Went to a Yankee game today with work, great seats and a good time. Here are some pics:

Pretty good seats!

panoramic shot with my cell phone, it does a decent job and it isn't even a smart phone!

the bats part kind of scared me...

“It’s time to kick ass and chew bubble gum…and I’m all out of gum…”

Those few words kick started my world of Duke Nukem. I remember playing this game with some friends during my early years of high school back in 96-97 (which just writing it down makes me feel old). I can remember hearing rumblings about a new Duke Nukem game that would never come out…but it looks like it might just finally be coming out next year.

from yahoo.com:

September 3 11:11 A.M.

Though the game has been presumed dead so many times you’d need an abacus to keep track, “Duke Nukem Forever” is very much alive – and he’s coming to store shelves soon.

Take Two Interactive Software pulled off one of the video game world’s biggest surprises Friday, announcing not only that the over-a-decade-in-development first person shooter was nearly finished, but backing that claim up by giving the 150,000 people attending the Penny Arcade Expo in Seattle the chance to play the game.

The rest of the world will get its chance in 2011 – on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.

First announced in 1997, “Duke Nukem Forever” became an annual presence on vaporware lists and a running joke among gamers for its molasses-like development schedule and frequent restarts. A year ago, it appeared the final nail had been hammered into the game’s coffin, when developer 3D Realms ran out of money, let go virtually all of its employees and began a legal war with its publisher, Take-Two Interactive Software.

That suit was settled earlier this year, however. And while 3D Realms is no more, Gearbox Software, the studio behind “Borderlands” and “Brothers in Arms” (and staffed with a number of former 3DR employees), has taken over development on the game.

“Gearbox has enabled die-hard key Duke Nukem franchise builders and skilled veteran game makers to stand together and deliver,” said Randy Pitchford, president of Gearbox Software. “All gamers deserve a happy ending and after all of us gamers feeling the full range of emotions about Duke Nukem Forever, I am thrilled to be in a position with the trust, power and means to make it happen.”

“Duke Nukem Forever” is, technically, a sequel to 1996’s “Duke Nukem 3D” – though normally a sequel takes no more than three years to put together, while “DNF” started in the Clinton administration.

The game missed ship-date after ship-date, and many began to assume it would never see the light of day. Many pointed to 3D Realms co-founder George Broussard as the reason for the delays – noting that his obsession with perfection for the title resulted in a never-ending cycle of changes.

The bad times are over now, though – and the game is nearing completion. And after 13 long years, some of the industry’s most core fans at PAX have finally gotten to see for themselves if the wait was worth it.

Saw this on yahoo and thought it was awesome. The dog looks like Cassie:

As I did with Mother Brain, the first time, I just want to take a moment to introduce the newest contributor to Cos’ Blog, Chosen 1. They’re unique style should bring another fresh opinion to the blog.

A new breed of exorcism?

By: Chosen 1

One of the all time scariest movies in the eyes of many, including myself, was first released in December of 1973. Just one day removed from one of the most religious holidays of the year, Warner Brothers introduced us to a little girl named Regan who had been taken over by demon who if you read the novel in which the movie was based on went by the name “Pazuzu”. Throughout the film you are at the edge of your seat waiting for what demonic trick would scare the hell out of you next. I guess a lot of what scares the viewers throughout this movie is the unknown. It is natural belief by many that there is a heaven and hell. So if you can pray and be heard in the heavens it is then indeed possible to be heard by those who have not reached “the promised land”. The special effects used throughout this movie were “simple” yet spectacular. From the projectile vomit to the complete 360 degree turn of the young girls head; makeup artists and special effect coordinators made us believe that this little girl was losing her battle with this demon. She of course was not battling this demon alone. Along with her for the unwanted ride were two priests. Father Karras who had begun to lose his faith as his mother had fallen deathly ill and Father Marrin a much more elderly priest who himself is ailing an seemingly doesn’t have much time left. The fight for the little girl’s life is what brought this movie to a whole new level of horror. Over the last 30 plus years this movie has been sequeled, spoofed, re-released, but never was the horror duplicated.

