surrounded by air. To increase the heat-radiation, I decided to lift the laptop off the desk a few millimeters just so some air could get under there. This should be better than the wood desk, which insulates the heat inside the laptop. Wanting to test this solution, I stacked three quarters on top each other and taped the stack together, to hold it tight. I did this again so I had four stacks of quarters, three quarters thick. Then I placed one stack under each corner of the laptop. From what I can tell, the laptop runs a little cooler, but that might just be my impressions. I can't gage the laptop temperature because Apple has locked that sensor from OS X usage. Bummer. I am thinking of getting a small heat probe and placing it on the laptop, but I'm not sure if that will work either. More on this later.

Everything On My Desk (and then some)

2006-05-08T20:06:00.000-07:00

MacBookPro
Cell phone, with broken front screen.
Roll of Scotch tape.
TV remote
X-Box remote
Altoids tin
Cordless phone and dock
Quarters taped together in stacks of three more on that later...
Several sticky note pads
USB flashdrive 128MB
Red pen
Old belt
Desk lamp
Water glass
Overdue bill from Portland State University
MacBookPro Remote
History Review Sheet
Zits comic calander
Parts of my MacBook power cable.
AppleCare Protection Plan box
A spool of CD-R's (half empty)
A spool of DVDR's (full)
Three CD jewl cases
A screen duster
Box of Tazo tea (China Green Tea)
OSX CD box
ProCare pamphlet
HP Scanner/Printer
USB cable for said printer.
Bourne Identity and case
Another bill from Portland State University
My ballot for Oregon primaries
AP physics review sheets.
WEP code on a wrinkled piece of paper
Transcript of a debate round
Another history paper
Letter from UChicago (not bill!)
PCGamer June 2006 (unread)
Mother Jones May-June (partial read)
Manila Envelopes
A copy of my history research paper.
Oh, and a note for my history paper...which is done.

There, that gives me 42, a good number indeed. This ends my little warm-up writing assignment.

Yep Just a little activity

Last.fm

2006-03-01T18:50:00.000-08:00

Note: This list is updated every monday.

First Bike Ride to Lakeridge

2006-01-03T14:08:00.000-08:00

I woke up at 5:30 this morning, took a shower and ate a light breakfast, before putting on my raincoat (showers were expected for the afternoon) and walking out into the garage. By now it was 6:15 but it was still very dark outside.
With a very heavy bag on my back, filled with a change of clothes and my books, I rode off to school. Now, for those of you who don't know the route, I basically start out at 300ft elevation, drop down to 200ft before climbing back up to 500ft where our school sits. This shouldn't be that big of a ride, but I'm terriblly out of shape, so it takes me about thirty minutes and a few stops to catch my breath.
Finally I make it up to school and lock my bike up:

Yea, I detached the front wheel because it's cool and all...

By the way, I've been thinking of moving this tingy over to Yahoo hosting, which would allow me to run wordpress and gallery2; something very nice indeed.

APUS Webpage Launched

2005-11-30T21:14:00.000-08:00

After almost a year in development, we launched Karen Hoppes school webpage this week.

I'm very happy that there are finally results for all of that hard work that both of us went through. When you're working on a project as large as this one was, it gets discouraging to see no tangible results for weeks of work. But now the site is online, which means any changes that we make to it can be updated within a few days.

All along the way, the goal was to create a website that was able to meet student needs. Things like having all the documents and the notebook guide lines will hopefully save lots of people the frustration of having to call friends and hunt around for documents the night before the exam.

I'm still thinking of other tasks that the site could help out with, but one gets into the problem of creating a site that is "too helpful" to the point that it isn't necessary to show up for class. I'm thinking of the possibility of putting lecture notes online of the things I am toying around with is building a way to load up some of the "slides" Hoppes uses for lectures, such as maps.

I'm already building a feature that will add a warning note on the site when something important is changed (like something extra added to the notebook).

Anyhow, I hope you like the website and I would love to receive some constructive criticism on it. It will never be perfect, but I want to make it better. I think it's already the best teacher site at Lakeridge, but there's still room for improvement.

