Below is a video of Arnold Schwartzenegger announcing that California has secured Tesla Motor’s new production facility to mass produce electric vehicles. New Mexico was earlier announced as the destination for the facility, but the Governator (big fan and owner of a Tesla) worked hard to come up with an incentive package to get Tesla to reconsider.
Have to say that I am glad Tesla made the decision, as the company’s HQ, funding, and biggest fans are in the Bay Area. This move reinforces California as the epicenter of emerging green technologies and as the state most pro active against Global Warming.
Busy Day, but thought I would post another Hulu clip. From a classic and all time favorite. Yes, that’s Sean Penn..Great movie, great clip, and great start for Cameron Crowe
If you watch ESPN ever so often, then you are well versed in Stephen A Smith. For those who know him, feel free to skip the video below and paragraph below
Stephen A on a typical tirade
Smith came to ESPN in 2005 and was tabbed as a rising star in sports broadcasting with columns with the Philadelphia Inquirer, his own national radio show, his own show “Quite Frankly” on ESPN, as well as appareances on a variety of other ESPN shows. He covered a variety of sports, but his bread and butter was basketball.
There was one problem though, Stephen A Smith earned the repuation “Screaming A Smith” as he always seemed outrage, agitated, and on the verge of major stroke. He bashed anything and everything and the schtick grew thin. Some enjoyed it but most including myself hated him.
Slowly he started coming back to Earth. His radio show and weekly column ended, Quite Frankly got canceled, and ESPN seemed to be limiting his role in NBA coverage. I am sure this didn’t sit well Mr. Smith, but the real dagger came when ESPN removed him from the stage of this past NBA draft and relegated him to interviewing draft picks on the side. Smith had spent the past 2 years as one of key analysts of the draft.
Smith’s demotion and general angry demeanor has been the talk of the sports blogoshpere for quite awhile, but recently I came across the organization known as Stephen A Smith Heckling Society of Gentleman that I wanted to share.
The backstory is short and sweet. A couple of buddies, / loud mouth wise asses (that’s a compliment), attended the 2006 NBA draft and videotaped various exchanges with Stephen A Smith. In particular they poked fun of the fact that Smith ate a copious amount of Cheese Doodles when off camera. Their jeers and impressions of Smith were ridiculously on target and quickly became a viral hit on youtube.
The following year, the same tandem guys (sobriety again in question), returned to the draft and once again jeered Smith. This time they added a new twist by chasing after players, pretending that a on camera sock puppet was Smith. The sock impersonating Smith was actually slapped by Joahkim Noah and was extremely affective and entertaining with numerous cliche sound bites like “I am Stephen A Smith, and everything I say is important” “Quite Frankly….” “HowEVER….”.
Oblivious to internet phenomena mocking him, Smith served up a gem by going on a tirade on his National radio show touting his love of Cheese Doodles. Once again the Stephen A Smith Heckling Society of Gentleman produced another classic youtube video.
With three popular videos produced, the guys once again took to it to mock one of the most annoying sports personality since Dennis Miller. Below are their efforts
All of the above is just another great and comedic example of web2.0/social media’s impact on traditional media. Tired of Smith, the two friends took a silly day at the draft and grew it to an internet phenomen. Smith has been demoted multiple times while the videos above have garnered almost a million views as well acknowledgements by Tony Kornheiser and Kevin Love.
While its hard to say that these videos played a role in Smith’s plight back to earth, social media serves more and more as the first line into emerging trends, opininons, movements, etc. These videos served as the centerpiece of the anti Smith general opinion that has relegated to a second tier ESPN personality. Their popularity only confirmed what most viewers and maybe even the ESPN brass already suspected :
Stephen A Smith needed to be taken down a peg or two and more importantly should seek therapy.
Props to the guys who have made it a priority in their lives to lead this movement. Also good to see they haven’t tried to monetize their viral hit, but have rather decided to plug a very worthy cause.
