FGCU slayed me

I don’t know how this became a sports blog but whatever. Florida Gulf Coast University have destroyed my brackets; just completely obliterated them. Their athleticism, alley-oops and chicken dance and rained all over my chances to win on ESPN. Maybe my other deficient picks have helped but I blame it on FGCU. Something else that has me a little miffed is Duke. I’ve picked them to win it all in one bracket and I’d like for them to lose just because I dislike them. Can’t foresee that happening because they’re too good and Ryan Kelly is as sure a thing as any player left in the tournament. If they get past Creighton (they’re playing right now) they’ll face Michigan State and I expect that to be knock-down, drag-out game with Duke coming out on top.

In the women’s tournament there hasn’t been any big upsets but 6’8” Baylor center Brittney Griner threw down a dunk on Prairie View A&M. She is the ultimate beast when it comes to the women’s, or men’s, game. I know I picked Notre Dame to ultimately win it all but they will have to go through Griner to do it and that will be a tall order; no pun intended.

Madness!

March Madness is upon us. I’ve been a fan of college ball for a while now and this is by far my second favorite part of the sports calendar. First is Super Bowl weekend, third is the NBA Finals. It’s been a week of watching championships and blowing off assignments to do so. The brackets for the Men’s tourney came out tonight and I am extremely excited to see the carnage that will be this year’s tournament. First, I see Gonzaga exiting early. I like them but they can be beaten. Miami is who I want to win but I think they’ll be exciting as well. I like Montana to smack Syracuse only because I’m ready for the Orange to get smacked. It probably won’t happen but I can dream. Kansas is the team to beat. I like Louisville to take Duke out of its misery in the Elite 8 and succumb to…Ohio State in the Final Four. Sounds crazy I know. I will be filling out my brackets, as if they stand a chance of staying perfect, on ESPN’s Tournament Challenge for the Men’s and Women’s tournaments. Speaking of, I like Notre Dame to win it all on the Women’s side. Skylar Diggins is will not be denied; especially after handing mighty UCONN three loses on the season. I also hope that UCONN and Tennessee get placed in the same region so we can finally see them play since the aftermath of Maya Moore-gate.

I love March.

He traded Kia!

Let me preface this post by saying that I am a fan of the WNBA, specifically the New York Liberty and I don’t care who knows it… 

So former (no defunct) Detroit Shock head coach Bill Laimbeer was named Head Coach and General Manager of the Liberty in October of last year and I was excited for the change. John Whisenant was ok but his system didn’t work. Laimbeer is known for his tough, gritty teams and I felt that that was just the direction the Liberty needed to go. Fast forward to this month and I’m [almost] ready to jump ship. Laimbeer has been living up to his “Trade Bill” nickname and has gotten rid of some good (and just ok) players and turned the Liberty into a Detroit Shock reunion. First notable trade, to me, was Kia Vaughn. I felt as though she could grow and thrive under Laimbeer’s system but he traded her away to Washington of all places. He’s acquired Katie Smith who is a great player…when she wasn’t old enough to wax poetic about the invention of the light bulb. He’s also brought in Deanna “Tweety” Nolan and Cheryl Ford. Both players have been out of the league for over 3 years and their numbers in overseas leagues leaves much to be desired. I know you few people reading probably don’t know much about these players so I will spare the details but Ford’s knees are jello and Nolan used to be able to jump over players to get a shot but is probably past her prime now. I was excitingly looking forward to the 2013 season but now I’m almost to the point of looking for a new team to root for.

Yes, I am that kind of fan. I know you're all laughing at me and I don't care.

Facebook's new hot mess... er, News Feed

Facebook on Thursday (Mar. 7) made an announcement about new changes coming to the News Feed. They’ve decided that the current news feed sucks and needs to be revamped yet again. With that CEO Zucks wants this new version to be more of a “personalized newspaper” instead of the hot mess it currently is. I say that because my news feed seems to only show the updates and postings of three people. Perhaps those people are tastemakers and Facebook’s algorithm decides that they must be heard. I could go without seeing their posts for a day or five :|

Anyway this new news feed is supposed to be more streamlined and have a huge emphasis on photos. Apparently Facebook users love photos and despise words. I guess there is justification for that since some peoples words are worth despising (I follow and like too many pages). One new feature that I think I might like is the ability to change the feeds. You can view only a feed of your friends or pages you follow or only a feed of photos. I’d like to hold judgment until the new feed is rolled out but I think I may not like it already. Perhaps it’ll grow on me.

CIS 3810 Post 5

Habbo is a Finnish avatar based social networking site that allows its users to create avatars, build rooms and/or structures, chat with friends and others, and play games. There are 19 unique Habbo websites which serve different countries and the languages of those countries. For instance, habbo.com serves the English language while habbo.fi is in Finnish. Habbo is owned by Sulake whose headquarters is located in Helsinki, Finland. The entire Habbo network contains 230 million registered avatars. Habbo.com (the English-language domain) generated 1.9 million visitors within the last month (Feb. 10 - Mar. 10) while the entire Habbo network averages about 10 million visitors per month. The top three countries that visit Habbo.com are the United States, Brazil and the United Kingdom. One of the ways Habbo generates revenue is by user purchase of currency that allows them to purchase things within the virtual world. Personally, Habbo seems extremely juvenile but that is because Habbo’s demographic is teenagers. I wouldn’t recommend use of the site to anyone because there have been issues with content and lack of restriction. A similar US-based site would be SecondLife.com. Second Life is also an avatar based community which makes revenue from the sale of virtual currency. There you can interact with friends and others and create another persona. One difference is Habbo's avatars are much more cartoonish. That could be attributed to the targeted demographic of younger people.