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Try to check out some games if you can, you’ll be happy you did. In one of the most thrilling comebacks I’ve seen in some time, Turkey came back to defeat the Czech Republic 3-2.

The Turkish Comeback: Euro 2008

Amazing video - watch all the way through to the end, it doesn’t end like you’d think:

The “battle” happened in September 2004, during Mr. Budzinski’s first visit to Africa, at the Kruger National Park in the northeastern corner of South Africa. Mr. Budzinski, who works as a supply manager for Chevron in Houston, was riding in the back of a sport utility vehicle with his wife, two other tourists and a tour guide. The guide, spotting lions sunning themselves by a watering hole near where a herd of buffalo was walking by, decided to see what would happen. Before long the lions attacked the herd, singling out a buffalo calf and overwhelming it by the water’s edge. By the time a crocodile had entered the fierce fight, Mr. Budzinski said, he was thinking about turning the camera off.

The video has been made into a National Geographic documentary - read more at the NY Times.

I was watching the Lakers game and wondering if Pau Gasol and Kobe were harkening back to maybe some of their early days as soccer players. I could have sworn that Gasol said, ‘Nice ball’ to Kobe rather than, ‘Nice Pass’. The way that Kobe plays is so much like a soccer player, cutting and darting into open spaces. There was one moment where Kobe was up in the air to shoot, and two players rushed to block his shot, rather than shoot he bounced passed the ball to Gasol who was cutting to the basket. They play basketball like soccer and it’s beautiful to watch.

And there are more NBA players who played soccer growing up, Steve Nash and Jason Kidd to name a few. In soccer you use your feet like your hands and that just translates to all sorts of sports. If you got good feet then you’ve got good balance and the ability to move laterally with ease.

Here’s Gasol, Nadal and Ronaldinho in a Nike ad - Flamenco styled showmanship:

Microsoft must just hate seeing those Apple ads on TV or strewn across the NY Times.  Has Microsoft given in though, I don’t see any or haven’t heard any response from them surrounding those ads?  They’re sort of like the cave men in those Geico commercials, angry and upset, but can’t really do anything about it.  Now people are saying that Microsoft might come out with their new operating system early, just to overcome all of the Vista backlash.  There are people clamoring for XP to be resurrected and not discontinued, that’s some good news for them.  But speaking of ads, I think the best Geico commercial has to be the one with Mrs. Butterworth acting as the spokeswomen.

Talk about a smart purchase or early bird gets the worm–those who bought a few key one word domain names in the early 90s are being rewarded these days with big sums.  Now there are very few if any one or two word domain names left of any value.  What happens when a movie comes out and someone owns the title of the movie?  Do these people get paid off too?  More likely is the use of creative type of names or ad campaigns that incorporate a concept and promote the brand that way, but with solid one word domain names like Vodka or Pizza, the money is rolling in for some fortunate domain owners:

A US man has sold the domain name pizza.com for $2.6m (£1.3m) - after maintaining the site for just $20 a year since 1994.

Chris Clark, 43, accepted the offer from an anonymous bidder after a week-long online auction.

“It’s crazy, it’s just crazy,” Mr Clark, who lives in North Potomac, Maryland, was quoted as saying by the Baltimore Sun newspaper.

“It will make a significant difference in my life, for sure,” he added.

In January, Mr Clark decided to sell it after hearing that another domain - Vodka.com - was sold for $3m in 2006.

Read more…

Talk about getting some traffic, check out Yahoo’s new Digg like Buzz.  If a link gets enough plugs it can wind up on the homepage of Yahoo:

• Salon got so excited about a February 28 link from the Yahoo home page to this story that they issued a press release - they had 1 million unique visitors that day, the most ever to the 12 year old site.
• US Magazine was linked from Yahoo on February 27, and had the second highest traffic day ever. 32% of visits that day came from the Yahoo home page.
• Huffington Post reported 800,000 unique visitors from a Yahoo-linked story

Read more at TechCrunch…

Argot - A specialized vocabulary or set of idioms used by a particular group: thieves’ argot.

