I was a little shocked at the start of WWE Raw this evening, watching in disbelief as the first screen of the show showed 'In Memory of Chris Benoit". It was taken very seriously the moment I saw Vince McMahon standing in an empty ring in an arena, ending the storyline which I had posted about a few days ago of the death of Mr. McMahon.

Chris Benoit has always been a favorate of mine, specifically because he was a wrestler. Plain and simple he was one of the best to ever grace the ring. There are much more well known wrestlers out there, but their abilities in this ring arguably pale to that of Benoit's. I was glad to see he was going to be competing for the ECW title, the only one that has eluded him. I now know he never made it to the event that night, and the facts of the investigation indicate the dark reason why.

Apparently its currently believed that Chris Benoit killed both his wife & son in the weekend,, then commited suicide Monday morning. This is of corse not known as fact, but it would seem likely that they have a fairly clear idea at this point. I truely can't imagine what pushed him to this, and the fact that this is why he and his family are no longer here makes this all the more difficult to except.

Well, this is all I can really type right now... I still have a lot going though my head...

I'm looking for a silicon iPhone case that has a hole/slot on the side that is designed to have wrist strap attached to it...

I searched the net & found a bunch of silicon cases, but none have the added wrist strap slot. Anybody know of one that does???

It's funny, you know. After the first immigrant rally in California, where countless Mexico flags could be seen while US flags were non-existant, Hispanic leaders made an effort to provide American flags to try to change the image that immigrants want to simply want to turn parts of the US back into Mexico.

Now those same leaders are saying it's an outrage Arnold Schwarzenegger actually said immigrants should try learn English.

Apparently Hispanic leaders think so so lowly of Americans that it is actually an insult to sudgest they should try to learn the language spoken by the overwhelming majority of our citizens.

I'm truly offended that they think so lowly of me and what language I speak.

I've been a wrestling fan for a number of years, and pretty much never miss an episode of WWE Monday Night RAW (much easier now that I have TiVo).

I saw the video last Monday showing the "presumed death" of Mr. McMahon. Following the video I tried to determine a factual source to site this as being a stunt. I was pretty sure it was, but part of me still felt that there was something scary about the video, and I realized there was more going on than I initially saw.

I found this source, and it sited some things that I verified were in fact incorrect. I did, however, find some revealing evidence today when I watched the video another time. Undeniable proof that the event was staged, all be it very well...

The post I linked above stated a couple things. First off, it stated that what the WWE did was show live video of Mr. McMahon getting into the limo, but then cut to previously recorded video of the explosion. This is factually incorrect. If you watch the video of him actually getting into the limo, then watch frame by frame while he gets in, the camera zooms out & the limo explodes, this entire clip was done in one single shot. Of this I am 100% positive. The second thing said was that following the playing of the previously recorded live clip on RAW, they stuck the already burned up limo body outside the arena, and people came out & saw a limo that was burned on an earlier date. This is incorrect also, as people in the audience stated they felt the explosion, as well as there having been ample signs of an explosion having just occurred around the arena (namely black ash covering everything).

So, the question then becomes, is this post wrong and was everything that was seen live? The answer is NO, and I have the absolute undeniable evidence it is. This should help any of you out there even the least bit unsure rest a little easier...

The evidence is these 2 frames taken directly from the sequence. These frames literally are shown within a few seconds of each other, and for this whole sequence to be live with these frames taken into account is physically impossible.







The thing to notice here is where the two white trucks are in the background. In the first shot which is the definite live shot, the two white trucks are lined up way ahead of the white limo. The second shot shows the trucks further back, far enough so to be behind the limo. Later video shows that in fact there are 2 trucks visible in the explosion video right next to the limo, where the two in the earlier shot cannot clearly be the same ones. There is no physically possible way both of these video clips were shot live...

