The Fall Of The Phoenix Suns: Thank You Steve Kerr

Ever since I was a small boy, I loved the Phoenix Suns. My older brother was a die hard Suns fan, and he got me hooked on it as a kid. I remember the days of the Madhouse on McDowell. And I remember the mighty day, that one Charles Barkley came to Phoenix.

I watched that season as the Suns went 62-20. And made it to the NBA Finals. That season, Easter day, 1993, was the day I went to my first Suns game. It was the most exciting day of my life, my brother took me and the Suns beat the Utah Jazz to capture the Pacific Division title. Sadly, sitting in the hospital room where my Dad had just undergone triple bypass surgery, I watched as John Paxson rose up, and launched a wide open 3, ending the season, and destroying championship dreams.

After that season, all hope was lost, there were many years of heartbreak to follow, it was almost a decade later, when hope returned.

2004 - 2005, Steve Nash, returned to Phoenix, and joined rookie of the year Amare Stoudemire, and Shawn Marion, and the Suns, once again, went 62-20. The best record in the NBA. It was then that Championship dreams returned. Sadly, injuries plagued the Suns in the Playoffs, and after making it to the Western Conference Finals, the Suns lost to the Spurs.

I was destroyed. But, was happy to see that the team would return the following season, with all players together to just get stronger.

2005 - 2006, The year of the Championship? Could have been. Before the season even started, Amare Stoudemire underwent surgery to his knee, and missed all but three games that season. Without the star forward, the Suns entered the Playoffs and fell 3-1 against the Lakers. But, a miracle happened. Two miracles, their names? Raja Bell and Tim Thomas. Brought the Suns back, and the Suns eliminated the lakers, 4-3. The Suns then went on, and made it to the Conference Finals once again, only to lose to the Mavericks, and once again, be haunted my injuries. The season was over, just shy of a NBA Finals appearance once again.

2006 - 2007, The Suns were the favorites to win the NBA Title this season. Back and stronger than ever with Amare in full force, the Suns were back. And headed for glory... That is until the biggest incident in NBA Playoff history. The San Antonio Screw Job. With seconds left in a Suns victory, Robert Horry checked Steve Nash into the scorers table, they got into each others faces, and Amare and Boris left the bench area to help calm the fight down. But in return, Amare and Boris were suspended the following game for leaving the bench area. How is that a screw job you ask? Tim Duncan also left the bench area. And with that simple suspension over nothing, the Suns lost, and this time, just shy of the Western Finals, they were elminated by the Spurs, in the Semi Finals.

That summer. Summer of 2007. Steve Kerr took over as General Manager of the Phoenix Suns.

And during that season, the biggest trade of all time happened. Took me back to the day I heard Barkley was on the way. The Suns had traded the player I hated the most, Marion, to Miami, for SHAQ. Shaq was brought in for the soul purpose of kicking the crap out of the Spurs, and finally catching the NBA Title. Shaq was in the stands before his debut, stood up, and pointed to his finger. The crowd went crazy. Critics got all over Shaq for being too old, he said it was making him upset, and when he gets upset, hes known to do things, like win championships.... Hey wait a minute, take a look at that picture, what finger is he pointing at?

The Suns were eliminated in the first round of the playoffs. By the Spurs. 4-1.

Confusion struck, no one knew what to do. My heart hurt. I thought for sure the Suns would finally destroy the Spurs in the playoffs. And yet, nothing.

Shaq laid down some mighty bold words, saying that the next season, the Suns would not be elminated in the first round. He promised, garaunteed it.

And in a way, he was right, the Suns won't be eliminated from the first round, because, there is no first round. The Suns went from Conference Finals appearances, to Semi Finals, to First Round, to not even making the Playoffs. This is the first time in 16 years, that Shaq will not make the playoffs. So what was the main problem besides Shaqs LIES?

Steve Kerr.

All was well, Steve Kerr came along, and suddenly, things went to crap. Complete crap. The Shaq trade was a bad idea now that everyone thinks about it. And the trade earlier this season, sending away Raja Bell and Boris Diaw, was even worse. Not bringing back the coach that brought the Suns from no playoffs to conference finals and bringing in a coach that destroyed it all. Steve Kerr has single handedly dismantled and destroyed the Phoenix Suns.

This summer, Nash, and Shaq, will probably be traded. And the Suns will be back to having to rebuild, and waiting possibly another decade, before they are back on top.

R.I.P. Run and Gun Phoenix Suns.

Movela: Netflix Queue Manager Blackberry App Review

So I recently got a Blackberry which I love oh so very much.