Saxitars at Starbucks

2005-09-30T19:47:00.000-07:00

The Saxitars played tonight at Starbucks. I got there late, but this time I had my camera so I could capture some of the magic. John Duffy, Devon Gaffney, and Michael Zimmer accompanied Marcus and Nick for the first time tonight. I thought it sounded pretty good. There was less of a crowd tonight, but that has to be expected when you're playing every other week--people just get worn out sometimes.
I'm planning on putting some of these in the yearbook, possibly adding a "Battle of the Bands" page in the senior section. Are there any other bands out there that wanna get coverage? Just tell me, I'll announce to make sure everyone knows.
"It would have been better if I had been high," said Ben Bronner.

My only real question is when are you guys going to write a whole bunch of your own songs, you sound great, now it's time to pick up the pen and start making your own stuff! So that's about it, tell me when you're doing it again and I'll get some more photos!

Above: Marcus rockin it out early in the show.
Left: Nick doing his "little dance."

Left: The band, except Nick.

Left: More dancing!

Website Redesign

2005-07-14T13:21:00.000-07:00

I've been working on redesigning Lakeridge High School's website for several months now. Looking around the web, it seems like every website out there is behind the times. Few of them meet up to current web standards, most are done in the very basic HTML. The best of the best look nice but offer little functionality for their users.

So this is a call out for anyone who has seen a dynamic school website that offers homework reminders and easily updating news from the school. These are the two features that I am looking for. I've examined some CMS systems and none of them offer quite the package I am looking for.

I do know some PHP and some MySQL, which means those are the two languages that I could work well in and make some edits to pre-existing packages.

I am no longer addicted to Oxycodone!

2005-07-14T11:45:00.000-07:00

I am proud to announce that this morning I broke my long addiction to the painkiller oxycodone, however I plan on returning to the drug tonight for my aching jaw. For those of you who didn't understand that random intro, I had my wisdom teeth pulled out yesterday.
Anyhow, summer life is going well. I updated the look of my blog again, and I created a Flickr account. I am still having trouble syndicating this to the Livejournal though. Hmm...

Week in Chicago

2005-07-04T19:58:00.000-07:00

I flew into Chicago from Iowa City yesterday.
Today I went downtown and saw the Moby concert that was going on there.
Had a great time.

Can't wait to get home though.

Happy Independece Day.

I go to Waluga Tomorrow

2005-06-09T23:20:00.000-07:00

I won't be at school tomorrow. Spending time with some middleschoolers. Wish me luck!

Portland Meets First Goal of Kyoto Protocol

2005-06-09T23:06:00.000-07:00

This makes me happy

More info

Get a free iPod

2005-06-09T21:33:00.000-07:00

Click here to get both of us iPods

this is a legitimate site. you just have to jump through a few hoops
i think it's worth $300.. don't you?

Today's Mail

2005-06-08T19:16:00.000-07:00

So today I recived a letter from the Republican Presidential Task Force. "This is odd," I thought, "I haven't done any combat training that I might need for a task force. Well, being the curious person I am, I opened the envelope and read a nice letter from Ronald Regan (tales from the crypt). Here's a little sample of it:

History will judge us by the actions we take after our watershead victory in November. What we won on November 2nd was the opportunity to stay the course in winning the War on Terror, to inspire new generations to achive the American dream and to shrink the power of Washington. Based on your remarkable record and support for President Bush and our Republican Senate canidates in 200...

Hold on a second, how could they possibly think that I supported the Republicans in the last election? I freakin worked for the Democratic Party of Oregon and subscribe to magazines like Mother Jones and the libritarian Reason. But it later continues...

...our efforts to support President Bush's policies of defending American and our growing economy...Those few who are invited to become 2005 Platinum Members are committed to investing $120 per year in promoting our agenda and recruiting new candidates who are the lifeblood of our party's sucess...

Suddenly it becomes clear why that landslide back in November happened. Democrats will ask for $25 donations as the norm, and give the donator the ability to choose how much they want to contribute. While I don't consider myself to be a hardcore liberal, I do belive in civil rights, which is why I did not support the President or his party's administration. With this kind of fundrasing happening in the Republican Party, all I can hope is that most of those letters find themselves in the hands of Mother Jones subscribers.

2005-05-14T10:34:00.000-07:00

School Website Design

2005-03-28T17:40:00.000-08:00

Ameoba at Art Institute

Random Stuff

2004-12-21T18:57:00.000-08:00

So in response to my previous post, I talked with a few people and found torrents as a good alternative to Suprnova. This is good and makes me happy again.

