Ultra Combos

One of the new features of Street Fighter IV is "Ultra Combos." This is an even more elaborate version of the characters' special moves. It initiates a nice 3-D closeup for the character performing it. MahaloVideoGames put together a video on YouTube that shows all of the ultras. Check it out:

More Elevator Classics

I had two classic elevator characters from today... on the same ride! I had just arrived at work and the elevator opened up. The lobby was crowded and it was pretty obvious that the elevator was going to be packed. The first guy that walked in pushed the button to his floor... and then just stood there, blocking the panel from everyone else. Everyone that walked in after him had to reach at an odd angle to hit their buttons. A woman walked in and started text messaging on her phone. She had the buttons set at full volume too, so everyone heard. The doors opened a few times on the way up. She kept texting away. The elevator stopped on my floor. As I got off, she stepped up and hit the button below. She was so busy texting that she walked in and never hit her button.

No 5-game Streak

The Bulls had to lose sometime, but against the Raptors? Today's game was exciting though. The Raptors had a good lead going into the 4th quarter. At times it looked like it was going to be a blowout victory, but the Bulls came all the way back and played some great defense. Ben Gordon hit a buzzer beater to send the game into overtime. He's definitely gone back to his clutch, Ben Jordan mode this year and we'll definitely need that as the season winds down. The Bulls couldn't come up with the plays in the final seconds though and lost 134-129. Gordon finished with 37 and Rose had 23 & 9 assists. Noah had 16... a season high? With the loss, they dropped back to #8, just 2 games ahead of Charlotte. Even though I like the 8th spot better, I want them to move up the seeding because it's more secure at this point. There are just a handful for game between 4 and 8 and I just want the Bulls to get in at this point. We'll worry about the opponent later. If the team's confidence is up, I believe they can beat any team... even Garnett's Celtics. If they continue to play like the past 2 weeks, they can do it.

The Bulls have won 10 of their last 12 games. The losses were today's OT to the Raptors and the game against the Lakers when they fell asleep in the 4th. They had 4 games in a row, which hasn't happened in like 2 years.

Tech Deals of the Week (3/29-4/4)

There's not much going on this week with the regular circulars other than a couple of lame flash sales and a GPS, but CompUSA does havea pretty good 72-hour sale ending on 3/31. It includes the 2 LCDs I mentioned yesterday as well as a number of good barebones and system deals. Directron also has a bunch of weekend deals... mostly barebones and systems as well.

Flash Sales
- 16 GB PNY @ ST for $39.99
- 16 GB Geek Squad @ BB for $39.99

Omnitech GPS @ ST for $79.99
I don't normally put GPS systems here, but this one is an unusually good deal. It's a 4.3" widescreen model. Usually the ones on sale at this price are 3" regular aspect ratio. This none also speaks street names. Normally, that's a premium that adds to the price. The catch with this one is that it's not one of the big names. There's also a $35 mail-in rebate involved.

Acer LCD Sale!

I don't know how long this will last, but these 2 models below are great deals already and to top it off, CompUSA also has a $1.99 shipping offer. No sales tax for us NYers!

Acer 23" LCD @ CU for $199.99
This model is a 1080p, 16:9 model with HDMI input. It's great if you watch a lot of widescreen movies or if you want a dedicated monitor for your PS3 or XBox 360. [click here]

Acer 22" LCD @ CU for $149.99
At 22", 1680x1050 and 2500:1 contrast ratio, I'm not just recommending people to buy this... I'm recommending purchasing 2 of these and setting up a dual screen. [click here]

Battle for 7

After the loss to the Lakers during the weekend, the Bulls responded by beating the Wizards 101-99 and then the Pistons last night 99-91. Now they're within 1 game of the 7th seed. They continue to get consistent help from Salmons and Miller. It seems like these are the right 2 guys they need to get back to where they were a couple of years ago when they came out of nowhere to make it into the playoffs. The 5th through 8th seeds are all very close. I'm still nervous about the Bulls getting locked into 7. I'd like either 6 or 8 because 7 means they'd face the celtics. And when Garnett is on that team, they just can't beat them. The Cavs have the best record, but the Bulls have played better against them.

