Payday

Well I know that I said I would try to venture and not talk about sports all of the time but the nfl free agency period started on friday and there have been some blockbuster deals already. To the left are three of the bigger names in the nfl who have found new homes and new wallets because their old ones are not big enough. Haynesworth who is closest signed a sevn year deal worth one hundred million dollars. Cassell who is in the middle was once a bench warmer but after filing in for Tom Brady last year finds himself in Kansas City after a trade sent him and fellow Patriot Mike Vrabel to the Chiefs. And lastly it was just reported today that T.J. Houshmanzadeh signed with the Seahawks after taking a night to sleep on it. What I am getting at is that after one season of performing at a high level a player can achieve major dollars on the free agent market. A few years ago many thought Albert Haynesworth was a monster after he used his cleat as a weapon on the head of Dallas Cowboy Andre Gurode. Now Haynesworth is the richest at his position and playing in the land of D.C. Cassell sat behind the likes of Matt Leinhart and Carson Palmer at USC and then filled in for the injured Tom Brady. After a stellar season for someone who has not started a game since high school he is now adding some extra zeroes to the end of his paycheck. Houshmanzadeh wanted to go to a new team after performing for many years in Cinci and he now is well off. Why could it not be like this in some other professions. Why cant grocery workers or business men be free agents and get signed to lucrative deals. The answer is that these men play a vicious sport and they put their life on the line every week. They deserve the pay they get for performing. In conclusion I will just say that we should not envy the athlete who makes this money but rather embrace them for being so good. If they can perform at this high of a level why not pay them millions.

Trading

In terms of how far has the internet come you need look no further than the e trade baby. Now I know he is not really trading stocks on line but the general idea that you can now by and trade stocks on line is indeed proof of how far the post modern era has come. Similar to the other post about the four year old who uses a digital camera and a pc these types of commercials just inform you that anyone can use the internet to do anything. As I sit here and type this blog I look over and there is a commercial for carfax.com which is a website that will tell you the history of a used vehicle. If I want to know the latest hollywood news I only have to log into my yahoo account and all the headlines are there. If I need information on what is happening in the sports world I can go to espn.com to get the latest news and notes. If I were a new parent and I needed to know what to do with my infant child who is sick I can go to web md. Everything is just a click away and the internet era is constantly changing.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=drNzl_-iRP4&feature=channel THIS S THE LINK TO AN E TRADE BABY COMMERCIAL ITS ACTUALLY THE NEWEST ONE. IT WAS SUPPOSED TO AID THE POST AS AN ACTUAL VIDEO BUT I HAVE YET TO BE ABLE TO FIGURE OUT HOW TO DO THAT

Assignment 5

In response to the thoughts about citizen journalism I feel as though we are all journalists at one point or another in terms of this blog. A few of the posts I have read have been reports such as the one about ASU beating U of A. I have even written some citizen journal type blogs on here myself. I went to two sights that google said had information on citizen journalism. However upon looking at the sites they were more or less sights with news and happenings. Http://wethemedia.oreilly.com and http://onlinejournalismblog.wordpresss.com are both sites where people go and blog news type publishngs regularly. I think there is a difference between this type of blog and a blog from say Kim Kardashian where she talks about her life and what is happening. These two blogs cover issues which are of no interest to me but I am sure subscribers follow them daily. That is essentially what I think citizen journalism aims to do. Instead of having to purchase a newspaper or waiting for the news someone can just click the link or type in the address and then they have access to the news that they seek. Blogging has become such a mainstream phenomenon that people are talking about everything on their sites. The problem I would have with citizen journalism is where are the bloggers getting their information from. How do we know that what they are saying is credible if they are just some random person who is reporting. On top of that who is to say that they are always gioing to talk about what you need information on. A sports blogger could talk about basketball in one blog and then switch to baseball or hockey which you the reader may have no interest in. Because of that I think that print and broadcast journalism will continue to overshadow the citizen journalism approach but the idea is constantly catching on. Being able to come and write about whatever you want to and getting feed back on your thoughts is definitely an attractive idea to many people. For aspiring journalists such as myself its a great way to practice my writing skills and I think that citizen journalism also incorporates that. The idea that you are the reporter and you are getting a chance to report the issues.

