Quality News For You

Chad Campbell

2009-04-09T16:39:00.000-07:00

David Chad Campbell was born May 31st 1974 and is an American professional golfer.

Campbell was born in Andrews in Texas, He attended the University of Nevada in Las Vegas and in 1996 officially became a professional golfer.

Prior to 2000 he played on the third-tier NGA-Hooters Tour and subsequently won thirteen tournaments and was the leading money winner three times.

In 2001 he played on the second-tier buy.com Tour, now known as the Nationwide Tour and continuing his success won three tournaments and earned promotion to the elite PGA Tour part way through the season.

In 2003, in only his seventh year as a professional golfer, he won the prestigious Tour Championship and was runner-up to surprise winner Shaun Micheel at the PGA Championship, finishing seventh on the PGA Tour money list.

He claimed a second PGA Tour win in 2004 and made a great start to 2006, winning the Bob Hope Chrsler Classic and topping the money list for a short time early in the season.

He claimed his fourth PGA Tour in 2007 with a one stroke victory at the Viking Classic.

He featured briefly in the top 10 of the Official World Golf Rankings in 2004.

Music artists divided on Live Nation Ticketmaster merge

2009-03-14T16:01:00.000-07:00

Live Nation is a live events company based in Beverley Hills, California. They were formed in 2005 as a 'spin-off' from Clear Channel Communications. Predominantly a concert promoter, Live Nation also signs music artists just the same as a record label does, but there main interest is taking the role of the promotor rather than taking the role of the owner of the recording artists.

Live Nation signed deals with two of the hottest music artists in the world U2 and Madonna BUT, they do not own the copywright to either U2 or Madonna's recordings. Their interest in Madonna and U2 is purely in regard to concert promotion. However, the deal signed with Jay-Z back in 2007 does include the rapper's future recordings. So Live Nation own a lot more of Jay-Z than they do of U2 or Madonna. Other notable music artists they have signed are Nickelback and Shakira.

Live Nations are hot news at the moment...why?

They are currently in the process of attempting to merge with TicketMaster. Several famous music artists are currently making their feelings clear on the merger. And theseopinions are very divided.

FOR the merger the most notable music artists are Seal, Eddie Van Halen, four members of the band Journey and Billy Corgan of the Smashing Pumpkins. They have all wrote letters to Congress stating how positive they felt the merger would be. The reason, they say, for their unequivocal support of the merger is they feel the whole music industry has shifted towards a direct 'artist to fan' relationship and they fervently believe that a Live Nation Ticketmaster merger can better foster that connection.

Among the music artists that are AGAINST the merger is Bruce Springsteen. He is currently venting his disapproval and rightly so. Only recently Ticketmaster used dodgy tactics to sell higher priced tickets at one of Bruce Springsteen's concerts when many many of the standard priced tickets were still available.

It's interesting to note that every one of those music artists FOR the merger is managed or co-managed by Irving Azoff. Who is Irvine Azoff? Only the CEO of Ticketmaster no less! Also Azoff is also rumoured, if the deal goes through, to have been assured one of the top three positions in the new merged company. make of that what you will.

The implications of this merger for us, the customer, at the moment are uncertain. However what is certain is the debate will go on as to whether a concert promotion monopoly would be a good thing for the music industry in general.

Thanks for reading.

Garry.

Major League Baseball 2K9 XBOX 360 Game Review

2009-03-03T18:51:00.000-08:00

The promise of next-generation sports has, in many cases, turned into a curse. Trying to meet the demands of hardcore fanatics without rendering casual players inept has proven more difficult than anyone imagined at the start of the 360/PS3 cycle. Nowhere has that paradox been more evident than in the baseball realm, which has proven to be tough as nails for all but the most dedicated to crack. The gang at 2K Sports has clearly felt your pain – and believe they have the answer with MLB 2K9.

For starters, it’s never been easier to hit the ball consistently. Gone are the days when successful batting depended solely on luck; the updated Swing Stick works beautifully. It’s no longer the home-run-or-strikeout dynamic of years past, as a simplified interface and forgiving engine allows everyone to step up to the plate and let ‘er rip. Pitching is a little tougher to nail down (and the controls are pretty sensitive), but it’s still manageable after a few warm-ups. Even baserunning – gasp! – is implemented well, as we made far fewer idiotic mistakes than normal, all without consulting a manual.

Unfortunately, fielding is a bit of an adventure, especially in the outfield. There were plenty of times we were lined up for routine catches, only to have the ball inexplicably fly over our head Canseco-style. What’s more, our CPU-controlled opponents had similar issues more than once. While we appreciated the fact that outfield mishaps were an equal-opportunity affair, there’s no reason so many routine plays should be botched. This is the major leagues after all – mistakes like this hardly even happen.