Weekend Sports Wrap Up

Muay Thai
Friday Night Fights Muay Thai night was great... the best I've been to. Here are the results:

- Ruiz def Sumikora (decision after 3 rounds)
- Scott def Chien (KO in 2nd)
- Chattra def Scappeccia (decision after 3 rounds)
- Espinal def Galka (decision after 3 rounds)
- Lee def Maguire (decision after 3 rounds)
- Yee drw Manohoran
- Grant def Ceasar (KO in 1st)
- Sidhu def Foster (decision after 5 rounds)
- Rivera def Aguirre (KO in 2nd)
- Baptist def Clarke (TKO in 4th)
- Petcu Def Nichols (decision after 3 rounds)
- Ahmed def Ash (decision after 5 rounds)
- Tarrant def Fisher (KO in 2nd)

I forgot to mention before that Caesar fought out of the Fairtex camp and got KOed easily. That's the 2nd guy from Fairtex that I've seen at one of these things get eliminated! Fire these guys!

Basketball
The Bulls played a good game against the Lakers, but couldn't follow the pattern and get a win. They were leading for a good part of the game, but had nothing in the 4th quarter. That's not typical of a team that has Gordon and Rose on it. They did a good job on Kobe, but let the other guys beat them. So they weren't able to get 4 straight. I think that's the hump now. They've had 3-game streaks this year. Now that have to break out of 4 if they're going to get the confidence to pull a season defining 9 or 10-game streak. Time is running out though. I think there are like 12 or 13 games left.

Baseball
In the World Baseball Classic, Korea easily defeated Venezuela and Japan eliminated the US last night. US and Venezuela were the 2 teams that had the most MLB players too! But there's another way of looking at it. Teams with MLB players are trying to avoid injury and are constantly looking at playing time and pitch counts. For those teams, the top priority is the upcoming season. The WBC is an exhibition. For teams like Japan and Korea, the WBC is a higher priority than their upcoming season because it gets them worldwide recognition. So the final (on now) is a rematch of the 2006 tournament... Japan vs. Korea. It's better that way because both teams will be going all out.

Tech Deals of the Week (3/22-3/28)

Flash Sales
- 8 GB SanDisk @ BB, RS or ST for $19.99
- 16 GB SanDisk @ ST for $39.99
- 8 GB Ativa @ OD for $19.99
- 4 GB Verbatim @ OD for $12.99
- 32 GB Verbatim @ OD for $89.99

Acer Aspire One @ CU for $241.96
The Atom N270 models continue to go on sale to make way for the N280's. This is about $60 off the regular price. I looked at this model in the store before and it feels more comfortable than the Asus EEE PC of the same size. Somehow the keys look more refined. New netbook models are being released all the time, but this is a steal even if it's an older model. [click here]

8 GB iPod Nano @ TG for $147.00
It's only $2, but $2 is $2 when it comes to Apple products. If you happen to be near a Target store, you might as well save the $2!

Store Key: BB = Best Buy, CC = Circuit City, CU = CompUSA.com, DI = Directron, NE = NewEgg.com, OD = Office Depot, RS = Radio Shack, ST = Staples, TG = Target

Friday Night Fights

It was another full Muay Thai lineup at Friday Night Fights last night. This one even topped the tournament because 12 fights were schedule! The event was sold out and packed. The Liam Tarrant vs. Marcus Fisher rematch was what everyone was waiting for. Click the slideshow below for photos and details on the night's matches:

Got it All Back!

The Bulls lost 3 in a row and just got 3 back after doing their duty to the Thunder last night. As in their typical wins, they played from behind and had a great 2nd half. Gordon & Rose had good games as usual, but now they have additional consistency from Miller & Salmons. Rose had a perfect 2nd half... no misses! He scored 20 of his 25. They almost let it slip away at the end. It was a little more dramatic than it should've been. The Thunder closed within 3 and Durant missed a 3-point shot that would've tied the game. Tyrus Thomas was able to hit some clutch free throws, which is a huge improvement in his game. I still get nervous when he dribbles though.