Fast forward to August 27, 2010 the marquee reads “The Last Exorcism” I had not seen much in the way of previews for the movie but enough to know that it was done documentary style. All I was thinking was great they took the legacy of one of the greatest horror movies of all time, the before mentioned Exorcist, and turned it into a “Blair Witch” wannabe. In all honesty it was not my choice to even go see this movie I was pushing for “Dinner with Schmucks”. As it happens most times I lost the battle but the movie was free so I was not going to complain too much.
The movie begins in a small town in Louisiana where beloved preacher Reverend Cotton Marcus has set forth to end the belief that humans can be possessed by demons. Professor Jeremiah Lasky oops sorry i mean Reverend Marcus had performed more “exorcisms” then he could remember as he started when he was just a young boy very strong in his faith. He tells the camera crew that since becoming a family man he has basically become an actor simply faking his way through sermons and exorcisms making believers out of all of his followers that he was indeed blessed by the hands of their god. A story breaks that a young child dies at the hands of a priest during an exorcism and this is what sets Reverend Marcus on his less then holy expedition. He takes his crew to a farm of a family who believes their young daughter is possessed by a demon. He tricks them into allowing him to provide his skills in order to save the young girl. On camera he shows us the tools of his trade (rings that create an electric current shocking the “possessed”, tape recordings of sounds of “demons”, and a smoking cross that captures the “demon” inside after he has freed the little girl just to name a few. Through many special effects similar to the original “Exorcism” but polished for the next generation of moviegoers we begin a roller coaster ride that touches on every possibility of the young girls troubles.

The movie is pretty captivating and although not as scary as its original predecessor steals a couple of cheap gasps and jumps. Unfortunately the last 10 minutes may drown what otherwise was a very well put together movie. The roller coaster ends and you say “really?” Other then that I would give a 3 out of 5 stars and recommend if you are in the mood for a decently scary movie you should check it out. My final opinion good movie but will most likely will lose a lot of its appeal after it leaves the theater and loses the big screen and loud surround speakers.

{Posted last night–9/1–updated 9/2}

(POSSIBLE SPOILERS FOR “9″ and “District 9″–Move ahead with caution)

The other day we watched “9“, the Tim Burton produced CG Animated film, and I can honestly put it in the same category as “District 9” (no real relation to the names or numbers by the way) in that they were both highly praised and extremely well received by a lot of people but I just personally didn’t think they were all that good or original.

I am in no way knocking either movie, I didn’t hate either one of them, they just didn’t blow me away. While I can appreciate “District 9″  and what director, Neill Blomkamp, did with 30 mil, I just thought it was “The Fly” with action. And  “9″ combined a couple of different movies with little sack of potatoes running around saving the world from Skynet.  Seriously, I’m not knocking either movie, both really well made, I just felt the hype behind both were larger than the actual movies themselves. And that usually hurts the movie for me.

Aside from movies like The Dark Knight, which was going to be awesome regardless, usually the only way for me to like a highly acclaimed movie is to not hear any of the hype. I usually like movies that I’ve heard bad things about because I have none of the expectations. I need a movie to get me and fast. While District 9 got me with the mockumentary style at the beginning I just didn’t think it was as original as everyone said it was. I felt like I had seen this before, be it a combination of a again, The Fly, with Alien Nation, and the scary alien space crafts from either Independence Day or V; aside from creative Prawn aliens, I didn’t think there was anything original. If the appeal was the  use of the budget to make a 30 million dollar film look like a 200 million dollar film then they got me there. But that isn’t going to win me over. No way!

As for 9, I honestly felt like it was a combination of a bunch of different movies, Edward Scissorhands, Terminator, Lord of the Ring, the robots reminded me of a mix between War of the Worlds and the machines from The Matrix and a handful of other movies. I liked it, I’m not going to discredit anyone that was behind this movie, but I was expecting so much more…a lot more then a really really good episode of Chip N Dale’s Rescue Rangers. This was built up as the best animated movie of last year. Better than “Up” and I have to say, I really enjoyed Up but I felt it was the child friendly version of Gran Torino and I shouldn’t feel that way about a movie from Pixar.