Scads of other problems exist throughout the game, too. There are visual hiccups aplenty, including players gliding through each other on a regular basis, herky-jerky motions between pitches, and occasional framerate drops when the ball is put in play. Heck, even Big Papi’s famous batting stance suffers from a half-second stutter, symptomatic of the lack of polish that permeates the experience. Something that was supposed to be a nice touch – the day-turns-to-night effect of a midafternoon start – is rendered bizarre when postgame highlights are shown; that first-inning home run you hit when the sky was full of sunshine will be represented as if it had taken place in the dark. While none of these issues ruin the solid gameplay, they undoubtedly conspire to take 2K9 down a notch.

We’ve rarely been so conflicted about a baseball game, but MLB 2K9 is a paradox. It’s undeniably fun and accessible, offering plenty of addictive options for hardball fans. It also suffers from too many gaffes that are impossible to ignore. As the only MLB sim option for the system, 360 owners could certainly have it worse. There’s no doubt we’re well on our way to playing a full 162-game campaign, but we were hoping for a more complete experience this spring.

This post and picture comes courtesy of Gamesradar.com

Here is the link http://www.gamesradar.com/xbox360/major-league-baseball-2k9/review/major-league-baseball-2k9/a-2009030310462943698121/g-2009012114257603082

Learn more about the history of the Medicean Stars

2009-03-03T18:11:00.000-08:00

Galileo Galilei. You know him, you love him. The celebrated Italian renaissance astronomer's name seems to be on everything these days, from space probes to dog bones. If Galileo were alive today, he'd be making endorsement money that would put Tiger Woods to shame. But then again, Tiger Woods was never called the father of modern science.
Cue the obligatory renaissance chamber music!

399 years ago today on a Sunday, this 45 year old father of three ventured out under the bright stars of a cold Italian night. He was planning, as he had for the last few nights, to look at the planet Jupiter, which was shining in the west as the brightest star in the sky. Galileo had just discovered that Jupiter was the father of three himself, sporting, as he later wrote "three fixed stars, totally invisible by their smallness." that was near the planet from night to night. The first night, two of these little stars were on the east side of the planet, with one on the west side, all lining up in a straight line. But the next night, all three of the stars were on the west side of Jupiter, implying that Jupiter - -- was moving in the opposite direction it was supposed to.
But wait. The stars roving around in sky in the 17th century was like watching someone walk through a wall. Everyone knew how Jupiter moved through the sky - you can just look up every night and see that. So, if there wasn't anything wrong with Jupiter, there must be something wrong with the Universe!

With one casual observation, the Universe had been turned upside down.

Maybe tonight would be the night to make sense of it all.

Galileo readied his notebook and pen, then pointed his homemade meter long wooden telescope tube toward the king of the wandering stars. It was this telescope that made all of this possible. A relatively new invention, he had only been making telescopes for the past 6 or so months or so, each time improving the design and magnification until he'd produced one that magnified objects a whopping 20 times their apparent size. Galileo knew that no one had studied the heavens with such a powerful instrument so methodically. This made him the sole keeper of the secrets in the sky that were "invisible by their smallness" to everyone else.

Galileo squinted through his telescope, and spotted Jupiter shining brightly in his view. And there were his sheep, still clustered around the shepherd like the nights before. He started counting.. One, two... and... that was it.

Just two? There were supposed to be three. First Jupiter seemed to be moving in front of the stars like crazy, now one of them is just gone?

Well, it didn't take long for Galileo to figure out that Jupiter's missing toddler was hiding behind the planet, and that all of these little stars were somehow moving with Jupiter as it moved through the sky.

Inconceivable! The heavens were supposed to perfect, beyond any unpredictable changes. Everyone knew that the sun and all the planets moved around the earth, so that the earth was the center of all motion for the entire Universe... and that was that. The planets, or wandering stars, did not have wandering stars of their own. Such an observation would be heresy against the Catholic Church, like the Copernican theory that the sun was the center of the solar system. These three, now two tiny lights in the tiny end of a homemade wooden tube with glass lenses, threatened to shake the foundations of natural philosophy, and challenge the authority of one of the greatest powers of the known world.

Tonight raised even more questions, instead of answering them. So, Galileo he did what every good scientist did - he continued to gather more evidence. Galileo kept his nightly appointments in his role as the world's first planetary Peeping Tom.

Over the next several nights, Galileo's pen filled up his notebook with sketches. The missing star reappeared from behind Jupiter. Not long after that, a fourth very faint star appeared. And by January 15, Galileo had it all figured out. These weren't background stars, these tiny lights were other planets in orbit around Jupiter. It was, in essence, another miniature Universe going around our own. The earth was not the only object to have a moon, and this was a huge boost to the idea that the earth, like Jupiter - was just another planet going around the sun. Reality set in on Galileo - he was in big trouble - but for all the right reasons. So was he crazy for revealing this?