So I was wrong, the Bulls didn't drop this one. They really need to go into this weekend with some confidence as they have the Lakers on Saturday. It's a game that they should lose. So according to their usual pattern, they should win this one!

Mirror Match

Last night, it was the Chicago Celtics vs. the Boston Celtics... green vs. green. They pretty much switched gameplay too. Chicago won 127-121! It wasn't really a defensive game, but the Bulls did a good job of protecting the ball with only 9 turnovers for the game. The scoring came from the new guys, Salmons & Miller with 38 and 21 respectively. Ben Gordon had a great 2nd half and did a good job driving and dunking. Miller had a double-double with 14 rebounds. Rose had his usual 8 assists. On the Boston side, Pierce was the leader with 37. Garnett was injured and didn't play, which was the biggest factor. He's been the Bulls killer all the time. He did it in Minnesota and was doing it in Boston. Without him, the Bulls have dominated the Celtics.

With this win, the Bulls continue their pattern of winning games they shouldn't and dropping the easy ones. They've got the Thunder tonight... hopefully they can break this pattern. Their second half opponents are mostly weaker team, which sounds like an advantage, but not when they play to the level of each opponent.

Transformers 2 Preview (Part 3)

I wonder if I read an earlier interview with Michael Bay when I wrote about the Autobots and Decepticons. The official site lists a couple of different Autobots:

Sideswipe
He was a red Lamborghini originally, but will be a Corvette concept as the relationship with GM continues. I can live with this one because he's still a sports car... not really an extreme change. The new Corvette also has a nice futuristic look.

Jolt
Jolt was a minor character in the Transformers world... a Mini-con. So it's weird that he's appearing at all in this movie. He'll be a Chevy Volt, which is pretty close to the mini car he was as a toy.

Skids & Mudflap
These are supposed to be twins that transform into Chevy Beat and Trax mini cars. This reminds me of the twin toys they had where the robot forms looked the same, but each one turned into a different vehicle.

These 4 characters are all confirmed as I've seen a lot of footage of them already.

Related Links: Official site, GM, IMDB, Wikipedia

Benjamin Button

I was watching a bit of the Oscars a few weeks ago and noticed so many categories that the Curious Case of Benjamin Button was nominated for. I didn't know that much about the movie except that it was about a guy that was born old and grew younger through the years. I was wondering why it was in so many categories... 13 to be exact. I watched the movie out of curiosity and actually enjoyed it. It had an interesting almost fairytale-like story. The acting was pretty good for every character. But what surprised me the most was the special effects and makeup. All of the transformations of Brad Pitt's appearance through the various stages of the title character's life were very convincing. Cate Blanchett also went through a lot of makeup, making her much younger and much older. The cinematography, lighting and colors were also very artistic. I thought it was ab excellent period piece with some sci-fi mixed in. Sometimes the really good effects are the subtle ones... making things blend in so much that viewers don't think they're special effects. the Curious Case of Benjamin Button was very successful in this... in the same way Forrest Gump was in 1994.

Related Links: Official Site, IMDB, Wikipedia, Trailer on YouTube

Passwords

We were doing some data recovery for a user's system that had a hardware failure. Luckily his hard drive was still intact and we were able to move everything over. As we were doing a file copy, we noticed one folder where the user kept text files for all of his passwords. There are a lot of passwords in everyday life these days, but making text files for them almost defeats the purpose and security of a password. Not being able to remember a password also defeats its purpose. Here are some tips for managing passwords:

- If memory is a problem, then just use a few across the board that you'll remember. You don't need a different password of every account. That can be overwhelming. You can have categories. A password for all shopping sites, one for work-related logins, etc.

- Don't use obvious items like birthday or maiden names. Those can be easily discovered.