Will somebody please tell me this guy didn't remind them of Edward Scissorhands?

I hope people don’t think I’ve spoken poorly of these films, it was not my intention to make fun of them in any real way, but I can’t honestly say I’d recommend them to anyone. They just didn’t set my world on fire. I wanted to be truly wowed. I’m really taken aback at how many films I’ve seen that were highly praised that I didn’t like. While I did like Up, I loved Wall-E better, if there was a choice between Up and Up in the Air for best movie last year to have “up” in the title, I would totally go for Up in the Air. I thought that was a great movie. It was highly acclaimed and was an Academy Award Nominated film. I can’t be completely off of my game here people.  Out of the ten Best Picture Nominations this year I’ve seen five of them and out of those five I’ve really liked three of them. Maybe there is something wrong with me…

My true thoughts on District 9 and 9 and any other movie like these are as followed:  a few years ago if you put a whole bunch of movies together and produced a film, you were considered a hack. Today, you put a whole bunch of movies together, make it dark you win critical acclaim and an Oscar Nomination. You know what? I’m going to go out there and combine Jaws, RoboCop, Dirty Dancing and The Firm and make damn sure its a dark movie and I’ll see you all in Hollywood on Oscar night. I mean, that’s honestly my opinion and I’m definitely allowed to have it and I challenge anyone to steer my on the right path because I must be lost.

What can I say, everyone else liked these movies, maybe it just boils down to me being  hard to please…

I just saw this on wrestlezone.com and I hope its totally a joke. I don’t agree with this at all. I don’t think its an issue with the Tag Team Championship or with the just announced Women’s/Diva’s Championship unification; both because there just aren’t enough roster members to fill both of those divisions. But the main event and upper mid card have plenty of people and would have no problems filling out the those two divisions.

Been there. Done that.

Honestly, they’ve tried this before back in 2001/2002/2003 and they immediately went back to multiple PPVs. Maybe they should start putting together a couple of their singles guys and keep them as tag teams. Maybe they should not “future endeavor” their hardest working Divas. I mean, the IC/United States championship could be fought after by multiple amounts of people but it isn’t because they only cater to the PPV audience that isn’t there anymore. Instead of trying to use the IC/US championships as the spring board that it should be to the next level it gets tossed on someone and forgotten for months on end. Go back and look at the history of the US championship and see how many of those reigns you actually remember. And I’m not talking about the ones prior to the WWE version of the belt, I mean from WWE on. Go check it out!  The same goes for the IC championship.

Shelton Benjamin held the US championship for 240 days, that's over half a year!

I also feel like moving the IC and Women’s belts from Raw to Smackdown has greatly diminished their credibility. Whereas the WWE and the World Championship could interchange back and forth, as they have, I feel like both the IC and Women’s were known to Raw, now that they are exiled to Smackdown, they have been forgotten. That’s simply my opinion. I guess that’s mostly because I really only watch Raw and allow my knowledge of Smackdown to come from reading spoilers on wrestling dirt sheets or podcasts.

I have always felt that the Diva’s Championship has been completely unnecessary but also led to the viewers being deprived of the Cruiser Weight Division. Granted the CW division wasn’t really shinning to begin with, but at least it gave all the smaller, thinner guys something to battle over. I also always felt that the CW championship would have found a home on the ECW on Sci-Fi/SyFy show simply because they could have made the show the show where the Cruiser Weights could have done whatever. Instead of making three cookie cutter shows they could have allowed ECW to be something special. And I for one miss the show. But, as always, I digress. Getting back to the Diva’s Championship, I always felt like it cheapened the Women’s belt, especially once it moved into virtual obscurity on Smackdown.