In other news I learned how fortunate I was to have internet connections and a charge card this holiday season. I decided to go to the mall with one of my friends and help him shop for some of his gifts. I think that after the whole ordeal all I really wanted for Christmas was a nap.

Here is the lesson I took from my journey: Malls suck. Plain and simple, they offer one of the worst experiences shopping that I could ever imagine during the holidays and I like to shop too.

I was very happy that all of my shopping took place from this very chair instead of the chairless Nordstrom or Borders.

The third fall of P2P?

2004-12-19T15:18:00.001-08:00

So today I was about to go and illegally pirate another movie off of superimposing when I found that it was closed. It looks like the MPAA has attacked both superimposing and several eDonkey sites bringing us back to the days when Napster was in court and KaZaA was siding with the record companies. Shor considers BitTorrent to be a smaller threat to the MPAA than Napster or KaZaA was to the record industry.

For a net-idiot like me, suprnova was a boon because of it's simple operation. Unfortunately such a centralized setup lead to it's downfall. What's needed is a much more decentralized network that hijacks an already existing system to give it a core integrity.

What about Google? Will there be a day when I can make a search such as "Pulp Fiction" + ".torrent" and find a small server that is hosting Quentin Tarantino movie torrent links for a day or two at a time? If it is technically possible, such a setup would prevent MPAA from shutting down the centralization of the service since google doesn't intend to allow users to share files.

The rise of Blogs

2004-12-13T19:26:00.000-08:00

Many “real” journalists in the News media argue that bloggers aren’t really journalists since they have no ethical code dealing with the release of sources and truthfulness of the reporting like business bound journalists have. They argue that blogs are wide open to false sources since there is little regulation by other journalists, “real” or otherwise. Bloggers who report current events regularly in their journals tend to be highly opinionated individuals who do not leave their opinions at the door before writing their articles. Thus, these critics argue that bloggers aren’t real journalists and shouldn’t be treated like them.

This question makes us ask what really are journalists? To some extent journalists are simply reporters of information; however, today they have become professionals with ethical codes and guidelines. This second version of journalist is the one that bloggers are excluded from. Yet there is an assumption made on the part of these journalists and those who support their position, that only through a professional framework can information be safely conveyed. Yet the events of modern times would show this assumption to be false.

With the rise of Generation-X into adulthood, many daily newspapers have been struggling to survive. This new generation, growing up in a world of twenty-four hour news channels and, later, Google News, failed to pick up the habits of reading the paper daily that was essential to maintain newspaper readership. While Gen-X’s parents were still reading their papers, Gen-X was moving toward a much less habitual way of getting their news. Responding, the paper business has moved toward smaller, free newspapers distributed sometimes only weekly and funded by advertising costs alone. These newspapers tend to be more radical in their political orientation since they no longer have to appeal to a consistent readership and generally are supported by a much smaller audience.

At the same time, the networks are quickly being outstripped in their news services which air for only four or five hours a day. Twenty-Four hour news channel’s greater accessibility and flashier characters draw more watchers and slowly sap away audiences from the national stations. Fox News’s consistent slant on programs such as The O’Riley Factor and CNN’s Robert Novak’s dangerous release of CIA operative’s identity show the lack of journalistic ethics in these programs.

Even so, the major networks themselves have also shown their weaknesses. “CBS admits that it was duped by airing forged documents that claimed that, in 1972 a young George W. Bush did not fulfill his military obligations and was helped by his powerful family and political connections,” Jeffrey Dvorkin writes. What is extremely important is that what broke this story were the blogs and bloggers who saw the accusation and decided to go on their own and check it out. Then, using their website as a new pulpit, the Bloggers quickly spread the news like colonial minutemen.

As mainstream media moves more and more to unregulated sources like Rush Limbaugh and the Daily Show, journalists can claim less and less of a professional ethical guideline. While this might be a tragic loss, there is still little that mainstream media can do to correct the problem in the wake of strict deregulation of media businesses. Instead, readers should turn to blogs and formulaic news feeders such as Google News or Blogdex to see what issues are “hot.”

For those that argue that bloggers have no regulation, not only have current events shown that the alternatives aren’t any more regulated but, also, the professional media outlets carry with them the perception of definitive knowledge that does not activate in readers, the fact checking impulses that blogs do because of their limited scope. The very fact that I can quickly link you up to a myriad of other news services and connect you back to the web itself means that blogs themselves offer much greater fact checking capacity than regular news services today.