- Mix lowercase, uppercase, numbers and special characters. This can make them harder to remember, so try picking a compound word and throw in some uppercase characters. Then replace some with special characters.

- For security reasons, don't email passwords or publish them on websites (even intranet sites). If you have to document them somewhere, make an Excel spreadsheet. Of course you'll have to password protect that!

Example: Sw0rdF1$h

Office Lingo: Solid Clicks

There was a presentation today where the department heads were bragging about their products. One of the speakers was talking about one of the company's websites and was spitting out traffic stats. He mentioned that the site was getting a certain number of "solid clicks." Not just clicks... solid ones. The first thing I said to myself was, "solid clicks? As opposed to what? Glancing clicks? Is that like when you really click the mouse button hard?" He was just trying to make a boring traffic stat sound more exciting and naturally didn't know much about the Internet or computers for that matter. Still, it amazes me what the senior staff comes up with.

Tech Deals of the Week (3/15-3/21)

Flash Sales
- 8 GB SanDisk @ RS for $19.99
- 8 GB Sony @ ST for $19.99
- 8 GB PNY @ BB for $19.99
- 16 GB PNY @ BB for $39.99

LCD Sales
Monitors continue to have low prices, but these 2 below are 2 of the best 24" models out there. It's a steal. If you need a large monitor or even want a dual screen setup, this is a good week to go for it!
- 24" Acer @ ST for $229.90
- 24" Dell @ ST for $259.90

Giving Back

Giving back is usually a good thing in sports referring to players giving something back to the community. But when it comes to the Bulls, it means giving back their standings. They had just won 2 in a row last week. Now they lost 3 in a row. If they keep this up, they don't deserve a playoff spot. The loss to the Magic is acceptable, but not the Heat & Sixers. Their success against the Heat has totally been reversed. For some reason, they can no longer stop Wade as he's having career games now. They were just flat against the Magic. Only Salmons showed up to play really. Against the Sixers, they at least played well and lost by 3. They have a relatively easy 2nd half schedule, but they're not taking advantage of it. With tonight's loss, they dropped out of the 8th seed and left the Bucks alone at that spot... a true Friday the 13th.

So if the Bulls end up not making it, I would actually like to see the Knicks get in only to face the Celtics & Marbury in the first round. That would be a great story!

Office Lingo: Urgent

"Urgent" is the favorite word of the sales staff. They use it so much that it's lost its meaning. Everything is "urgent" and every email they send is always marked "high priority." No one loves themselves more than salespeople. Whatever they do is the most important thing in the world. Everyone should drop all of their tasks to tend to them. So what does "urgent" mean to me? It means low priority and bottom of my list. Whenever we get "urgent" requests from a salesperson, we bump them to the bottom of the list unless they learn to roll over, fetch, sit and ask nicely! They just can't understand that when they start marking everything as "urgent," then there's no scale to go by and nothing becomes urgent. I guess their parents never taught them about the boy who cried "wolf."

Transformers 2 Preview (Part 2)

New Decepticons

Soundwave
Where there's a Blaster, there has to be a Soundwave. He's going to be a compact sports car, so it'll be interesting how they integrate the "cassettes." I hope Soundwave gets to keep his voice from the original cartoon.

Galvatron
Obviously, it was cheap to kill off the Decepticon leader in the first movie. So Galvatron was pretty predictable. I'm glad that he won't be a cheesy purple laser gun though... probably a cooler alien jet than Megatron was.

Laserbeak
Laserbeak won't be part of Soundwave. Instead, he's going to be Galvatron's parrot. Yup... a parrot! That's quite a downgrade from condor!

Devastator
This one is confusing because Devastator was used in the first movie as a tank. The original name of the tank was the Combaticon, Brawl. The second movie is supposed to be the same character rebuilt as a combiner that breaks up into 4 robots (as opposed to 6 in the cartoon).