This, in all likelihood, points to the second half of the video being pre-recorded. Done very well, using what I use in a general term as "magician techniques"... The fact that both of these videos are not live (that one cannot be), and the fact that the most logical video to be pre-recorded is the video of the explosion itself, how does the WWE pull off both the visibility of the explosion as well as the evidence surrounding the arena? This is in fact simple: There was a limo detonated in time with the pre-recorded video of the explosion, leaving evidence and confirming that a limo did in fact explode that night...

Welp, there you go... I feel this pretty cut and dry at this point. Two other things to consider as well which goes with the fact of this being a story. The first is that no limo driver was ever mentioned, the second is that they keep using the term "presumed dead" instead of actually dead... And finally in all likelihood if this was a true video of a death, the WWE wouldn't be constantly replaying it over and over again...

It appears Mary Jo Foley of ZDNet didn't bother to look up a couple thing BEFORE writing a story on how Mac's next operating system looks like Vista... You see, many of the things she brought up have been fully in existence on the Mac platform for a couple years now, back in the days when Vista was still mysterious & called Longhorn...

Point 1 says that the new Leopard desktop looks "a lot like Vista's sidebar. Now, I have Vista, and it's desktop looks different, period. The so called "side bar" she's referring to is Mac's dock, which is directly equivalent to the Windows Task Bar, which has NOT changed in Vista... Vista does have their "gadget" sidebar, but this is equivalent to Apple's Dash Board, which exists in Mac OS 10.4 that came out 2 years ago (long before Vista)...

Point 2 talks about the instant search, which in Mac OS X known as Spotlight, which has also existed since the launch of Mac OS X 10.4, 2 years ago... How could this be copying Vista when it was publicly released 2 years before it??? Also, the cover flow was put into iTunes before Vista shipped... This was actually a technology that Apple bought from a party that developed it long before Vista had their so-called 'flip'...

Point 3 says QuickLook is equivalent to Thumbnails. This couldn't be further from the truth. Thumbnails existed in Mac since the old days. QuickLook allows you to fully view and interact with a file, including a multi-slide presentation. You can view and READ an entire file in a thumbnail view... You're just blatantly stupid here Mary...

4. Leopard is not an ONLY 64 bit version of the desktop... She has this TOTALLY WRONG HERE!!! Leopard is a combination 32bit + 64bit OS in ONE!!! In other words, you install 1 version of leopard, and it's both. I had to buy a 32bit version of Vista, which is distinctly different from the 64bit... In order to get 32bit & 64bit versions of Vista I need to purchase 2 distinctly different versions of Vista... If I don't know which one I need, then I've got a 50-50 chance of buying the right version for my PC... With Leopard, on the other hand, 1 disc & 1 install contains both, IN ONE! Mary's statement here is blatantly factually inaccurate...

Point 5 covers core animation, the ironic thing was she stated something so far from the truth here, she hasn't a clue. Core Animation has existed for a very long time on Mac OS X. It to date has been and is being used by a great deal of Mac developers. The thing is, Apple has continued to expand the capabilities here. Core Animation is taking yet another step in pulling off some unbelievable graphical feats in real time, and what Apple showed was simply another evolution in the highly used graphical tool...

Point 6 seemed pointless to even list. Apple was kidding around with the Solitaire angle, and that was evident in the guffaws of the crowed (I was chuckling myself)... Apple knows some people need Windows for some tasks... I run Parallels Desktop on my system and love having a Windows task bar at the bottom of my Mac desktop. That said 90% of the time I spend working in Windows is literally spent maintaining Windows (virus & spyware scans, windows updates, etc). I own a copy of both XP Pro & Vista Ultimate, and really rarely use either...

Point 7 is Mary declaring something she cannot factually backup. I have just as valid as an argument saying that Mary is so jealous of Mac OS X, so much so that she's willing to blatantly lie to 'defend' Vista... Spaces is not unique to Mac, and has existed in the Linux circle for many years. Apple has taken the feature and added a lot of improvements over what Linux offers, but in the end it's a tool only for those who choose to use it. Most likely I will not, but time will ultimately tell...

