Week 3 Recap: Fantasy Football

WOW! Performances of The week

• Peyton Manning - 379 yards, 4 TD
• Desean Jackson - 149 yards, 1 TD
• Maurice Jones-Drew - 3 TD, 147 yards
• Matt Schaub - 3 TD, 300 yards
• Pierre Thomas - 126 yards, 2 TD
• Santana Moss - 178 yards, 10 catches, TD

WTF! Performances of the week

• Drew Brees - 172 yards, 0 TD
• Clinton Portis - 45 yards
• Matt Ryan - 199 yards, 0 TD
• TO - 0 catches
• Thomas Jones - 20 yards
• Tony Gonzalez - 1 catch

Trends To Keep An Eye On

• TB/DAL/NO all have 3 headed RB siituation, sell sell sell
• When will Leon Washinginton start for NYJ?
• How injured are Jamal Lewis, Kevin Smith, and Marion Barber?
• Does Willie Parker have turf toe or is he just old?

Trade Targets

• QB: Donovan McNabb (Back after bye)
• RB: Matt Forte, Steve Slaton
• (LT, Westbrook if you can handle the injury risk)
• WR: Steve Smith, Roddy White, Anquan Boldin, Housh

Waiver Wire Picks

• Glen Coffee - Gore is out 3 weeks
• Tashard Choice - only healthy back in DAL this week
• Donnie Avery - Lauren Robinson out for year, STL #1
• Devone Bess - Dolphins will lose and throw alot
• Jerome Harrison - Jamal Lewis might be done
  
• Brent Celek - Eagles TE if you can handle his bye this week

Miguel Angel Sano & Arnoldis Chapman

Two players in the words of Eddie Murphy are "Coming to America".

Miguel Angel Sano, Signed $3.15 million bonus with Minnesota Twins today
That signing bonus should speak for itself as it's the 2nd largestMLB international signing in history (Michael Ynoa, A's) Ynoa is 16, was born in the Dominican, and plays shortstop. As he grows, many players expect him to be a 3B. Scouting reports compare him to Hanley Ramirez and Alex Rodriguez so he has some big shoes to fill. He should start at single A next Spring Training. Thumbs up on small market team grabbing him.

Arnoldis Chapman, Free Agent
A 22 year old Cuban defector now resides in Andorra and will be the hottest free agent this month. Known as a left-handed Stephen Strasburg, is sure to make an impact immediately in MLB. He's eligible to sign right now, but I think the big market teams will wait until early November to make their offers even his agent would like to done as soon as possible. Due to his age and the dying market for free agent pitchers this year (Lackey, Wolf, Piniero) there will be a bidding war. He has Yankee written all over him as most small market teams can't swallow the risk of a 4yr/35-40 million dollar contract. Will he be an Ichiro or an Igawa? Only time will tell.

More Premieres on This Week

DVR It
Shark Tank, Tuesdays 8 on ABC
The entrepreneur in me loves it as entrepreneur goes for start up cash, plus reality favorite Mark Burnett
The Hills, Tuesdays 10 on MTV
Kristin is back, here come the fireworks, so scripted, its a Hollywood based show so I'll watch it

For You, Not Me
Trauma, Mondays 8 on NBC - More medicine
Hank, Wednesdays 8 on ABC - Kelsey Grammar is back, but I never liked him in the first place
The Middle, Wednesdays 8:30 on ABC - Middle class family living in middle America
Private Practice, Thursdays 10 PM on ABC - More needles
Three Rivers, Sundays 9 on CBS - Organ transplants

Why?
Lie To Me, Mondays 9 on FOX - Season 2, they had a season 1
The City, Tuesdays 10:30 on MTV - More Fashion and NY City
Til' Death, 8:30 Fridays on FOX - Comedy on FOX on a Friday
America's Funniest Home Videos, Sunday at 7 on ABC - Good the first time, why are you bringing it back?

Links for Wednesday September 30th

TV: Ratings For Last Week
http://hollywoodinsider.ew.com/2009/09/29/september-27-weekly-ratings-ncis/#more-3852

Baseball: Sano Goes to Twins Not Pirates
http://community.post-gazette.com/blogs/pbc/archive/2009/09/30/morning-links-forget-sano.aspx

Music: Diddy and Interscope Make A Deal
http://www.billboard.com/#/news/diddy-signs-bad-boy-label-deal-with-interscope-1004017089.story

Fantasy Baseball: Streaming For Today
http://www.fangraphs.com/fantasy/index.php/wednesdays-free-agent-pitchers/

Movies: Jessica Alba in "Little Fockers"?
http://www.variety.com/article/VR1118009354.html?categoryid=1043&cs=1

Fantasy Football: Talented Mr. Roto for the Week
http://sports.espn.go.com/fantasy/football/ffl/story?page=TMR090929

Green: Tesla's Next Cars
http://green.autoblog.com/2009/09/29/tesla-model-s-to-spawn-other-derivatives-including-van-cuv/

Sports Business: MLB Postseason Ratings
http://www.bizofbaseball.com/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=3573:this-time-it-counts-mlb-postseason-tv-ratings&catid=57:television&Itemid=122

Stocks/Economy: Layoffs Still Coming
http://online.wsj.com/article/SB125431265253152341.html?mod=WSJ_hpp_LEFTWhatsNewsCollection

Technology: Universities spawning companies?
http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/30/shooting-for-the-moon-how-universities-can-turn-innovation-into-companies/

2 Days Off, Back Wednesday x6 And Links Too

Monday = Yom Kippur
Tuesday = Travel Day
Wednesday = Back at it

Moving forward....
Monday: Baseball + TV
Tuesday: Fantasy Football + Music
Wednesday: Fantasy Baseball + Green
Thursday: Sports Business + Technology
Friday: Stocks/Economy + Movies

Plus I'm switching to daily links for every category above if possible, so my readers actually will want to read this blog every day rather than once a week.

5 Stocks To Buy

Using my favorite Kiplinger stock finder, here's 5 stocks with a dividend greater than 2%, earnings growth for the past 5 years, and a 3 year annualized return more than 10%.

BKE (Buckle) http://www.buckle.com/

• 2.5% dividend , 6 years of growth, 28% 3 year return
• Nebraska based company owns 387 accessories stores

FFIN(First Financial Bankshares) http://www.ffin.com/

• 2.8% dividend, 15 years of growth, 12% 3 year return
• Operates 48 financial centers in Texas

FLO (Flowers Food) http://www.flowersfoods.com/

• 2.7% dividend, 8 years of growth, 16% 3 year return
• GA company with 8800 employees specializing in production and marketing of bakery products

VIVO (Meridian Biosciences Inc.) http://www.meridianbioscience.com/

• 2.7% dividend, 7 years of growth, 19% 3 year return
• Develop, manufacture, and sell testing kits for diseases

PETS (Petmed Express) http://www.1888petmeds.com/

• 2.2% dividend, 8 years of growth, 20% 3 year return
• 13 year old company out of company selling drugs for dogs and cats

Movies For The Weekend

Fame (Rotten Tomatoes 27%)
Remake of the 1980 movie, singing and dancing kids, bad reviews, but I guarantee a ton of people will see it, but I won't be one of them

Pandorum (Rotten Tomatoes 39%)
Bourne Identity in space, where two guys wake up in space and have no memory,

Surrogates (Rotten Tomatoes 40%)
Bruce Willis is a real human being in a future filled with fake ones trying to solve a murder

I Hope They Serve Beer In Hell (Rotten Tomatoes 22%)
A bachelor party ruins two guys friendship and spends the 2nd half of the movie trying to save it

Capitalism, A Love Story (Rotten Tomates 73%)
Michael Moore is back in role he's great at ala Roger & Me and Fahrenheit 9/11 as he investigates the recent stock market crash and the rise of the corporation in America, I'm in

Coco Before Chanel (Rotten Tomaotes 66%)
For all the girls who love fashion the story of Chanel's rise to power through her hat sales

Where The Nats Went Wrong

So I'm sitting at a Nats game this week with crowds of 18-22,000 in paid attendance but I know that there wasn't more than 10-15,000 people there each night. As a former MD resident I remember being ecstatic that a team was coming to DC in 2005. The excitement has been tempered as the team is on its way to its 2nd consecutive 100 loss season. I wondered aloud what had happened to this grand idea. With a brand new stadium and new team everybody seemed all about it.