But, seeing how WWE has been dumping its Divas recently (Maria, Mickie James, Serena) I can see why they would want to unify the belts and have the Champion bounce back and forth, as I would see why they would want to do the same to the Tag Championship. But I cannot for the life of me see why they would want to do that with the IC/US and the World/WWE championships.

Couldn’t decide on which former Diva, so I posted Mickie…

Also, I was thinking about it today, with Night of Champions coming up in a few weeks, I actually counted how many championships the WWE has. I mean it isn’t that hard: WWE, World, Intercontinental, United States, WWE Tag Team, and Women’s/Divas (unification). That’s only six. That’s not bad. But I’m telling you, the IC championship better not be Kofi Kingston vs Dolph Ziggler for the 28th straight time in a row. WWE barely set up Summerslam, and regardless of whether it was a decent show; I’m sure seeing that Night of Champions is not one of the “Big Four” I doubt people will buy it on name alone. WWE should be packing these PPV’s with a lot more storylines and not simply hoping people will buy them on the main event scene. Seriously, who really gives a crap about Undertaker vs Kane for the World Championship? Not to knock either person, but we’ve seen this before…and I’m pretty sure its going to be dragged all the way to Hell in a Cell (has there ever been a Taker/Kane Hell in a Cell? I don’t think so).

As for this year’s Night of Champions, I feel that they could also put the Million Dollar Belt of for grabs, even if it is just to get Ted DiBiasi onto a PPV.

If they do unify all of the belts, what will they do at next years Night of Champions? How many belts will they have? WWE, Tag, IC, Women’s? That’s four belts…no one would purchase a PPV with only four belts…unless they toss in the Cruiser Weight Championship (and actually put it on a real champion and not on Hornswoggle) and have that thing bounce back and forth between the shows. But then that brings up this question: what do the champions do when they already have a fued on one show and MUST appear on the other show?

Ohh! My complete and utter apologies on this one, I'll try and make it up to you later

How many of us remember when they first started with the Undisputed Championship back in 2002 and Undertaker had just won it from Hulk Hogan. Taker was feuding with someone (my research shows that at King of the Ring 2002, Undertaker defeated Triple H, so I can see him feuding with Triple H) while on Smackdown he was in a mini feud with Tommy Dreamer. Are we going to get stuck watching that type of stuff if this happens?  I’m just saying.

I hope this is a hot rumor, just like the new WWE logo thing and that it proves to be untrue. I mean, if Vince really is all about the money then, shouldn’t there be more belts? Then he could make more off of the replicas that they sell as well as all of the single branded house show (unless, like recently, they’ve been either canceling them or making them WWE Super Shows…hmmm). I just hope WWE thinks long and hard before they do this.

And as promised:

Former WWE Diva: Torrie Wilson. Told you I'd make it up to you.

Related Cos’ Blog Posts:

New WWE Tag Team Championship Belts

More thoughts on The new WWE Tag Team belts

Possible New WWE logo?

SummerSlam predictions

The Mother Brain Files: PG Politics

If you know me you’ll know that I am an only child and I’ve heard some things that correlate with only children (like only children are the lonely children and things like that); now did I ever found myself to be lonely? Maybe, I mean when it came time to play Mortal Kombat or Mario Kart and I found myself un-opposed and thinking I was the freaking man only to find out your skills against the video game AI meant nothing…or when playing with action figures. But I did just fine. I’d like to think if it weren’t for being an only child I wouldn’t be able to write. I think being an only child made me want to tell stories, being the quiet observer and making my cat my brother…but we don’t talk about that last one (I do miss that cat…)

Did I ever post this pic on here?

Anyway, this article says that there have been some research done to and they find that only children are not only becoming the norm (FINALLY!) but we’re actually not as abnormal as we once were thought to be (so, does that make me like an X-man or something?)

from Discovery.com:

Only Child Syndrome a Myth

Despite common beliefs that only children may grow up maladjusted, new research finds they’re just fine.

