Get Youth-enized!

As Duke is getting beaten by double digits right now, I need something to look away from the tv. [56-43 ‘Nova with 7:40 to go]

Before I get to that Direct TV commercial, I just want to embed this McDonalds commercial about their fish fillet. I know my brother hates this every time this comes on but the rest of my family cracks up and I’m gonna try to make it into a ringtone or an alarm.

So I’m not really a big fan of these Direct TV commercials but this one is pretty twisted and funny in its own way.

Is It Baseball Season Yet?

I was gonna write this up last night but got lazy and then after hearing Mike complain on Mike’d Up and getting notified that I had more John McCain related posts than Yankees, I decided to got procrastinating. I have usually made a couple of trips to the stadium each year since 2004 with the exception of last year. Hopefully I’ll pick up at least a game this year, probably a Blue Jays or Rays game in the summer but it seems more and more likely that it might be more of an economically suitable option to go watch a Major League game at Citi Field instead.

Yankees opened up single game tickets yesterday to the public at around 10 in the morning and due to class I didn’t get around to it until the middle of the afternoon. I wasn’t going in expecting there would be many tickets (reasonably priced anyways) available and that’s exactly the case that I found. I can’t find anything available under $100 each for a pair of tickets yet tickets right behind home plate are still available at the very cheap price of $2,625 each. I have been trying to purchase those $5 ticket for specially marked games but I guess it is safe to say those are probably sold out since it keeps coming up as unavailable or marked as regular price.

As for pre-season predictions and over/under numbers, expect a post on it before the end of the month or first few days of April at the latest.

P.S. 10 days until Major League Baseball 2009 Opening Night.

What Has Your High School Done Recently?

So this is just an amazing story out of my high school of roughly 140 kids where they have collected over 14,000 lbs. of food for M.C.F.O.O.D.S., the Middlesex County emergency food network to help 60 different food pantries and soup kitchens all across Middlesex County.

I have heard there were some incentives academically but nothing is confirmed so I won’t comment on that yet but I think anything you do to urge kids to raise more to help the needy is a worthwhile cause in my mind.

If anyone from the Academy has any more details on this, feel free to comment or let me know and I’ll put it up here and credit you of course.

140-something kids did that. What has your high school done? I don’t care, I’m not ashamed to say that I went to the Middlesex County Academy for Science, Mathematics and Engineering Technologies.

Earth Hour 2009

I remember this taking place last year and I definitely plan on participating in it this year. So here it is, turn off your non-essential lights, your electronics, and anything else that is power hungry.

From melting glaciers to dramatic weather patterns, climate change is already impacting life on Earth. On March 28, 2009, at 8:30 pm, tens of millions of people will demonstrate concern for our planet by turning out their lights for one hour. Earth Hour reminds us that we all have a role to play in fighting climate change.

I think global climate change is a critical issue that is leading to melting glaciers, dramatic weather anomalies as well as changes in weather patterns all across the world. This event is not about how much money is being saved in that given hour but more about garnering support to show that each and every one of us can work together to make a difference.

Earth Hour turns off non-essential lighting only. Lights necessary for public safety will not go out. Earth Hour has been conducted safely and without incident in more than 100 cities around the world.

I have sent a letter to my campus newspaper and I certainly urge you to write to your local and collegiate newspapers to spread the word. The success of this event is not measured in dollars and cents or how much energy is saved in one given hour but rather the numbers of people that come out in support of the event.

I have attached the sample template that you can use to write to your local papers as given by Earth Hour 2009:

CAMPUS NEWSPAPER LETTER TO THE EDITOR

To the Editor:

From melting glaciers to dramatic weather patterns, climate change is already impacting life on Earth. On March 28, 2009, at 8:30 pm, tens of millions of people will demonstrate concern for our planet by turning out their lights for one hour. Earth Hour reminds us that we all have a role to play in fighting climate change.

I urge the [CAMPUS NAME] community take part and support Earth Hour, which is being led by the World Wildlife Fund.

More than 50 million people participated in 2008, as lights went dark at the Empire State Building, Golden Gate Bridge, and Sydney’s Opera House. Even Google went dark. Earth Hour 2009 will be even bigger with more than 240 cities and hundreds of college campuses taking part.

This is a critical moment for our planet. Through Earth Hour we can collectively raise our voices and demand that our elected leaders join with the global community to find solutions to this urgent problem. Earth Hour is free. Visit www.EarthHourUS.org to learn more.

On March 28 at 8:30, let’s all turn out for Earth Hour and for the future of our planet.

Sincerely,

YOUR NAME

An Angry Jon Stewart At His Best

Whether it is fair or not for Jim Cramer to be the face of Jon Stewart’s nightly tirade can be debated some other time but I don’t think I have seen Stewart as pissed off as he was last night. The fall of the financial markets and the deceptive game the networks played by saying they did not see this coming really seemed to have gotten him ticked and not in the way he was angry against Paul Begala and Tucke Carlson of CNN’s Crossfire. 

You have to give some sort of credit to Cramer for coming on The Daily Show to face the criticism — or the fact that he was incredibly naive to think he could come on the show and it would be a cakewalk and the bad press would just blow over.

You can say a lot of things regarding Jon Stewart about whether he has his liberal bias or whether he sometimes takes quotes out of context with going after people but one thing you cannot accuse him of is being unprepared for an interview. He has always shown his intelligence and ability to be quick on his feet in almost a Meet-The-Press kind of way by allowing Cramer to go up against his own words yesterday which led to his downfall.

Mr. Cramer can now hide behind his tears and hope that his show does not get canceled but I think this is only a start of the way things need to change on the cable news networks and it is about time those networks starting giving Jon Stewart the credit he deserves for journalistic integrity — something they all lack.

Here is the entire unedited interview in three parts:

Part 1:

Part 2:

Part 3: