Toyota's New Incentives

I am pretty sure that everyone has heard about Toyota's vehicles having the gas pedal that had a high risk of sticking, and how they had a huge recall, and were probably never going to recover or be trusted again. This is news that the media has been telling us this past month, but is Toyota really in that big of a predicament? The answer varies from person to person, but what the Media tells us now is that Toyota doesn't have to worry.
A few months ago I was eating at an Arby's, and I ordered my food along with my teammates from my tennis team. Eventually everyone got their orders except for me. I waited and waited, until I finally went up and asked when my order was coming. They told me someone else must have taken it, so I was mad. Arby's knew they did wrong by giving away the wrong order, so they fixed it and made me a new order, plus gave me an extra roast beef. I was totally satisfied with my meal after this, and instead of holding a grudge I told people about how good their service was for fixing the problem. Toyota is in the same predicament. They know how much trouble they are in after their little mess up, and they don't want to suffer the consequences, so they are making it up to the people. Not only did they do a total recall on their vehicles and fix them, but they are offering zero percent financing, and lowering prices on their new vehicles to get their name out there for good and not bad. I personally thing this is a good strategy, and honestly right when the whole incident happened, I started looking for a Toyota vehicle. I think that everyone should take advantage of this and get a great vehicle for cheap, because all of the defective ones were the Prius, but the effects on pricing went on all of their vehicles, so you could buy a perfectly good car or truck for a lot less than it is worth. Overall, the media will shape the outcome of this extravaganza, and things should be looking good for Toyota in the future.

Lil Wayne in Big Trouble

I recently signed into my MSN Messenger, and checked out a couple of the top stories. The one that caught my eye was an article on Dwayne Carter Jr. also known as Lil Wayne. I am sure most of you have heard of him, but just in case you haven't, here are a few of his best songs: A Milli, On Fire, and Lollipop. He is also a featured artist in many rap and even rock songs like Let It Rock. Because he is a rap artist, he acts like he is a gangster in his music videos, even though he may not have grown up with a rough life like most gangsters do. Not too long ago, he was trying to bring what he does in music videos to real life, when he was charged for gun possession and he plead guilty with a sentence of one year in jail on New York's Rikers Island Prison. Going to prison definitely not the most fun time in the world, and it definitely sucks. Lil Wayne was just worrying about serving his time, when one of the creators of one of his most famous songs (lollipop) decided to make his life even more miserable. It turns of that the producer did not receive any royalties from Lil Wayne's Grammy winning song. He is going to sue Lil Wayne for around five hundred thousand dollars. He is also fighting allegations about him sampling a song called "Once" by Karma Swanepole, in his own track "I Feel Like Dying. Just in case that was not enough, Darius 'Deezle' Harrison and music publishers at The Royalty Network have filed a multi-million dollar suit over royalties from "Mrs. Officer", another one of his more famous songs. Overall, Lil Wayne is in some Big Trouble, and it is surprising to me that it takes this much for the media to finally catch his attention. I am not a huge fan of him, but I do enjoy hearing his songs occasionally on the radio, and it is weird to me that he did not get much attention from the media when he was put in jail, as if it is no big deal or surprise that a rapper would be going to prison. It seems to me that the media did not care until there were arguments, and millions of dollars involved. Maybe if he would not have admitted he was guilty he would have gained more attention, but who knows.

Tiger Is Back

I would say ninety-eight percent of the United States and half of the world knows about Tigers little incident, and after his time off to "think about what he has done", and supposedly get over his sex addiction, he is finally back at the Masters, and not doing too bad. He is currently tied for 4th place, with K. J. Choi. They are both shooting an eleven under par, and down by five strokes to the current leader Phil Mickelson, who is shooting a sixteen under par. For current standings click here. While the media is on constant watch for any tiny mistake or misfortune to happen to Tiger Woods, he says he is just trying to play the game, as he mentioned in his interview. Tiger has done pretty well considering his current place, but after watching some of the Masters on ESPN, I thought he would be in dead last. While there are tons of highlights on not so good players hitting amazing shots, Tiger has only clips of the shots he messes up on. Almost every time I have watched, they have showed him getting frustrated, and hitting his club on the ground or simply dropping it in disgust. He really is doing well, but the media doesn't care. They are cheering against him, and putting him down. Personally, I think this could be a good thing. I feel that Tiger will use this negativity to push himself to be even better, if that is possible. He is already showing this some what, because although they are showing his misfortunes, he is rubbing it back in their face with amazing shots from almost impossible angles. One of the more impressive ones, was when they stopped showing another players shot, to quick go to Tiger on the border of being out of bounds. He was in a pretty dense shelter belt of trees, and had just one narrow path to shoot out of. He took a while to line it up, and finally shot, hitting a tree only about ten yards in front of him. The commentators were talking about everything he did wrong, when Tiger lined up his next shot from still in the trees. He then punched the ball out, up and over the trees he was in. The ball had backspin, so when it landed just three yards from the pin it stuck. I almost started laughing, because here the media was trying to make him look bad, and he makes a ridiculous shot look simple. There were many more shots like this, and while the media was putting Tiger down, they were at the same time showing viewers that he really is still that good. Overall, Tiger is still one of the top contenders, and he isn't getting enough credit for the golfer he truly is. I hope he wins this tournament and shows everyone what is up.