By Emily Sohn
Mon Aug 16, 2010 12:18 PM ET

THE GIST

• Adolescents have just as many friends, whether they have siblings or not.
• The average size of the American family is shrinking, and only children are becoming more common.
• The findings should offer comfort to parents, no matter how many kids they decide to have.

Whether they’re only children or one of five, teens and pre-teens make plenty of friends, new research concludes.

The new study should offer comfort to parents that their kids will grow up to be just fine, no matter how many they decide to have. It may be a growing concern: With women having kids later in life and pocketbooks tightening against the economic downturn, the number of families with only children has nearly doubled — to about 20 percent — since the 1960s, according to the National Center for Health Statistics.

“People are having smaller families and more children are growing up with fewer siblings,” said Donna Bobbitt-Zeher, a sociologist at Ohio State University in Columbus. “What this study suggests is that there really isn’t a need to worry for parents who have only children in terms of their social development.”

The stereotype of a lonely, spoiled, bossy and maladjusted only child dates back to 1896, when an American psychologist named Granville Stanley Hall did a research paper on the subject. Despite major flaws in his study and fundamental changes to the structure of family life since then (like a shift from isolated farms to urban daycares for 3-month olds), the stereotype has generally stuck around — even as families have been getting smaller.

To analyze how demographic shifts might be influencing the latest generation of kids, scientists have focused mostly on educational outcomes and test scores. On those measures, studies have shown no advantage for kids with siblings.

In fact, the more brothers and sisters a kid has, the worse he tends to do in school. And kids who are onlies have a slight advantage in their motivation to achieve, said social psychologist Susan Newman, author of “Parenting an Only Child: The Joys and Challenges of Raising Your One and Only.”

More recently, researchers have been looking at how family size might affect social skills — with some evidence that onlies are at a disadvantage, at least early on. A study of kindergarteners, published in 2004 in the Journal of Marriage and Family, found that teachers rated sibling-less children lower on a variety of social skills, including self-control and interpersonal skills.

To find out how that difference panned out as kids got older, Bobbitt-Zeher and colleague Douglas Downey (one of the authors of the kindergarten study) analyzed data from a long-term study of adolescents. The data set included lists made by each student when asked to name five male friends and five female friends.

The study, which involved nearly 13,500 kids in grades 7 through 12, found that only children were listed just as often on friendship lists as were kids with siblings. The number of siblings they had made no difference, Bobbitt-Zeher reported today at a meeting of the American Sociological Association. Neither did the gender of their siblings.

“It’s a huge finding,” Newman said, “and a positive one, because one of the concerns parents have when deciding how many children to have is, ‘What’s going to be the outcome of my child?’”

Plenty of other studies in plenty of countries have scrutinized each aspect of the only-child stereotype and failed to find evidence for any of it, Newman added. Other research, she added, suggests that parents of only children are actually happier than parents with more than one kid.

“I think the numbers are offering comfort,” she said. “The reality is essentially that you don’t have to live with a norm that doesn’t work anymore — the norm being a mom, a dad and two children.”

Of course, having siblings can still be a positive experience, said Laura Padilla-Walker, a Brigham Young University researcher who studies sibling relationships. She recently found that having affectionate siblings helped kids, ages 10 to 14, feel less lonely and depressed and act more generously, especially if their siblings were sisters.

“Siblings provide the training grounds for essential skills that can be learned,” Padilla-Walker said. “If parents only have one child, they will just have to work a little harder to give children those opportunities.”

As the blog continues to go into its new phase of contributors, I just wanted to let everyone know, I will not stop posting pics of my mammals or anything else. It is still my blog and I’m going to do what I want.