A CSI Investigation

2004-12-12T03:26:00.000-08:00

Location: Residential Home
Probable Crime: double homicide,Breaking and Entering, Minor Theft, Vandalism, Disorderly Conduct.

Evidence Gathered: Figure 1, Figure 2, Write-Up.

Figure 1: Body 1, Pumkin Cheesecake. Cause of death: Stabbing, mutilation, cannibalism.

Figure 2: Body 2, Yule Log Cake. Cause of death: Stabbing, mutilation, cannibalism.

Write-Up:
received notice of disorderly conduct occurring in the street outside the residence. At arrival several suspects fled and have yet to be apprehended. House was filled with coffee and wine glasses and partially consumed alcohol. Bodies discovered in Dining room but instruments of consumption discovered all over the first floor.

2004-12-12T02:27:00.000-08:00

Just a picture of me for the icon!

2004-11-15T03:29:00.000-08:00

I sit in a dark cell, a prisoner in the world I came to. In the old lands they would just kill you for what I have done. But the blood of countless deaths would seep into the streets and unmask the gleaming façade for what it was; the ruthless state. I say I sit here, but this confounds the fact that while my mental capacities would show that I clearly am sitting on the cool floor of this dark cell, the mind of the state and the people would explain that it is not really me that is sitting here but rather a demon. I am at home right now, my small apartment in the center of the world; ever watchful of the demons that lurk the city, waiting to take away that apple pie that cools in the windowsill. This is not the story of my movement from one physical location to another, from my homeland to the apartment and finally to the cell I sit in today. This is the story of how the I that is speaking existed was reborn and killed all in the course of a few years.

It began over the ocean in the old world. The wall had fallen a few years back, but as in all of those walled off states, the news was slow moving and the reaction was even slower. Yet when radical change began to happen it was not from the oppressive “Red” dictatorships to crystal clear democracies as American TV trumpeted. To be short, a state of anarchy erupted. Crime rule was accepted and later empowered democratically. The revolution was not so much a shift in whom the power was vested as much as it was a shift in where the power was vested. It moved from the massive squares and looming government buildings to dingy warehouses and small alleyways. Blood still spilled over into the streets, the masking façade refinished.

I was born into the image of this state and grew up in face of the revolution. I was never free to walk the street at night or run for political office or start my own business. If the crime bosses didn’t approve I could safely say that I would end up in the obituaries within a few weeks. The liberation of France during WWII rode the shoulders of Omaha. My liberation came in on trucks of Coca-Cola. It came in on the factories that were set up in the cities that had long ceased to produce. Like fearless soldiers defying the barricades of the Nazis, the contractors defied the threat of crime bosses. Yet soldiers aren’t fearless, and contractors Achilles lies in the belly of the money monster. In an environment still riddled with danger and uncertainty all that came to liberate me were coca cola signs.

It was then that I realized that, in order to truly be free I must move to the free land. Immigrating over to the New World was not the daring journey of my ancestors. It was a twelve hour plane ride to La Guardia. The image of coca cola had captured me; I was its victim. Its trap: a job with the NYPD. A year of training then I would be a full fledged officer. I stepped onto American soil in the year of 1997.

I woke up today listening to some Limp Bizkuit on the radio. But I wasn’t thinking of it, it passed entirely through me like a deluge of redundant information. The alarm clock didn’t have a working snooze so it played on. I finally relented and slipped out of bed and walked across the clothes littered floor and into the bathroom. I turned on the shower water and rubbed my eyes while the water heated up. The radio played on. I stepped into the shower, the steam muffling the blare of guitar and drums. Floating on the edge of consciousness, I washed in order hair, face, arms, chest, back, left leg then right leg. My ritual never changed, any deviation left me feeling dirty for the remainder of the day.

Shutting off the shower, the stream of radio returned, the song concluded as the DJ broke in, “That was ‘Rollin'’ by Limp Bizkuit, who are coming again this October on their world tour. Get your tickets through Ticket Master™ today!” Looking into the mirror, I knew I had to get those tickets. But then I remembered that this month’s rent was due in and I couldn’t pay for both the tickets and the rent after I had just bought that new computer a week ago. Disappointed I continued my routine: dry off, shave, put on clothes, eat break fast and brush teeth. As I was brushing my teeth I realized that I could simply put the tickets on my credit card and pay for them later.