Headbutting Giraffe

Have you ever wanted a pet giraffe? I think it would be awfully cool. Giraffes are some of earths most amazing creatures. They can stand up to 19 feet tall, with a long neck, legs, and tongue, and spots like a jaguar. When we learn our animals as children, they are one of the first, because they are so unique. At zoos, they are one of the most popular attractions. They will even let you pet them, and feed them. Sometimes wild animals get a little too friendly when they are in captivity their whole life. They are like a dog who likes to play around with you, but accidentally gets too aggressive.
A zoo keeper from Rhode Island was cleaning up in the giraffe cage, when she was head butted my an 18 foot giraffe. She ended up able to walk herself out of the cage, but had to go to the hospital to get things checked out. She was lucky and got released from the hospital with just minor head injuries. The Media picked up on this incident like the giraffe was on the attack and trying to hurt the female worker, but was that really the case? It turns out that the giraffe was actually just trying to play with the worker. This particular giraffe is one that is used to being fed by guests and workers, and also loves having its head petted. The giraffe simply just had an uncoordinated moment, but like two human beings both bending down to pick up a piece of garbage, and banging heads. When I heard that the woman was released with minor head injuries, I asked myself if this is truly even news worthy? Nothing good will happen by this being reported. The zoo, in fact, will probably lose money because of this publicity, and that friendly giraffe might not ever get to be petted again, because of the fear of it accidentally head butting a future customer. I honestly don't think that this story would be national news if it wasn't for the killer whale incident that went on a few weeks ago. The media is really digging hard just to find a similar story, and I guess I am actually helping their cause by talking about it on the internet. Even by me bashing them in this case, I am still creating another source for people to hear this news, and making them more profitable. Sometimes I think the media is too desperate, but can still turn nothing into something big.

Oh No She Didn't!

This past week there were some problems in women's NCAA basketball. The Baylor Lady Bears were playing the Texas Tech Red Raiders, and two post players were fighting for position. The one on offense was Brittney Griner for the Baylor Lady Bears, and the one on defense was Jordan Barncastle. Jordan's arm got wrapped around Brittney's, and instead of sliding it out, Jordan tried to flip her. The problem with this is that Brittney is not your average player. Brittney is known for her dunks on YouTube, and 25 blocks in a single game in high school. Oh ya, and I forgot to mention she is an athletic 6'8"! Lets just say that the flipping didn't go over too well, especially when all 6'8" of her punched Jordan right in the face in retaliation. Jordan's nose swelled up and bled a little, while Brittney was ejected from the game. The clip of this punch was all over the news. I watched ESPN that night and saw it on the high lites several times. Jordan ended up with a broken nose, and could be out for the rest of the season, and Brittney ended up with a 2 game suspension. If you ask me, a two game suspension is nothing. There have been many other incidents like this in men's sports, like the Oregon football incident. In this case, a player punched another and he was suspended for the whole season. The media was all over that incident also, saying that the suspension of a year was too much. Personally I feel that 4 games should have been her minimum suspension. I think 2 games was way to short, and a year is far too long, especially since Jordan started the whole problem by trying to flip her, due to frustration. One thing I noticed with this, is that men's sports are in the media far more than women's. This is sad, because woman have just as exciting games at times as the men. Sure the men have physical advantages that make their sports more exciting, but the scores come down to the last minute just as often as men. Overall, I think the media handled this incident very well, but I feel that they should cover more women's sports.

Morally Wrong

The 2010 Winter Olympics are now underway in Vancouver Canada. Canada is the perfect place to host the Winter Olympics, due to its cold conditions all year. To prove that they are the ultimate location, they decided to build the biggest, fastest, and longest tracks ever in history. Because the tracks were all new, they had not been tested by the athletes yet. Olympians in the Luge event dove into the track with caution, only to find out that it was not going to be an easy task to finish the course without letting up at least a little bit. Nodar Kumaritashvi, one of the lugers, was one of the first to go in the event. He began very smoothly; everything seemed to be going his way for a great run. After reaching around eighty-eight miles per hour around one of the biggest turns, he came out of it a little sharp. When he over corrected, his body went spinning into the air and hit a metal pole, head first. The scene was tragic. All of the viewers watching it saw a man die on live television. They did not know he was dead until after they showed the medics trying to resuscitate him. At this point, I was wondering why the cameras where still on, and why there wasn't a commercial break? What has happened to the Media today? I really don't understand why a television company feels they have to right to do this. I suppose money just talks that much now days, since I am sure every channel that showed it got higher ratings. I myself found it rather disturbing. I can understand maybe a picture of the incodent being shown, but the video was way too much. They also showed replays of it on news channels. I feel that the media has lost all morals in today's society. Nodar did not diserve to have his death disrespected. Unless he signed a contract that says the media can show his death on television, if it was to happen, then I don't know how these people haven't hot in trouble yet. Coaches, fans, and fellow Olympians showed thier appretiation and respect at Nodar's funeral. I am glad his death was at least respected in that matter, but as far as the media showing it on TV, and Vancouver trying to be the best by creating nearly impossible courses for it's athletes, I am not even close to impressed.