Transformers 2 Preview (Part 1)

New Autobots

I read an official interview with Michael Bay and here's the lineup of Autobots for this Summer's anticipated sequel:

Grimlock
This one was likely by popular demand, but word is that he'll be a military Hummer. My first impression is... that's a bit small. In the first movie, Ratchet was a rescue Hummer. Grimlock is supposed to be a giant robot... much bigger than the "car" Autobots. It'll be interesting to see the transformation though... will he go from Hummer to t-rex or will he be a robot that looks like the classic Grimlock? They have to retain the voice though. It defines his personality.

SkyLynx
The giant dragon that was a space shuttle w/ transport will retain his size. Skylynx is going to be a DC10. He'll be impressive to see just because of the sheer size. Will the Decepticons have someone to match?

HotRod
HotRod will be a concept Corvette. So the GM commercial continues! But I think this matches HotRod's personality. The only thing I fear about having this character in the movie is the way the old story went. He eventually became the leader after Optimus died. I hope Optimus doesn't die... it's only the 2nd movie!

Blaster
Blaster and Soundwave and their army of cassettes were my favorite toys. I knew they were trying to get Soundwave into the first one, but couldn't figure out what to tranform him into. Blaster will be a van with a bunch of minibots. I would guess he'll have minis that matchup with Soundwaves popular ones... Steeljaw, Ramhorn, Rewind and/or Eject.

Wheelie
It's odd that Wheelie was picked because he's more of a minor character, but matching him up with a Smartcar was perfect. Wheelie was one of the minicars that would speak in rhymes.

Tech Deals of the Week (3/8-3/14)

Circuit City
Today is the final day of the Circuit City liquidation. From what I've heard, many of the prices haven't been spectacular, but maybe they'll be desperate on the last day. So now, Best Buy will be the only large electronics/computer store around. How long will it last against Online competition though?

Office Depot
There were no details in this week's circular, just "Red Tag Clearance Blowout" in black, white & red. I wonder if this is just a sale or if Office Depot is heading in the same direction as Circuit City.

Flash Sales
- 8 GB Geek Squad @ BB for $19.99
- 8 GB PNY @ ST for $19.99
- 16 GB PNY @ ST for $39.99

25" I-Inc LCD @ CU for $257.20
This is primarily a computer monitor, but can also be used as a bedroom digital TV as it has a 1080p resolution and HDMI input. It's a great price either way.

19" Acer LCD @ ST for $109.98
This is the lowest price I've seen for the new 19" model. Look for the smaller monitors to drop in price as manufacturers head in the direction of 16:9 aspect ratios.

2 Gigaware Webcams @ RS for $20
Same offer as last week.

Store Key: BB = Best Buy, CC = Circuit City, CU = CompUSA.com, DI = Directron, NE = NewEgg.com, OD = Office Depot, RS = Radio Shack, ST = Staples, TG = Target

8th Spot

With a blowout victory over Scott Skiles' Bucks, the Bulls took over sole possession of the 8th seed last night. Ben Gordon and Derrick Rose both had spectacular performances. Gordon had 34 with 7 assists. Rose had 27 with 6 assists. Salmons added 21... solid since he came aboard. The Bulls have been pretty good since the All-Star break and trades. It's been inconsistent, but at least they're on the winning end of things. The losses are perplexing though. They dropped one against the lowly Bobcats and then won the next 2... Warriors & Bucks. They have Miami coming up on Monday. It's a team they should beat, so hopefully they can stop this streak of losing to crappy teams. Of course I'd like for them to keep beating the better teams though! There's roughly one month left, so it's important to keep focused. They need to make it into the playoffs just to get back to where they were a few years ago.

The 8th seed is actually ideal because chances are they would face Cleveland... a team they matchup well against and can possibly beat. If they move up to the 7th seed, they would face the Celtics, who has had their number since acquiring Garnett. If they really push it and get to the 6th spot, they would face Orlando... could go either way.