Another thing I love oh so very much is Netflix.

Word came out that a queue manager application would be coming out for the Blackberry App Store, and I got all kinds of happy.

It was $2.99 cents to get this little application onto my phone. I dreamed of being able to browse movie titles, and add them to my queue at ease! And have glorious fun with it.

Well guess what, my dream turned into waking up in the middle of the night having to crap really bad....

I got this on my phone and instantly was annoyed to see the the ugly interface, which looked EXACTLY like the FREE netflix application that you can download. I thought spending the extra couple bucks would mean it would look sleek and be easy to use. Oh and browsing movie titles? Forget about it. You can only search movie titles. But once you find that movie title you want to add.... Good luck on adding it to your queue.

First you find the movie you want, there is no button that says ADD TO QUEUE, you have to open up your menu and select add to queue. Then you are taken to a screen where you enter in the number at which you want this movie in your queue to be put at. So I put 1. Cause I want this movie to be the next one shipped to me. UPLOAD FAILED. What? I'm not uploading anything I just wanna add-- UPLOAD FAILED. I think, hmmm odd. I go to my queue. No movie there.

Well that is about where the use of this application ended for me. $2.99 down the drain. So if you are thinking about getting this on your Blackberry DON'T DO IT! It's impossible to add a movie, the interface is ugly and is hard to navigate through. Just don't do it. Use the Netflix mobile site instead. Or just seek out the free netflix managers.

I rate this application one big huge fat F.

Enjoy that $2.99 Movela, that is the last of my money you will be getting.

Dear Eric Schmidt, I'd Rather Take a Shit with my Laptop

It should be obvious to most people that the newspaper industry is dying. Deservedly so. Maybe they will be stimulated for being "too big fail." It seems to work for everything else.

Dinosaurs become extinct. Life changes. Businesses evolve or die. At one point I'm sure there were many buggy whip makers. Horse shoes sold like hot cakes, probably before hot cakes even sold at all. There used to be thousands and thousands of telephone operators- when long distance phone calls cost dollars, not pennies, per minute.

What's my point? Well I was reading this article ( Google CEO Sees newsppaer future in Advertising)on Yahoo Finance. Google CEO Eric Schmidt was speaking at the Newspaper Association of America. He was supposedly giving "ideas" to newspapers and magazines. They obviously don't have any of their own. One "idea" mentioned was a sort of Wikipedia for medicine that would let users edit it. Too bad that's been done many times before ( and those wikis have been around for years) and does not actually quailify as an idea.

Some of his other comments regarding newspapers just seemed like he was ass kissing the newspaper publishers. Maybe he was sincere. I don't know. To me it comes off a little patronizing.

He is right about many things, such as the need for quality advertising. However I really don't get this one:

"
"From my perspective, the online experience can be thought of as terrible compared to what I view as this wonderful experience with magazines and newspapers," Schmidt said."

Really?
Really?

It is entirely possible he is only talking about the internet experience on mobile phones here and advocating better mobile technology, but it's hard to tell from the article. Thanks AP!

Is the CEO of Google really calling the online experience "terrible" and print media "wonderful?"

And what exactly is this "experience?" In my experience people do most of their reading on the toilet. I would much rather take a shit with my laptop than any news paper or magazine. It may not be the most convenient thing to carry in the bathroom and setup, but it beats the paper any day. I don't need a small ass mobile phone.

Let me Tell you Something About Newspapers:

I don't hate newspapers at all. I love(d) them. I used to read multiple newspapers every day, and I had many magazine subscriptions. I read the paper more than anyone I knew. When we got free papers at work I was often the only person reading them. I would read anything at any time. I took advantage of all discount magazine subscriptions and professional rates from Forbes, the Wall Street Journal, and so on. I read dailies, weeklies, locals, regionals, sports and business specialties, you get the picture.

But I have barely read a newspaper in years. I read a couple niche industry magazines and that's about it.

Why?

Internet > Print Media

It's not even close. I read for information, stimulation, curiosity. I want to develop knowledge, be provoked to investigate things further.

Print Media is highly filtered and biased. I don't mean a "liberal" bias or a "conservative" bias. But they obviously have an agenda. Serving corporate masters is a big part of it. Access to the political class and bureacrats is a high priority. Publishers know where their bread is buttered.

News papers don't break stories that really matter to people. No, that happens on the internet. Investigative Journalism? Bloggers do a better job and actually follow up. Bloggers Save Lives. Print Journalists Serve Masters.

Print Media is Slow. We live in a 24 Hour World.