I am a big fan of Hulu and blogged about it a couple months ago. At a high level, Hulu is a higher resolution Youtube with advertising except all the videos are legal and come from big name media companies so there is no user generated content.You can watch entire movies and television shows with a sparse amount advertising and even have the option to embed them into blogs. The problem is that WordPress.com users like me have had mild success getting these great videos from Hulu.com onto our blogs. Luckily for me 30 minutes of persistence has paid off. I am sure I’ll post a lot of stuff from Hulu to make it look like I blog a lot, but for now here is a scene from Garden State (good 20’s angst movie).Scene below is fist meeting between main characters Andrew and Sam. Props to VodPod for making this happen, although I had to jump through some extra hoops.
A co worker asked me if I wanted to live the blog the NBA Draft for Yardbarker. I jumped at the opportunity as I have never really “live blogged” anything.
I think I did okay, and the Yardbarker community gave me some good marks.
This week’s commercial of the week has aired in multiple shorter incarnations during the Euro Cup. Below is the full 2 minute piece. Its directed by Guy Ritchie of Snatch, Lock Stock, and Madonna fame.
The commercial is uptempo, exciting, tells a story, and has loads of soccer star power. What sets it apart is the soundtrack and the first person camera angle. Very enjoyable.
Wanted to throw a couple of interesting updates on the Green Technology fronts.
I have covered Tesla Motors and even had the pleasure of visiting to their offices in San Carlos. The overhead costs associated with launching a car company are ginormous and rumors are that Tesla is seeking some more dough to help get their efforts off the ground.
“Tesla looking for another $100 million — The electric car maker’s plan is to push production up to 150 cars a month by the end of the year, according to VentureWire. To do this it needs more cash. It will likely get it. Enough said.” per VentureBeat.
While funding for a company as ambitious as Tesla would seem like a daunting challenge, this Bay Area startup seems to have made believers out of VC’s, auto enthusiasts and journalists, Silicon Valley investors (a who’s who of valley CEO’s), as well Hollywood’s A list. Although another $100 million is a lot, VentureBeat is right on as the company has come to far and is too close to slow down now.
In other Tesla news, although many celebrities have said to be on the waiting list for their own Tesla Roadster, Matt Damon became the first celebrity to be seen in one. Although just a test drive, its more encouraging news for Tesla as their production begins to ramp up towards 150 cars a month.
In other green transportation news, this weekend I stumbled upon the California High Speed Train proposal and debate. Likely to be on the ballot this November, the 10 billion dollar proposal looks to connect Sacramento, the Bay Area, Central Valley, Los Angeles, Anaheim, and San Diego on one high speed train line.
My take: I have read some analyis taking both sides of the proposal and find myself overwelmingly for the implementation of this system. Housing costs are high forcing a lot of people to make far commutes, gas prices are high, highways are overcrowded, and their is now convenient system connecting this great state’s commerce centers. Yeah this thing is going to be a bitch to build, and usher through all the government bureacy, but the value is their for California citizens and voters. The ends justify all the means and then some. Most transportation efforts at the local effort have failed, so lets’ sack up and Swing for the fences now.
Awhile back I blogged about how the NHL’s television deal on Versus was a significant detriment to the league’s continued growth and success.
On the flip side, ESPN (the NHL’s former television carrier), was discretely stagnating its efforts in covering the NHL with no business incentive to cover the least popular of the the big 4 sports leagues.
Despite the exodus of NHL commentators and analysts to other networks, ESPN retained Barry Melrose who did his best to anchor and sustain ESPN NHL coverage.
But with no sight of the NHL returning to ESPN, Melrose decided to scratch his growing itch to return to coaching and is believed to be set to accept the Tampa Bay Lightning coaching vacancy tomorrow. Melrose has had success as a coach, and was most likely growing weary of ESPN’s half ass coverage of the NHL.
I’ll leave analysis of the effect of Melrose’s hiring to Tampa Bay up to the experts. However I will say with no live games, no nightly recap shows devoted to hockey (NHL 2night is gone), lesser coverage on Sportscenter, and now the loss of ESPN’s face of hockey coverage, “The Sports leader” should most likely add an asterisk to their byline excluding their diminishing NHL coverage from the ambitious statement.