It's TV's 9th biggest media market. It features 4 of the top 7 highest income counties in the country with populations of 250,000 within it surrounding area in Fairfax (VA), Loudon (VA), Montgomery (MD), and Howard (MD) counties. From sponsorship and sales standpoint DC/MD/NoVA is home to the headquarters of Capital One, Fannie and Freddie Mac, Lockheed Martin, Marriott, Mars, Sodexho, Spring, Black and Decker, Constellation Energy, Legg Mason, AES, and Gannett. That should sell the suites and signs in the place. From there you see that 16.6 million people visit DC and being that home baseball is only half a season for the half the year, you could take a quarter of them as potential Nationals buyers.

So what happened? The Nationals are the only team in MLB who do not own the TV rights to their own broadcast. The own a mere 10% of MASN their regional broadcast company a gain 1% the next 23 years to a mere 33% in 2032. Strike 1. From there they were to build a stadium and in any real estate the words to live by our location, location, location. The stadium is built on the Anacostia river which is on the VA side of DC. This area is barely built up yet and features quite the Metro journey for those in MD trying to make the journey on weeknight. Strike 2. The other next big money for the team should have been their naming rights. The Nationals hired WMG to sell the rights and were seeking $10-15 million a year for an integrated deal with a company that would include a huge stadium deal. In waiting for the right deal as they opened the new stadium, the economy tanked and so did any chance at a big naming rights deal. Strike 3. Many will always point to Jim Bowden's tenous term as GM for details of his deals click below http://http//www.mlbtraderumors.com/files/jim_bowden_washington_nationals.xls

The team can and will turn it around they have to from here. The cards are stacked as they play in one of MLB bEeasts of a divisions with Philadelphia, NY, ATL, and Florida. Here's how I would do it:
1. Continue to pay massively overslot in the draft for talent - Bryce Harper next year
(http://http//www.baseballamerica.com/blog/draft/?p=1786)
2. Collect young pitching, Strasburg-Lannan-Zimmerman is a start
3. Emphasize defense to help young pitchers (Everett at SS, Polanco 2B next year)
4. Bullpen stability (Calero, Dotel next year)
5. Became a holding ground for 1 year rehabiliton deals (Sheets, Bedard,etc.)
6. Figure out corners later (LF,RF,1B are easiest positions to fill)
7. Hire Bobby Valentine to manage for some much needed buzz
Remember, winning on the field = winning at the box office and off the field...
A. Cut ticket prices
B. Go after the tourists
C. Sell the value not the team
D. Push Strasburg starts
E. Introduce variable ticket pricing on all individual games

The Business of IPhone Apps

The IPhone is an amazing invention and is prime example of discontinious innvoation. The IPhone acts as phone, music player, camera, and so much more. The apps have led to its popular success as Apple has a first mover advantage in the phone app category and I don't think anybody can really catch them. As I type this there are over 75,000 IPhone Apps. 90% of the most popular apps on the IPhone our free.

With an average price of $3 and Apple taking 30% from developers the platform is filled with entrepreneurs. Hitting the jackpot on these Apps is like playing in Vegas. With so many apps and so many free ones, it's proved to be hard to make a mint in this domain. To date Apple states that there have been 1.8 billion downloads so if the average price is correct, Apple has brought in over 1.5 billion in revenue in about 2 years for merely being a middleman. The developers have shared in the other 4 billion, but outside the top apps not much money has trickled down the money tree. Thumbs up to Apple in their endeavors. Best of luck to IPhone app developers in breaking through as well.