Crazy like a fox! He had been trying to get back to Tuscany where he grew up, and in a move reminiscent of awarding the naming rights for a new sports stadium today, Galileo named the new planets the "Medicean Stars" after his patrons in Florence. Jupiter represented Grand Duke of the Medici family, and the four moons now represented the Grand Duke's four sons. And if that wasn't enough, the eldest son that had just become the new Grand Duke, whom Galileo tutored as a child? His name was Cosimo.

He laid out all of this and reported his findings in Sidereus Nuncius, or, the Starry Messenger, which was published in March of 1610, which described Jupiter's new found moons, craters and seas on our own moon, where he argued that earth was just another wandering star around the sun, and an uncountable number of stars that Galileo had seen with his new telescope.

The Starry Messenger was a huge success, and made Galileo an instant celebrity. It kick started a revolution in astronomy that continues to this day. As more telescopes pointed skyward, the Universe, and our place in it - would quickly change dramatically.

And it got Galileo back to Tuscany, as the Grand Duke installed Galileo in his court in Florence in a matter of months.

And got him into a lot of trouble.

The Roman Inquisition, which unlike the Spanish Inquisition, was not armed with comfy pillows, declared the theory that the sun being the center of the Universe was heresy. Galileo was not to discuss such theories. Later he got permission to discuss the idea as a mathematical theory, but then he pushed the Church too far when he published Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems which pitted the two ideas against each other two ficticious characters. He was convicted of heresey, and ordered to house arrest for the rest of his life.
So, the moral of the story?

Publish your science where they have the comfy pillows.

This article is courtesy of 365 days of astronomy.org

http://365daysofastronomy.org/2009/01/10/january-10-galileo-discovers-jupiters-moons-going-to-disneyworld/

The Cold Hard Truth in How To Make Money Online with Internet Marketing.

2009-03-03T02:52:00.000-08:00

Do you really want to make money online with Internet Marketing? Do you really think YOU have what it takes to make money online with Internet marketing?

Regardless of what all the so-called gurus tell you it is not easy. One of the hardest decisions you will have to make is what are you going to do to make money online. There are numerous options available to you and I will outline for you what is popular at the moment:

Blogging
Google Adwords Campaigns
Selling information products
Affiliate Marketing
Email Marketing
Turn Key Systems
List-Building
Search Engine Optimization
Branding yourself as a leader - yeah even Newbies do this some more successfully than others I might add!

What to choose and which route to take is probably the most difficult option. Mainly because you possibly have no idea what you are letting yourself in for. Do as much research as you can - but don't pay too much attention to review sites, their motive is not to help you make the right decision for your financial future but too make money through affiliate links .

A good place to start is by doing an ecourse - that way you will gradually learn what you need to know to be successful online. Also, most ecourses come with at money-back guarantee - some are at least 30 days, some even give you a 60 day money back guarantee.

Once your decision is made remember there are only so many hours in the day. Abandon any ideas of being able to give up your day job straight away. You will have to manage and utilise your free time to make money online, but don't forget your other responsibilities.

When you take action - Good Luck for the Future.

Celebrity Apprentice 2009 - Who is Herschel Walker?

2009-03-02T02:26:00.000-08:00

As a Dallas Cowboys fan I was very interested watching Herschel Walker's appearance on Celebrity Apprentice 2009.

Herschel Walker had a very colourful career notably as a running back but was also utilised as a kickoff returner and tight end/wide reciever.

He won the Heismann Trophy in his Junior Year in 1982 after smashing collegiate rushing records. He joined the New Jersey Generals for the newly formed USFL in 1983. Rather than wait for his graduation he decided to join the USFL at the end of his Junior Collegiate Season. More success ensued as Herschel became the leading USFL rusher in 1983 and 1985.

In 1986 Herschel walker joined the Dallas Cowboys in the NFL, immediately challenging Cowboys legend Tony Dorsett for the number one position, both on the field and in the fan's hearts. His career in the NFL spanned twelve seasons although it could be argued that his most successful and enjoyable times were when he played for the Dallas Cowboys. His only two Pro Bowl appearances in 1987 and 1988 were achieved whilst playing for the Dallas Cowboys.

At the pinnacle of his career in 1989 Herschel was traded to the Minnesota Vikings for a total of FIVE Players and SIX Draft Picks - one of which led to the Dallas Cowboys getting Emmitt Smith and we all remember what he achieved for the Cowboys?

Under utilised at the Vikings he moved on to the Phildelphia Eagles in 1992 and the New York Giants in 1995, before arriving back at the Dallas Cowboys for his swansong in 1996.

Herschel Walker owns many records and fantastic achievements during his career, but probably the most unique is he is the only person to record 90 plus yard touchdowns in the same season (1994) for a reception, a run and a kickoff return.

He is currently appearing in Donald Trump's Celebrity Apprentice and his chosen charity is Alternative Community Development Services.