Subway Tales: The Dumbifying

In M. Night Shymalan's The Happening, an airborne virus was causing people to lose their mind and commit suicide. There must've been something similar going on today, but instead of suicide, people were just becoming stupid:

1 Stop, 2 Seats
Two people got out of their seats to get off. These 2 small girls each made moves for the seat. They must've alternated advancing and backing off like 3 or 4 times. They were both pretty small and could've easily fit in the 2 adjacent seats. Somehow, only one ended up sitting. To top it off, she got off at the next stop. So after all of the shuffling, she sat for less than one stop.

Exiting the Station
On my way out of the station, there was a wave of people entering the station and hording all of the turnstiles... all except 2. The large woman trying to exit was right in front of one of the turnstiles, but instead of exiting and creating a path for the rest of the passengers leaving, she stepped aside to let people enter... and she stepped aside to block the 2nd free turnstile, preventing everyone from exiting the station. She deserved a ticket for obstructing traffic!

Elevator
The outbreak spread all the way to the office too. As we waited for the elevator on the 1st floor, one passenger came out and stood there... dumbified and just long enough for the doors to close. So about 10 of us were waiting. Then the crowd started to pile up. Another elevator arrived. Another idiot just cut past everyone that was already waiting and got in... who died and made him king?

Macs Rule... Even When They Break!

We got a call this morning about someone's computer not working. I started giving them instructions on troubleshooting. I mentioned the usual CTRL+ALT+DEL to check processes and the task tray background programs. The user couldn't find all this stuff. Then it occured to me that he was a Mac user. So I switched gears and gave him the force quit keys and had him check out the background apps in the upper right. Mac users are diehard as I'm sure I've mentioned before. So whenever you mention anything PC to them, they have an inferiority complex and need to mention how great the Mac is. I set myself up for this by assuming he was PC user. But check this out... it the Mac was so great and better than the PC, why was this user calling into support? His operating system crashed and several applications were buggy, giving him trouble everytime he tried to save stuff. PC users in our office never have this much trouble.

More Randomness

On Friday, the Bulls lost an easy one to the Wizards. That's a team they dominated for the past 3-4 years, a team that's terrible this year and a team they have to beat. The story of the loss looked especially bad because it was in Washington, with President Obama (a big Bulls fan) in attendance. Earlier in the day, the team was invited to the White House to hang out with Obama in person. They presented him with a #44 Bulls jersey. Also, riding on that game were the memories of Norm Van Lier and Johnny "Red" Kerr, who had both passed away recently.

I was very disappointed with that loss because I felt that they should've been scripted to win that game. Jordan's Bulls would've won a game like that. But the next game on Saturday against the Rockets made me feel a lot better. The Rockets came in with a 6-game winning streak. Yao and Scola were playing great. For the most part, Yao was contained with the experience of the smaller Brad Miller. Offensive rebounds were the key as the Bulls ripped away 19 to the Rockets' 8... something Yao needs to work on. Gordon and Rose were clutch in the amazing 4th quarter run. The pressure performance gives me hope that this can be a playoff level team. Artest was the Rockets best player in this game until the final play where he was triple teamed and couldn't get the ball to an open shooter.

Tech Deals of the Week (3/1-3/7)

Things aren't looking good as far as sales, but this week is better than last. Flash prices are still holding, but there have been less offers. Also, I've been featuring more deals from Staples, Office Depot and Radio Shack, but even those stores are running dry.

Flash Sales
- 16 GB Ativa @ OD for $39.99
- 16 GB SanDisk @ ST for $39.99

2 Gigaware Webcams @ RS for $20
This is the same camera I mention in December, but you have to get 2 with this deal. So if you have that one friend or family member that isn't on Skype yet, this is a good offer for you.

Acer Aspire One @ CU for $261.98
Prices are starting to drop on the older models, probably to make way for the N280's. You might think that it's best to hold out for the new processor, but at this price it's very tempting. You can't go wrong for an N270 under $300. Remember, Windows XP home is a good $90 out of the price already! [click here]

Store Key: BB = Best Buy, CC = Circuit City, CU = CompUSA.com, DI = Directron, NE = NewEgg.com, OD = Office Depot, RS = Radio Shack, ST = Staples, TG = Target