Why Sports Are Better In Other Countries

Check out Barcaona's celebration after they won the Champions League to complete the treble (European Cup, DOmestic League Champs, Domestic Cup Champs)...

It's Friday, So Go On And Dance

The Movie Sweeping Cannes: "Looking For Eric"

Eric Cantona headlines a heartfelt film that is sweeping through the Cannes Film Festival this week.



Ken Loach could not have painted a more perfect, bittersweet picture for Cannes. Looking for Eric stars the French football legend Eric Cantona in a rare Loach comedy. Needless to say, it is a film of two halves. In the first, a postman called Eric Bishop is having a nervous breakdown. He drives the wrong way around roundabouts; the cupboards in his thoroughly grubby Manchester terrace are stuffed with unmailed letters; his black and white teenage sons from two broken marriages treat him like a doormat; and he’s still racked by guilt for leaving his first wife Lily, the love of his life.

Cue Cantona. How would the King handle Bishop’s crises? In a surreal and comic scene, the former Manchester United player steps out of a poster on the wall of Bishop’s rancid bedroom and dispenses gnomic gobbets of advice. It’s an extraordinary piece of magic realism for a director who usually specialises in art-house grit.

Cantona is basically a ghost, visible only to the delusional Bishop. His vague advice about how to handle Lily and the boys is delivered like poetry. Indeed, Cantona’s quote about sardines and seagulls — after he kicked a Crystal Palace supporter in the chest, earning a nine-month suspension — is central to this barmy comedy.

Read more here...

OXFAM Young Lions: Climate Action in Copenhagen

THE EARTH WILL THANK YOU!

In December world leaders will get together at the United Nations climate change conference in Copenhagen to decide how the world tackles climate change and global warming for decades to come. In the words of Oxfam's Campaigns Director, Thomas Schultz-Jagow, this conference is "the most important meeting mankind has ever had."

Here's a video to get the message out. Please pass it along, embed it, tweet it, digg it, all those good things.



Join the global movement for action on climate change, and support the summit in Copenhagen this December at: www.oxfam.org.uk/climateaction

Green Auto News: Daimler Investing In Tesla=Electric Mercedes-Bens

A real interesting move by Daimler to shoot Silicon Valley electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors with a pretty solid chunk of cash, equating to 10% of the electric- sports car manufactures company. A great step forward in a major manufacturer (Daimler) jumping into the green, sustainability, autos game. Like most people, I am curious whether Tesla will be successful making and selling cars or if their real cash cow will be licensing their technology to others. Time will tell...

Courtesy TechCrunch...Silicon Valley electric car manufacturer Tesla Motors got another shot in the arm today from German auto giant Daimler, which took a 10 percent stake in the company and expanded its partnership with Tesla to equip future Mercedes-Benz vehicles with electric lithium-ion batteries. Mercedes has been testing Tesla’s batteries in a fleet of 100 smart cars, and is already moving into limited production. But with this agreement, Mercedes now expects to roll out its first battery-powered Mercedes-Benz in 2010, and offer battery-powered vehicles for all of its models by 2012.

The amount invested was not disclosed, but even more valuable to Tesla is the vote of confidence from one of the world’s leading auto companies. In a press release, Daimler proclaims: “Tesla is the only production automaker selling a highway capable electric vehicle in North America and Europe.”

The money will no doubt help as well, since Tesla still needs a few hundred million dollars to produce its own $50,000 Model S, which is half the price of its first car, the Tesla Roadster. The company is still applying for $350 million in government loans to get the Model S into production, but it looks like Mercedes will have at least its B-class cars on the road first.

But as I suggested a year ago, Tesla’s real business may be in supplying the electric drive trains for other vehicles. The Roadster and Model S might just turn out to be really expensive demos. In a TechCrunch poll I inserted into that post (and again below), 77 percent of you agreed. I wonder if Mercedes has an exclusive license to Tesla’s battery technology, at least for a few years. (Update: Tesla says there is no exclusivity. According to spokesperson Rachel Konrad, “This investment obviously establishes a very close relationship between the two companies, but Tesla still plans to continue with its strategy of growing its powertrain business through sales of EV components. This investment does not preclude Tesla from growing such relationships with other automotive OEMs.”)

