The playoffs start tonight in the chase for the hardest trophy in team sports to win.
The Stanley Cup Playoffs kick off four-rounds of best-of-7, sudden-death overtime, broken-legs-be-damned, insanely-entertaining, hockey.
It really is a great time of year to be a sports fan, and even better to be a hockey fan, as all games are on cable, being split up between NBC, NBCSN, CNBC, USA, NHL Network,
And if you are needing a little more inspiration to watch the playoffs, try this on for size:
Let’s be honest: The Jewish news websites don’t have the budgets of larger news organizations, so they borrow things from other places.
The things they borrow most (un-credited) are pictures. Things like pictures of crime scenes or houses off of Google Maps.
Now while it is one thing to borrow a picture, and not source it…but I have seen multiple times where sites have taken a picture off of Google Maps Street View or an AP photo, and stamped THEIR OWN LOGO on it. As if it was exclusively their picture and if anyone else uses it they should have the proper stamp on it.
I am not going to point fingers and name sites that do this…but two Jewish sites in particular have done this in the last couple of weeks, which is what led me to this post.
If you are going to steal other people’s work….at least pretend you didn’t realize, and not try to make it your own.
After the 30 verdicts of “Guilty” were handed down to Dzhokhar Tsarnaev yesterday for the Boston Marathon Bombing I went back and finally watched the National Geographic special entitled: Inside The Hunt For The Boston Bombers.
This great documentary started with marathon day, and talking to some of the runners, spectators, and law enforcement on the scene, before taking us through the following days, with the FBIs investigation and how they tracked down who was responsible.
Seeing their hands forced by the media acquiring pictures during the stealthy operation, and having to go public (making the brothers go on the move) and the ensuing gunfights following the MIT shooting and carjacking.
Overall this is a great documentary, with insight, stories, and real investigations (not CSI style) makes this a must watch for anyone looking for some history on the week of April 15, 2013. This gets a 9 out of 10.
At 10AM tickets go on sale for the Observation Deck of 1 World Trade Center (HERE), and of course I considered buying tickets and going (I went to the 9/11 Memorial the day after it opened, but have yet to go to the museum).
The reason I haven’t gone to the museum, and won’t be buying tickets to the observation deck, is the price.
Standard pricing for 1WTC is: Adult $32, Senior $30, Child $26 (9/11 family members get in free).
Those prices are obscene.
But then again, so are most of the observation decks here in the city, so I guess it just depends which view of the city you’d like.
For comparison:
These are all places that one day I’d want to go visit…but today is not that day.
May 5, 2014.
11 months ago.
The day I quit Facebook, for what would turn out to be a 110 day vacation from it.
During that time period I started up this blog, for a way to continue to voice my thoughts. Posting daily since then has been a fun task and has now reached 250 posts.
My average viewership for a weekday is between 5 and 15 readers, and who those people are…I have no idea, and likely never will.
The comments on the blog are next to nil, and that exists on all sharing of it as well (with no comments on it on Twitter or Facebook).
Comments (and Likes) are down in general. Facebook has now started showing me “Three years ago you posted…” on my Newsfeed, and the amount of Likes and Comments on any random posts were significantly higher.
I attribute this to Facebook allowing people to “Mute” posts off their Newsfeed and click “See Less of This”, but never reminds people: “Here are posts you’ve requested to see less of. Would you like to restore any?”.
Twitter has a similar problem with their “Mute” feature…let’s just be honest: Don’t follow someone to make them feel good and then mute them. Just follow them if you want to see their stuff, and unfollow them if you don’t.
Because of the lack of range that my posts seemingly now have, on both WordPress and Facebook, I am considering stopping to post on Facebook, and may tone down the number of posts on here.
Another feature that may disappear completely are Songs of the Day (SOTD). I have been doing SOTDs for almost 2 years (April 15, 2013 — Pumped Up Kicks by Foster The People), and have taken breaks in the past, which is why when it does end this Thursday, the number will be 342 songs.
I don’t use a “service” to select the songs, I pick them all myself, and put time into it every week thinking up songs to use, which all follow the same three rules:
1) Hasn’t been used before.