In Limbo

It must be a case of the mondays for sure. As I sit in front of my computer trying to meet the deadline for submission I can not think of a topic to discuss. So for the next however long it takes I am just going to rant on whats is bothering me. For the first thought I have to congradulate ASU on sweeping the nemesis Wildcats for a second consecutive season. Has the tide finally turned in the hoops portion of the duel in the desert. This is the first time in a long time the ASU has won four straight against Arizona and I must admit the basketball team is firing on all cylinders this season. They could be dangerous in the dance considering they have a lottery pick in James Harden and a senior leader in Pendergraph as well as key sharp shooters such as Ty Abbot and Rihardis Khuksis, I am anxious to see what the Devils will do in March. Call this a sports rant if you want to but what were the Suns thinking last week. Were they really toying with the idea of getting rid of Amare Stoudamire. Call me crazy but isnt he an integral part of their arsenal. If the Suns would have traded him they would not have gotten much in return that is for sure not anything that could match the scoring of Stoudemire at least. Now it turns out his season is over and he most likely will not be available for the post season. The Suns are probably doomed even if they make the playoffs. The team is a little older without Amare and they lack his abilities now I love Shaq but I am not sure he complete the "Amare Stoudamire Project" with out the kid. The NFL scouting combine also started last week and what is sad is to hear some of the events that transpired. One player was actually sent home after it was discovered that he had some sort of irregularity that cost him his career. He will not even be able to play football now according to doctors. Another promising player in Michael Crabtree revealed an injury that will sideline him for ten weeks. He is actually pushing back the surgery to perform at the combine but that may hurt him because caches are already weary about his injury. On top of all of that offensive tackle Andre Smith left the combine saying he was not ready and that he had not hired an agent. Honestly what is this kid thinking if I had an oppurtunity to make money playing in the NFL preparation would not be an issue. He stands to make millions being a potential top five pick but not after that display. These are just some of the things I have noticed in the past week in sports as I prepare to go through the boring part of the year where there is not football. Lastly can we drop that which is Alex Rodriguez eight years ago. The guy did something that every one was doing eight years ago and it is a soap opera that will be dragged on into the season. Honestly he admitted to it so drop it.

Blogs, Bloggers, Blogging

So we are in the or fifth week of this school and the question is how do we feel as bloggers right now. After reading the articles I must say that I have not really dived all the way in on this blogging experience. I mean here is a class where we get an oppurtunity every week to wirte about whatever is on our mind and to be creative. I have written some interesting pieces but I do not feel I have fully captured what it means to blog on a weekly basis. Based on the question about democratization I would not say I have been blogging in that manner. This week was the first time that I used an image in my blog and it seems as though everyone else knows how to incorporate images and videos. As for me I am still trying to figure out how to get a you tube video on my blog. (I know that sounds idiotic but I'm not sure how to put a video on). I do to expand on my blogging skills as the weeks progress and hope that by the end of this class I will have gained the knowledge needed to be able to add video to my blogs, hyper links, etc. To this point I have just picked a topic of interest and written about it on a weekly basis. I have not been very consistent touching on everything from sports to the events that transpired between Rihanna and Chris Brown. What I hope to achieve with this blog is to get people to think about different topics and be able to reflect on them. I plan on using the democratization strategy more and figuring out how to add video for the next post. I must say I am barely getting my feet wet and I am ready to dive in.

Week Of Love?

As valentines day weekend ended I sat and thought to myself about the holiday. In our house its a big day because not only is it a "romantic" holiday its also my father's birthday. However this year is a little off for me. With in the past week we have heard about one the music industries sweetest couples suffering the ultimate break up which ended with a pop Princess, Rihanna, battered and bruised by boy toy Chris Brown. One of our fellow bloggers wrote about love and trying to come up with a definition for the word and an origin my question is where is the love this year. It seems as though males are losing their minds. Not only did I hear about a doemstic dispute between these two but I also heard from two different female friends about how their ex boyfriends abused them. This question is what keeps going through my mind how can a man ever lay his hands on a woman. That is something you just do not do. It really irks me when I hear about a man hitting a woman because I just do not feel there is any place in society for it. I just wonder if we can find that love that valentines day is supposed to represent or has the world gone mad. On one of my reality shows that I watch(like none of you watch some sort of reality tv thats all thats basically on) a man and woman get into a confrontation and for a minute I was worried that he was actually going to hit her. I just figured I used this weeks blog to look at this on going situation and wonder what makes it okay? I remember last summer reading a tabloid in which sweet Jessica Simpson admits that she was physically abused in a past relationship. Jessica? How could anyone ever want to lay a finger on her. I do not know whetre these egotistic men get off raising their hands on women but thats what I spent some time thinking about this weekend. Even amidst all the glits and glamour of All Star weekend I coud not get the thought out of my head. I think we as men need to respect our women and not look at them as objects to beat when we can not contorl our temper. I am so worked up that I do not even know how to end this blog so I am just going to be corny and say Leonce out!

assignment

This blog is not going to be very long because like an idiot i waited until the last minute to write it. In short I remember back in 1999 when i first really started using the internet and of course at that time all I really used it for was aim and yahoo messenger. The web sites such as myspace and facebook did not exist yet and I do not think ebay had taken off yet either. The internet has become a great tool and you can do just about anything that you would like to on it in this day an age. Over the past ten years I have watched it grow immensely from a world wide web to you tube to google to espn.com and so on. In watching the video that shows the history of the internet and doing the readings it is safe to say that in the next ten years the internet will expand beyond our wildest dreams. The question I have is what will be the next big wave of internet popularity. Where will the internet be in two years will it eliminate the need for print journalism. How much bigger can blogging actually become.m We dont even have to go to the movies any more you can find a way to get movies on the computer now in their entirety.