With that said, here is a pic of Cassie from yesterday. On facebook I posted: “Caption this pic” and I got a few interesting responses, which you can view by clicking the pic:

I saw this article from yahoo.com back on August 16th and I completely forgot to post it on here. Here is a list of 6 “Endangered” electronic gadgets. I’ve wanted a GPS for the car for a long time and just the other weekend, on our way to one of my co-workers houses for a BBQ, I swore that I would go out and purchase a GPS. But then I read this article and I thought, maybe all I need is a smartphone…

If you’re scratching your head, keep reading, its a little long winded, but you can probably just get the gist of it by skimming the first paragraph of each of the 6 gadgets.

from yahoo.com:

6 Endangered Tech Species

by Jason Notte
Monday, August 16, 2010

Picking up an Apple (NasdaqGS: AAPL – News) iPad or clamoring for Amazon’s(NasdaqGS: AMZN – News) Kindle? You may as well get a DVD player, too, as their combined usefulness is on the clock.

The future of technology is integration, something Apple’s iPhone and Google’s (NasdaqGS: GOOG – News) Android products have a better grasp of than, say, Garmin’s (NasdaqGS: GRMN – News) personal navigation devices or Acer’s netbooks. Though there seems to be enough room for everyone — with the Commerce Department finding last week that American spending on tech items increased 1.8% from 2007 through the first six months of this year while spending on appliances, furniture and clothing declined — analysts agree that the only thing separating some gadgets from the grave is the size of their displays.

“Handsets aren’t going to cannibalize televisions anytime soon, because users want a big-screen media-playback experience that can be accommodated in the home,” says Ross Rubin, an analyst for NPD Group. “However, handsets may cannibalize Blu-ray players at some point because, as bandwidth improves and we see more media on demand and HDMI outputs or wireless features built into the phone, it could take on the functionality of a Roku device or Blu-ray player.”

[See Generic Products That Are Just as Good]

With motion-control gaming, e-books, navigation, mid-range-megapixel cameras and myriad other computing options already included in smartphones, the market space and need for more screens is shrinking. While the iPad is among the devices shrugging it off with more than 14 million sales so far this year, the nearly 4 percentage point growth in the smartphone market so far in 2010 and the $6.2 billion Gartner predicts will be spent downloading 4.5 billion mobile applications in app stores this year has navigation devices, netbooks and even Nintendo starting to feel pressure in their numbers.

“One thing we said seven or eight years ago was that there would be functional convergence of products but physical diversion — which means you’ll have one device for everything,” says Ken Dulaney, an analyst for Gartner. “There’s no reason a camera can’t make a phone call, and I’m sure it will, and there’s no reason why you can’t have a Nintendo device that makes a phone call, and I’m sure it will.”

With an eye toward tech omnipotence, TheStreet looked at devices that face extinction in the near future and focused on these six endangered species:

Digital Cameras

With Android phones up to 8 megapixels and the iPhone 4 boasting pixel-free resolution at 5 megapixels, even the digital-camera industry sees the impending slowdown. The Camera and Imaging Products Association — a consortium formed by Nikon, Olympus, Canon, Sony, Panasonic and other Japanese camera makers — forecast only 2.9% for this year and 2011 after double-digit growth until 2008. The growth of standard point-and-shoot models is more modest at roughly 2.5%.

“We’re just now starting to see handsets come on board with 5- to 8-megapixel cameras, and that’s where we saw digital cameras really start to take off,” Rubin says. “Unless the consumer has a need for optical zoom or some of the things that are more difficult to accommodate with software, we’ll see more users take pictures with their handset.”

[See 21 Things You Should Never Buy New]

This suggests a widening schism between the average tourist shooter and the guy trying way too hard to take pictures of trees in his local park. Shipments of high-end interchangeable-lens SLR cameras are expected to be much more robust, growing 8.6% in 2010 and 7% in 2012. The large size of current SLR lenses will keep them from becoming just another smartphone snap-on, but their small market share may reduce cameras to the domain of die-hards.

“You have to look at what you want to do really well and where you want to just get by,” Dulaney says. “If you just want to get by, then an iPhone’s all you need, but if want to see an email on a large screen or take pictures of your dog in really high quality, you’ll get an iPad and a camera as well.”