Point 8 is utterly retarded, Dashboard again has been around for 2 years now, wasn't Vista just recently released???

Point 9 has an interesting side note, yes Microsoft had this technology for a while, but there is one big difference. iChat is free, Microsoft Live Meeting is a professional level application that costs to use... iChat can be used by any one at any time...

The one argument against her point 10 is pretty significant, Time Machine is available in the one and only version of Leopard. Vista backup is fully inaccessible in the lower versions of Vista (while ironically these impaired versions cost more than Leopard). To get the functionality you have to pay big bucks... Time machine is also easier to use, and won't confuse any non-experienced consumers...

Welp, that's pretty much a rundown of ALL her points, most of which (as you can clearly read) are in fact blatant lies and misinformation. What are you missing Mary? A whole heck of a lot, obviously...

[update]

Apparently she posted a follow-up following her article stating that she was not trying to accuse Apple/Leopard of copying Vista, but simply trying to state the items listed are available in Vista regardless of the fact that Vista copied to get them... I think this is bull, as can be judged by her original wording of point 8:

Dashboard with widgets. Isn?t this like the Vista Sidebar with gadgets?

In essence what she is now claiming is "Didn't Vista already copy the Dashboard widgets idea, making the fact that Leopard is going to have it totally irrelevant anyway?" In a sense she's now trying to say Apple shouldn't have bothered saying it since Vista had already had it. This is STILL invalid because of the fact that Apple was primarily demoing the new feature of Dashboard allowing users to turn live sections of web pages into dynamic widgets. This is a new concept to Mac OS X and is also something Vista does not have. So even giving her the benefit of the doubt that her follow-up is truthful, the validity of the post is still fully invalid...

Well, it's been an interesting few weeks for me lately. Not to say my life has been problem free but there were a number of upshots that have made me feel fairly good overall...

The first is that I can safely say that my back surgery was very successful. The leg pain I was experiencing is almost completely gone, and the couple of times I have noticed it since left me questioning weather or not it was even the same pain (with RA, pain isn't an unusual thing). But I've been functioning almost completely normally, though I'm still a bit weak & need to rebuild some muscle... I am scheduled for my first physical theropy session this afternoon...

Last week I was, of course, left extatic when the Ducks won the Stanley Cup. Their first win since their becoming a team 14 years ago. I've literally been a fan since day 1 (they did loose their very first game), and as such have been waiting for this victory for a very long time...

Today I also experienced some excitement, listening to the Apple keynote. I happened to find a site broadcasting audio, all be it at very low quality... Some exciting things were debiewed, something that always leaves me in excitement...

And of course for the next few weeks I have a couple of things I'm really looking forward to...

At the end of this month me & my wife are going to visit some of her work associates at Lake Casitas, and I decided I should pick up some stuff & have my mom ship me my old fishing pole so I can spend some time fishing while I'm there. The last time I went I was young enough that I was not required to have a license (which is required for people 16 and older). Being older, I'm more likely to enjoy the 'relaxing' aspect that is necessary to truly enjoy the experience...

Also, as of today, were less than 30 days away from July 4th. One of my favorite holidays of the year. I've previously posted both some photos & a video from past years. It's pretty much always a lot of work, and causes me a lot of stress (it's hard to get barbiques, food & tables transported when your car is a two seater & has limited space in the back), but in the end it's always been worth it...

There's also a list of other minor things... I finally got a DS to replace my dead GameBoy Advance, I'm likely to get an iPhone 11 days from now assuming all goes well financially up to then & while in the hospital my regular doctor looked at a couple issues concerning me and said they weren't anything serious.

Of course, truth be told I do have some things on the horizon that may not end up being so good... The biggest of which will be seeing how much of my surgery and hospital stay my insurance will cover. But in the end, its nice to focus on the positive and not spend time worrying about problems you currently have no control over...