Microsoft Goes Racist?

Recently, Microsoft updated it's web page to show some racial diversity. The large image posted on the screen of their site is that of an Asian man, African American man, and a Caucasian woman. They are sitting at a table smiling with their computers out. This is great for advertisement in our melting pot of a country, but being a global power, Microsoft apparently thinks it needed to change it up a bit for other countries. The Polish version of the site has the African American's head photoshopped out of the picture. It is instead replaced with a white man's head. The pictures are shown side by side on several sites. One ironic part of it, is that the photoshopping job is very poor. Maybe it is because Microsoft used its own product to do it instead of the debatably better version of Photoshop used by Apple products. Anyway, back to the whole racist deal. Microsoft has already appologized for the incodent, claiming that their statistics show having a white person on the site made for sense for Poland's society. Poland has more white and Asian people in their population, so naturally they photoshopped the black man out. Is it really going to make a difference to Poland? Was it really worth it? Poland's population is actually made up of 97% white people with a background of their ancestors living in Poland. Regardless, I still feel that this was a very dumb decision by Microsoft. I can't imagine anyone looking at that picture and saying that they won't buy anymore products because there is a black person in the picture instead of two white people. If it would make a difference, then maybe they should have done a better job of it and actually changed the black man's hand to a white man's, a little part they forgot. I am pretty good with Photoshop, and I guarantee that Microsoft could have paid me half as much as they paid the other guy, and I would have done a better job than him. Overall, I don't feel Microsoft did this because they have something against Black people. They simply wanted to appeal to a different type of society. I didn't see any news out there about Poland complaining, just the United States, who the add doesn't even affect. I feel like Microsoft didn't need to formally apologize, but it was good PR for them to do it. I hope that the advertising world learns from this goof up.

All That Hype... For Nothing

It was somewhat believable when the Minnesota Vikings made it all the way to the NFC Championship game. They had the best runningback in the league (Adrian Peterson), the SAX machine (Jared Allen), the run stopping power (Pat and Kevin Williams) and, maybe the most important, the veteran, retired, not retired, retired, and once again not retired quarterback (Brett Favre). Everything about them in the stat book said, "Super Bowl here we come." Being a Vikings fan, I was very excited! But, being a Vikings fan, I also was ready to expect the worst. Vikings have a way of building up your confidence, and then flushing all of your hopes and dreams down the toilet like they never mattered in the first place. They do it every year, and it just absolutely kills you, but you know when you are a true Viking fan, because you keep coming back.
The 2009-2010 season started out amazing. Brett Favre led the team to a great start, and finished the season with a record of 12-4, earning themselves a bye in the playoffs. Vikings fans were pleased. In fact Prince, the recording artist, who is one of the Vikings biggest fans was seen at their first playoff game against the Dallas Cowboys. He was so inspired by his teams performance, that he wrote a song for them entitled "Purple and Gold". The Vikings went on the beat the Cowboys in a, not even close enough to call it a game, with a score of 34-3. The chances of a Super Bowl appearance was looking great. They just needed to beat the Saints in the NFC Championship game.
It wasn't going to be easy. The Saints began the season 13-0, and Drew Brees (Quarterback of the Saints) was having the season of his life. He was averaging 276.4 passing yards per game this season, ranking second in the league. The game came down to third down and about ten yards with a score of 28-28. The Vikings had the ball, and were in range for a 55 yard field goal. This was not impossible for Ryan Longwell, the veteran kicker for the Vikings. His longest field goal was 55 yards, so the Vikings were in good shape. All they had to do was run one more hand off play up the middle, call a time out, and kick the 55 yard field goal to win. If Longwell were to miss, the worst that would happen is the game would go into overtime, so what did they have to lose? Well, instead of running the ball, Brad Childress decided he would take his chances at throwing a pass with his veteran quarterback, trusting he would throw it away if no one was open. Brett Favre threw an interception on this play and all in all lost the game for the Vikings. The Saints ran down the clock for overtime, won the coin toss, got the ball, and kicked a field goal to win the game. I'll admit that I almost cried, but I suppose we were supposed to lose with 6 fumbles earlier in the game.
This season was a very exciting one, but in the end very disappointing. I have been and for some reason will still be a Vikings fan. When you are a Vikings fan, you tend to get used to a lot of hype for nothing.