2) Artists hasn’t been used recently.
3) And that I actually like the song.
Change is always inevitable, and as social media changes, and really starts to fail on most levels from what it once was, I am not going to change with it, but instead will walk away from it in my own ways.
Hockey playoffs are in the air just days away, but Spring is certainly here as baseball opened up play last night in Chicago.
In New York both our local teams launch their seasons, with the Yankees at The Stadium versus the Blue Jays (1:05PM) and the Mets heading down to Washington (4:05PM).
The Yankees have potential for a great season, IF their pitching staff stays healthy. And that’s a big if. Their Ace, Masahiro Tanaka, has a slight tear in an arm ligament, and the Drs. have told him he could play with it, but he’s already admitted that his 4-seam fastball will be down in velocity this season. Every time he is on the mound it’ll be potential for him to aggravate that tear.
The Mets have similar potential, except they’ve already lost one pitcher for the season (Zack Wheeler) and another pitcher (Matt Harvey), who is supposed to be their Ace, is coming off surgery and controversially <to the fans> isn’t starting Opening Day.
Regardless, this is Opening Day, and their may be a little FanDuel involved this year…I had just started as the playoffs rolled in last year.
Baseball. Is. Back.
I’ve recently started to listen to Sports Talk Radio again, after giving it up for a while since most of them sucked at the time.
The more I listen the more I remember why I gave up some of these shows.
I mean Mike Francesca is one of the worst sports guys out there…his arguments seem weak, and his knowledge of most sports is weaker. Some sports he has a strong handle on, but throw some hockey at him and he’s suddenly drowning in a melting pond.
On the flip side I really enjoy listening to the Michael Kay Show. They do lots of baseball (since Michael is the Yankees announcer he’s knowledgeable) and hockey isn’t ignored (his co-host Don LaGreca is the Rangers radio-studio guy), plus plenty of local stuff, including recent focus on St. Johns with the hiring of Chris Mullins.
Boomer & Carton I listened to the first morning that they were on air (September 4, 2007) and for a while after that. But when I switched to the morning shifts I was on-air in their time slot and not able to listen. Now in the mornings I flip between Elvis Duran and B&C, and their craziness and stupidities is what keeps me tuning in in the mornings.
I doubt it’ll happen because I am either busy or sleeping…but maybe I should start start listening to Steve Somers again, “The Schmoozer”.
April is National Autism Awareness Month. and today, April 2nd. is National Autism Awareness Day.
I myself donate to Autism Speaks to help support the cause, as well as try and wear my “Blue Puzzle Pin” from time to time to promote the cause.
If you have extra charity money (come on, 10% of your paycheck should be going there!!!) then cut out a few quarters for this organization.
Over the weekend I found out about the passing of Sal Polisi, the woodcarver of Lower Manhattan, who passed away in late January at the age of 79.
I have known Sal my whole life, as he was a friend of my dads and a frequent visitor of the store before Hurricane Sandy.
Sal had a little makeshift woodcarving shop, located directly on Pier 17 until a few years ago when the Seaport moved him into a building, as they redo the South Street Seaport.
A lot of the woodwork at the now defunct Pier 17 came from Sal. Things like signage and “wooden fish” at the restaurants, to the figurehead on the front of the Wavertree.
Photo from the New York Daily News
A full obituary can be found on Mr. Polisi in the New York Times from back in January.
Last night was the airing of Comedy Central’s Roast of Justin Bieber, and I’ll start out by saying that their is nothing unfunnier than a bunch of white people laughing too hard at the “n-word”.
With the previous few roasts having some hiccups (I’m talking about the failure of “The Situation” and Mike Tyson being ununderstandable) and Beiber being the target of the night, I expected it to be a great roast, and it didn’t disappoint.
The stage was full of a ton of tall people…and Kevin Hart. Now instead of breaking it down by throwing in a bunch of jokes, I’ll just leave that to People. Instead I’ll grade the roasters, as my God given American rights grant me to do.
Overall the Roast was really good, and one of the better recent ones. Justin is no Bob Saget, but he has enough dirty laundry that the jokes were aplenty. This roast gets an 8.5 out of 10.
Aviously 