Thrilled, I looked up the Ticket Master™ and placed a purchase for two tickets to the concert. I didn’t have anyone to go with but I knew that I could find some nice chick to go with or at least I could scalp it a day before if it came down to it. Happy with myself, I put on my uniform and walked out to the station.

That was the day the towers fell. I never made it to work. My uniform precluded me from walking down rows of cubicles. The story that happened to me that day isn’t important to this story. Or rather, what’s important about it is the unintelligibility of that story in comparison to the story that everyone would believe to experience. The North Tower collapsed at 10:28am; yet on LIVE CNN© it collapsed over and over for hours and hours. My story on that day cannot compete with a story repeated thousands of times along a movie reel.

The following days I was assigned to protect a few key positions along Wall Street. It didn’t matter that the rescue efforts were continuing on a 24-hour basis, I was to protect Wall Street. I stood out in front of the NYSE and watched as frightened and suit clad traders hurried into the exchange and hurried out. They knew, they knew. Another attack could come at just any moment. Attacks were going on all over the globe on two towers every minute of every day. The attacks permeated the air in slight waves as satellites beamed them down all across the planet.

It was then that I realized it. The attack, the destruction. The tall towers that I saw on my arrival years ago, gone forever. The coca cola billboard, gone in a smoldering flame. And my Ticket Master™ call: to an office in the building adjacent to the Trade Center. Collapsed, all records obliterated. My tickets gone, my credit card order fallen in the American Express HQ in the towers. All of it, all of that constant stream had fallen in the dust and explosion. The roaring silence of the collapse echoed itself as the roaring silence in the airwaves and the stock market. The reality that America stood for, dust, silence. A sandy molten steel desert for the real. Chunks of the Tower façade stood out in massive chunks as the wreckage spread out wide and piled over one hundred feet high.

My thoughts must have shown through my countenance. Three weeks later, in the dead of night armed NYPD officers in allegiance with the FBI broke down my door and killed me. Ripping my shell off they mutated the soul, fitted a new shell over it and sent me off in the cover of darkness. The long ride carried me through the void from my old shell to the new one: orange jumpsuit and a concrete floor.

I was from a largely Muslim country and therefore was a threat to the security of US citizen. I secretly established connections with known terrorists and was on record for growing up in the same town as one of the men who hijacked the plane that hit the earth in Pennsylvania that morning. I was interested in leading an American revolution. My motive was clear: my country had been devastated by large American corporations establishing bases then pulling out when the standard began to improve, only to send it back down again so that they could return.

My plan: destroy American power by taking out the money monster itself. Like the booggy man, the money monster resided in images. His best place was the World Trade Center. They cannot kill me though. They will not kill me. I will choose to return to the light of freedom and justice. I will choose to turn CNN back on and buy another Carmel Macchiato©. That is the way to my salvation. It is the eightfold path I shall venture to enlightenment, sipping Tazo Tea along the way.

I sit on the cold floor reading the newspaper. It’s been four weeks since they took me into containment. They told me the information I gave them would reduce my sentence. I am on my way to becoming a good American again.

The paper talks of the plans for the reconstruction. After the WTC had been leveled, the desert had returned to the heart of New York. This reality must be covered with concrete and steel, reconstructed into the palatable and profitable empire that would permeate the world. The towers would be reconstructed under the guise of a memorial. The memorial, to the death of the money monster. The light towers, it’s rebirth.

2004 Athens: Bridging the Western Tradition

2004-08-17T10:02:00.000-07:00

Among athletic record shattering taking place in Athens this year is the record shattering security costs. The $1.5 billion system uses the latest monitoring technology including a camera and microphone to voice recognition technology allowing the security computers to "listen in" on crowds for scandalous talk. Trained to recognize words such as "bomb" and "gun" as well as gunshot sounds and explosions, the system intends to keep the spectators safe from any would-be terrorist. However some spectators have decided to engage in thier own form of terrorisim. These al-Qida supporters look inconspicuous at frist glance, yet closer observation singles them out with thier BK Whoppers and Nike running shoes. And don't be caught carrying high pressure explosive bottles of Pepsi into the stadium or be ready for a discussion with security personel. Included in the $1.5 billion is protection against competitive marketing inside the stadiums, raising new questions on who deserves the autonomy of a free market: the company or the consumer...