Don’t start watching the Wire if you haven’t already begun. It will take a few weeks off of your life as you have to go back and watch all the preceding episodes—you’ll want to. If you do though, go back and start watching all the episodes, it will be worth it. Actually, if you are going to watch the show, you have to go back and watch all the preceding episodes, otherwise, you’re doing the show a disservice and more so yourself. But be aware, it will stop you in the midst of what you’re doing and you’ll forget the next hour or so. You’ll be late to whatever you’re headed to.

I’ve always counted myself as someone who empathizes with other people’s situations, or tired to. I think I now, as I’ve gotten older, realized that it’s very hard to understand someone’s situation unless you’ve gone through something very similar, and even then you don’t know what it’s like, but you learn to try to understand and listen.

But the Wire, I don’t know, it gives you a feeling for what’s going on around you in a different manner. And it doesn’t disrespect you by dumbing things down, it let’s you figure things out—a conversation might be entirely in Spanish, and even if you don’t understand everything, you can look at the body language of the characters or piece things together based on the events before it—and your brain likes doing that little bit of work. Then there’s the language of the characters–their individual communities they inhabit, whether that’s the cops, the kids on the street, the politicians, the news room, it’s all their own and you’re not served a new version. You come to understand their speak and that makes you embrace them and their worlds more–they’re real, and it’s more fun and interesting.

What I wanted to write about though is how it puts a feeling into what’s going on around you. I was walking by a homeless man pushing a character the other day and I thought of Bubs. I picked up the newspaper this morning, yeah I bought the paper version, and thought of the news people behind it, competing for front page stories. These kind of putting yourself into the places or characters is not new of course, but the Wire does it better than all that’s come before it—that I’ve seen. No doubt.

Here’s a blog that does a genius job of giving you updates and insight. “Back to bidness, I see.” — Snoop

I came across an interesting article a while back, at first I thought it was about Asperger’s Syndrome but I was close. It’s how Curb Your Enthusiasm has become a tool for those with schizophrenia.

Then I saw a show on PBS, Today’s Man. A film about Asperger Syndrome, which made me recall the above article, it’s a documentary done by Lizzie Gottlieb, who’s brother has Asperger Syndrome. I only caught half of it but it is really quite wonderful or engrossing, and going to have to see the first part. She said the movie that reminds her of her brother is Elf.

Short intro:  Nicky Gottlieb was a child of extraordinary talents and odd behavior. At age 21, he was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome, a high functioning form of autism.

By way of Battelle’s blog:

 Google (NSDQ: GOOG) accounted for more than six of 10 online searches in the United States in November, more than triple the amount of its closest rival Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO), a Web metrics firm said Tuesday.
Google’s share of the market rose to 65.1% from 61.84% in the same month a year ago, Hitwise said. In October, Google had a 64.49% share.

Yahoo Search was a distant second last month with 21.21% of searches, followed by Microsoft’s MSN Search, 7.09%; and Ask.com, 4.63%. The remaining 46 search engines in the Hitwise rankings accounted for 1.96% of searches.  Read more…

Yahoo has recently started to link out to some big sites on their main section of the homepage. Linking to articles from the NY Times, Wall Street Journal, other some smaller sites and magazines. Is this reciprocal linking? Are they getting links in return on these other sites or getting paid? Are these sites partners in some way with Yahoo?  If not now, they will be after they see all the traffic they’re getting from Yahoo.

They’ve linked to some interesting articles that Yahoo visitors will like. but there must be some return benefit since some of these sites are getting a ton of traffic from this. And, now and again, they link to some smaller sites, and if the site isn’t aware of it beforehand, this link from Yahoo might just shut down or tie up their server.

What it does do is place a thought in the mind’s of the owners of these sites - hey we’ve got to do something with Yahoo or let’s write something about Yahoo. Or, let’s develop a partnership with Yahoo. The king of the early web, Yahoo, needs to make friends again with the Net. They started out as a directory, now it’s all about search, how can they become the authority site they once were - think this strategy is a good one - not only are they not being evil but they’re rewarding other sites and cultivating partnerships. Cool.

Update: Yeah, looks like Yahoo’s tagging the link their using, see the end of this link for instance, so they must be getting some kind of kick back from The Wall Street Journal in this case - if Yahoo befriends all the big sites on the Net, they can’t go wrong: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB120035992325490045.html?mod=yhoofront

What’s your take? Post a comment.