The Very First Cell Phone Ad From 1989

Fancy iPhone's beware, the cell phone bigger then you're head could make it's return if the joy of this commercial gets out...

Never Play HORSE With Lebron

YouPorn Still On Top Of Competition

Not as if anyone doubted it, but there is a battle royale of sorts to claim the top spot as user- uploaded porn king, and YouPorn is taking the cake right now. All the cleveland steamers and dutch rudders you can ask for....



A year ago, YouPorn had taken off as the top user-uploaded adult video site, attracting 3 million U.S. unique visitors in April '08, up 1300% year-over-year, according to Compete. A year later, YouPorn is still the king of kinky. The site scored 5.7 million uniques in April '09, up 86% year-over-year, according to Compete.

The main difference between YouTube and YouPorn (besides the content, of course) is that it has a competitor closely behind: Rival RedTube has kept up its growth as well, attracting 4.6 million unique visitors in April. Other rivals, like Megarotic and PornoTube, have gone limp.

Source: http://www.businessinsider.com/

Social Media Ad Spend Trending Downward

And everyone is waiting for Twitter to takeoff in terms of ad revenue? Get a clue!

Total social network ad spending in the U.S. will drop 3 percent to $1.1 billion in 2009, from $1.2 billion last year, according to projections from eMarketer. This is a major reversal: spending grew an estimated 33 percent in 2008 and 129 percent in 2007. The news shows that while social nets continue to attract millions of users, the ad dollars don’t seem to be following in kind.

Blame it on MySpace: The falloff in social net spending is largely pinned on the faltering of MySpace. The Fox Interactive social net accounts for nearly half of all U.S. ad spend in the space. Back in December, eMarketer expected $630 million in ad spending on MySpace in the U.S. this year. Now eMarketer projects that US ad spending on MySpace will reach just $495 million this year, down 15 percent from the estimated $585 million it produced last year. To be sure, MySpace and Facebook began looking at expanding their overseas advertising last year, as the U.S. market was already heading into a tailspin. But observers are keenly watching as to whether MySpace’s new CEO—and former Facebook exec—Owen Van Natta can begin to turn things around in the U.S.

Facebook, widgets not affected: MySpace’s troubles appear to be unique to itself, though eMarketer analyst Debra Aho Williamson does say that spending across social nets is diminishing. But Facebook still has a reason to smile, as eMarketer expects it to grow its U.S. ad revenues 9 percent in 2009, to $230 million, though it’s less than half of what its rival will take in. Ad spending on widgets and apps are also having very healthy growth, with projected spending to hit $70 million in ‘09, up 75 percent from the year before, albeit when spending was next to nothing. In general U.S. ad spend on all other social network sites combined is expected to rise an anemic 1 percent to $345 million.

Wayne Rooney's Top 20 Premier League Goals

20 minutes long yes, but an amazing compilation from one the world's top strikers....

Rooneys.Top.20

The Latest iPhone 4G Video Leak

Note some of the homepage shortcuts at about the 1:20 mark...

Great Heineken Commercial: Let A Stranger Drive You Home

Honoring Biz Markie, MADD, and everyone against drunk driving across the world...

The Internet Is In 500,000 Miles Worth Of Undersea Cables

Don't believe me? Read this article from popoular science about the people who guard and fix those cables. Will make you laugh the next time you hear someone babbling about how The Internet is powered by satellites.

http://www.popsci.com/scitech/article/2009-03/who-protects-intrnet

Spike Lee’s Kobe Bryant Documentary Three Exclusive Previews

Premiering May 16th on ESPN, "Kobe Doin' Work."

Manchester United - Arsenal Champions League Video Preview

In honor of today's second leg clash of the giants at the Emirates Stadium, Arsenal fighting back from 1-0 down, I offer this video trailer to get everyone's juices flowing....

The Greatest Seinfeld Back and Forth EVER

George: I'm sorry. I can't live knowing Ted Danson makes that much more than me. Who is he?

Jerry: He's somebody.n

George: What about me?

Jerry: You're nobody.

George: Why him? Why not me?

Jerry: He's good, you're not.

George: I'm better than him.

Jerry: You're worse, much much worse.

Virgin America Now Serving Absinthe?

Should this be a cause of concern? Do we need to be hallucinating on a plane?