Video-Game Consoles

Despite recent sales spikes for both Sony’s PlayStation 3 and Microsoft’s (NasdaqGS: MSFT – News) Xbox 360, it’s been a tough market for games, for which strong app sales and increasingly game-friendly smartphones aren’t helping. In 2009, NPD saw sales for the entire gaming industry drop 8%, with console sales slumping 14%.

That would be just fine, had Apple not announced the iPhone 4 with a new gyroscope aimed specifically at attracting gamers. Microsoft did its rival one better, offering Xbox games on its Windows Phone 7 through its Xbox Live service. With Sony, Microsoft and Nintendo increasingly turning to online content and motion-controlled gaming, moves by Apple and other smarphone makers could be cause for concern.

“If I have an iPhone vs. a dedicated game machine, I’m still going to have a Nintendo Wii in my house because I can’t do those things on the iPhone,” Dulaney says. “If it ever turned out that the iPhone could do all the gestures I needed, then the Wii is under pressure and would fade away.”

A simple connection would help, as well. While a smartphone tethered to an HDMI cable isn’t much fun for anyone, a wireless HD connection like that offered by the WiDi wireless display feature found in Intel (NasdaqGS: INTC – News) Core i5 and Core i7 processors would make a smartphone both a console and a controller.

“While a couple of devices have an HDMI output, you don’t have it on those phones,” Dulaney says. “In the next five years, you’ll have wireless video output and people questioning whether a Wii is a necessary purchase.”

Navigation Devices

The minute TomTom offered an iPhone application, the entire GPS device market took a turn for the worse. From 2006 to 2009, market-research firm iSuppli notes that personal navigation devices had a more than 2-to-1 advantage worldwide over GPS-equipped smartphones.

By the end of 2011, however, iSuppli predicts that personal navigation devices will only outnumber similarly capable smartphones 130 million to 117 million. By 2014, however, smartphones will have a nearly 160-million-unit edge on their competitors.

While NPD Group found last year that demand for in-dashboard GPD devices was nearly eight times that of their handheld counterparts, analysts note that the only separation between those devices and a smartphone is a docking-capable screen.

“Garmin has tried to make their own phone, which they weren’t very successful at, so If I were Garmin, I’d be making nice, rich displays, putting my software on the iPhone and having a service behind it,” Dulaney says. “If I’m [carmaker] BMW, I want a dedicated screen in the car that I want the iPhone to power.”

Tablets

The iPad gets lots of love from critics and consumers alike, but is actually a step behind.

Apple CEO Steve Jobs said in June that the iPad was the company’s media missing link: Developed before the iPhone, but released much later. The problem is that, as a giant iPod Touch, it’s less functional than the iPhone that preceded it.

“The iPad is very much a media playback device with a focus on video due to this large screen and relative lack of portability compared to a handset or MP3 player,” NPD’s Rubin says. “In the case of media playback, there’s not much that is outside the scope of handset design to accommodate that, so these players are particularly vulnerable to cannibalization by smartphones — which is something Apple likely realized.”

The iPad isn’t alone, as perfectly functional Windows tablets face the same plight as users drift toward what Dulaney calls the “moveable experience” — with wireless outputs enabling much smaller devices to display on much larger screens in airport lounges, classrooms and elsewhere. With Android tablets hitting the market, Research in Motion (NasdaqGS: RIMM – News) launching its BlackPad in the fall and even Best Buy (NYSE: BBY – News) hinting at a tablet, the platform is growing — with Gartner predicting 10.5 million sold this year. Unless it slims down or integrates, however, excuses for its existence will shrink.

“What made the iPod so cool and so desirable are things that are done on other devices that do so much else as well,” says Robert Thompson, a pop-culture professor at Syracuse University. “I imagine we’re going to be making fun of the new iPad pretty soon, too.”

Netbooks

Hey, remember netbooks? They’re what all the tech geeks were talking about before the iPad. No? Let’s jog your memory.