Ted Turner understood this when he launched CNN. We used to have a daily newspaper and nightly news. Now there are several 24 Hour news channels and the broadcast networks all have several newscasts per day, "up to the minute" updates, morning news, noon news, 4am news,etc.

The Internet is 24 hours. I can check Google News at any time. If I want to know who won the game I can find out right away. I can even follow along online.

There will always be people who don't trust what they read "on the internet" and prefer the paper. That's OK. They will die off, just like the newspapers.

Why trust the paper? In my eyes print media has lost a lot of credbility in recent years. There is a lot of garbage and low quality content on the internet for sure, but there is also far more quality content and information. Newspapers have "editorial" constraints. They kill stories that don't please their backers. In many cases their editorial policy is completely controlled by local bureacrats and corrupt politicians or other community "leaders." They work for the political class at the expense of "regular" people. The information presented is strongly filtered.

For the most part, Print Media is about the consolidation of power and the status quo. Print journalists enjoy their status and the protectionism afforded by their "credentials." They are good at presenting false dilemmas and the illusion of A or B "choices." Print Media ignores or erases important facts and participants from stories. They blame it on lack of resources and limited column inches. That doesn't happen on the internet. You get the full story. You may get multiple versions and some false stories, but you will find the full story.

If 4 political candidates participate in a debate, your local paper will probably have a story titled something like " Candidate A Debates Candidate B." Candidates C and D aren't mentioned. They are probably even cropped out of or simply erased from pictures. If they are mentioned at all, it's " Mr. B and Mr. C were also present", preceeded by 2 pages of fawning over Mr. A and Mr. B. Most likely Candidates A and B essentially agree on 90% of all issues. B and C present the only alternative positions or any nuance whatsoever, but the paper ingores their existence. Why? "Bloggers" don't do this. And that's why corrupt politicians hate bloggers. I guess they aren't bought off like "reputable" journalists.

Many news papers deliver a shitty product. If the market rejects that product, I consider that justice.

Do newspapers deserve to die? I'm sure some do. That's life. Many can survive if they really want to. It may not be in their present form and they will have cuts and layoffs. Perhaps they have strong brands that can translate to other forms of media or entirely new business models. Maybe the printed paper becomes a marketing tool to drive traffic to their websites, where the real content exists and the real money is made ( if they know what they are doing). They could explore different subscription models and levels. Offer free web content with premium access for subscribers, PDF-only paper delivery options, hybrid paper/premium online subscriptions. Encourage community participation. Have blogs ( real ones have comments), forums, wikis,etc. Don't shut out valuable contributions due to arbitrary "credentials." Investigate stories- don't be the de facto PR firm for the local government. Good journalists can make it online. They can make it anywhere. Get clients to transfer their advertising to your websites. Be creative. Give them value. If car dealers, realtors, plumbers, and roofers are buying ads in your paper, sell them targeted internet ads. Show them value and make money. If you don't know, ask somebody. That's what we do "on the internet."

But don't blame the internet for killing your business. You did a good enough job of that yourselves.

In the meantime if I want to read something, I'm using the net. Everything is there, ( mostly) unfiltered. If I want to know who won the game, my town council election results in real-time, driving directions to my son's friend's birthday party, recipes for dinner tonight, how to fix my garbage disposal, it's all there. The most I can expect out of a newspaper is occasionally learning about something to research online later.

By the way, I just found a local contractor for a home repair. Did I find him in the local paper? No. Yellow Pages? No. Geo-targeted Google Ads. If the local paper had any clue what they were doing, those ad dollars could have been theirs. The revenue is there, especially when you figure out you don't need all the overhead.

You know what pisses me off?

Those fucking ads on websites that scream 'CONGRATULATIONS YOU JUST WON A FREE APPLE IPOD JUST CLICK ON THIS AD AND FILL OUT THE FORM ON THE NEXT SCREEN' while I'm listening to iTunes with the volume up loud. Cuz the music is loud sure, but that fucking shit is like 10 times louder. And then you click on the ad, and do you actually think for a second you're gonna win an ipod? You're a fucking idiot if you fall for that shit. So fuck you ipod ad people.

That's almost as stupid as watching a downloaded version of Wolverine and then bitching that it sucks, when it's missing 10 minutes of key plot scenes and all the CGI and music that goes in to the movie. Yeah real fucking stupid.

Hannah Montana The Movie Trailer

So if you are wondering, "what, the fuck?!"

Well.....


Posted on Twitter earlier today..
Devon - I'm not gonna lie, that new Hannah Montana movie appeals to me.


Waits for Devon to post that he only posted that as an April Fools joke...