Netbooks were the little 10-inch, 1 GB mini-notebooks produced by Asus, Acer, HP (NYSE: HP – News) and others that sported double-digit-percentage sales growth last year, according to NPD, and were poised to be the world’s fourth screen. Research firm Techasie actually predicted 36 million netbook sales worldwide this year.

Then came the iPad and 43% growth from 2009 to 2010 turned into a 13% decline in April, according to Morgan Stanley (NYSE: MS – News). Now, both Gartner and Forrester Research (NasdaqGS: FORR – News) predict that tablet sales will outstrip those of netbooks, with Forrester expecting a tablet takeover by 2012. Techasie hedged its 2010 prediction with a caveat that netbook sales would decline starting in 2011 through 2014. Techasie CEO Anurag Agrawal sealed the argument, saying “there is no compelling reason for a consumer or a business to buy a netbook as compared to a notebook.” With tablets taking a chunk out of the netbook market and smartphones already performing some of their lighter duties, Agrawal may be right.

E-Readers

Let Amazon and Barnes & Noble (NYSE: BKS – News) have their Kindle/Nook price war — they’re both meeting the same fate.

According to analysis by RR Bowker, the Kindle takes up 61% of the e-book market, Barnes & Noble’s Nook holds 20% and Sony has 5%. The problem: The Kindle and its ilk are as one-dimensional as the paper tomes they’re replacing.

Despite all of those readers snapping up Kindles, Nooks and other e-readers, Amazon and Barnes & Noble seem to know how this story will end. Both have developed e-reader applications for smartphones and the iPad, though both seem to know relying solely on those apps takes away their control over sales terms and their cut of the revenue. Since Amazon doesn’t release sales numbers, it’s hard to tell where the Kindle and e-readers as a whole are headed, but that new $139 price point make it just a bit easier to justify adding another gadget to the mix.

“Maslow’s needs hierarchy ought to be changed to breathing, food, water and phones,” Dulaney says. “If people can have hundreds of pairs of shoes in their closet, they can have multiple devices and they’ll be cheap enough that they can.”

– Reported by Jason Notte in Boston.

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I will say, I agree with the GPS thing as well as the camera. If the Droid has a 8 megapixel camera on it and I just checked, my Canon digital camera has 7.1 megapixels (in all honesty, my cell phone takes some pretty good pictures under the right circumstances–ie lighting, non moving images, and its only 3.0 megapixels). Instead of going out and purchasing a GPS or a new digital camera, why not just buy a smart phone that incorporates both.

I don’t know what the netbooks are, I guess I’m just not in the loop anymore. I am a fan of the iPad, I wouldn’t mind getting one of them as I think that aside from the smartphone, the iPad is really the future of computers. Instead of laptops, I can see everything becoming closer to the iPad.

The one that I do not agree with is the Video-Game Consoles. I know that I mentioned about a month ago that the new Sonic the Hedgehog 4: Episode 1 will only be for download on all of the current consoles as well as for download on the iPhone. I don’t get this. How can such a small phone take away from the massive appeal of a console with controllers. I’ve been wrong many many times in the past. This is the person that didn’t understand the appeal of iPods when they first came out and refused to buy one for a good three or four years (I also hate being one of those people that buy them when things are in…but recently I’ve been biting the bullet and going ahead with things, or at least trying to).

My only problem with the smart phones is the price of monthly packages. On top of your normal phone service, simply having a smart phone costs you an extra 30 dollars. Mind you, that amount of money comes with endless amounts of extras. But its still 30 freaking dollars. And it isn’t like you can get a packaged deal so that you can get two with a deal (like if Melissa and I were to get two Droids, it wouldn’t be cheaper, it be 60 bucks!).

I know eventually I’ll get a smart phone, and I’m just holding on to my current phone, but it’ll come after some series thought and consideration. I’m not giving my money up that easily.

Took these pics of Peanut and Cassie earlier today, they are tired from all the noise from when Willie was here fixing the floor in the kitchen.

Also! Did I post this pic of Melissa with Peanut (wrapped like a baby?)

I think Peanut would appreciate it if we actually had kids...