More DOE Green funds

Fisker Automotive
This week the Irvine, CA based company received $529 million loan to help develop plug-in hybrid cars. The first $170 million will go to finish off development and production of it's first all electric sports car, the $88,000 Karma. The rest will go towards phase 2 called Project Nina which calls for $47,000 family plug-in sedan coming out in 2012. This is pretty amazing for a company celebrating it 2 year anniversary this month. The company also has financial backing from Kleiner Perkins, a huge VC firm that counts Colin Powell and Al Gore as part of its advisory board. You can find there cars at Sullivan Luxury Cars in Beverly Hills and Santa Monica.

Iberdrola
$251 million went to the Spain based company. It's the second time they've received a grant from the US government after receiving $300 million a few months back. I know it seems odd the US grant money to sent to foreign companies, but remember this "for very 100 megawatts of wind power (an average size wind farm) 387 jobs are created". This speaks to the green startup and job creation tradeoff I blogged about previously. If you live in Iowa, Texas, or Missouri be warned that Iberdrola is on it way with its wind farms.

Week 2 Recap: Fantasy Football

WOW! Performances of The Week

• Matt Schaub - 357 Yards, 4 TD
• Chris Johnson - 3 TD, 9 catches, 284 total yards
• Carson Palmer - 4 TD
• Mario Manningham - 150 yards, TD
• Frank Gore - 207 yards, 2 TD
• Colston & A. Johnson - 2 TD
• Philip Rivers - 436 yards, 2 TD
• Willis McGahee - 2 TD (again)

WTF! Performances of The Week

• Greg Jennings - 0 catches!
• Tom Brady - 216 yards, 0 TD
• Matt Forte - 29 yards, 0 TD
• Randy Moss - 4 catches, 24 yards
• Willie Parker - 47 yards, 0 TD

Trends To Keep An Eye On

• RBBC Growing List: Ravens join Jets, Cardinals, Cowboys, Bucs
• Brian Westbrook's injured again?
• Mario Manningham is the new Plaxico?
• Fred Jackson keeping his job when Marshawn Lynch returns?
• Tom Brady is good but not wow good anymore?
• Pierre Thomas taking back job from injured Mike Bell

Trade Targets

• Steve Slaton - 2 bad weeks and ridiculous easy schedule coming up
• Matt Forte - Ranked 148th in Yahoo
• Brandon Jacobs - sharing carries but will have goal-line no matter what
• Boldin/Braylon - frustrating to many owners due nagging injuries
• Greg Jennings - I have him and wow would I trade him right now

Waiver Wire Picks

• Ted Ginn, WR MIA - 11 catches on MNF plus returns kicks
• Johnny Knox, WR CHI - Jay Cutler's new BFF (sorry Earl)
• Mike Sims-Walker, WR JAX - UCF product but not crazy like Brandon
• Justin Forsett, RB SEA - Julius Jones and Edge will not stay healthy
• Mario Manningham,WR NYG - playing the Bucs next week too
• Jets D - Rex Ryan is genius
• Kevin Walter - again please see Texans schedule over the next month (Jags, Raiders, Cards, Bengals, 49ers)

Fall LA Concert Calendar

9/22 Miley Cirus @ Staples Center
9/23 Britney @ Staples Center
9/25 PitBull @ Club Nokia
9/26 Mickey Avalon @ Galaxy Theatre
9/26 Common @ Palladium
9/30 Alice in Chains @ Avalon
9/30,10/1,10/6-7 Pearl Jam @ Gibson
10/1 Paramore @ Palladium
10/10 Jason Mraz @ Hollywood Bowl
10/10 Blink 182 @ Hollywood Palladium
10/13-15 Bob Dylan @ Hollywood Palladium
10/14 Moby @ The Wiltern
10/16 Jamie Foxx @ Nokia Theatre
10/19+20 Snow Patrol @ The Wiltern
10/20 Owl City @ The Troubadour
10/25 U2 @ The Rose Bowl
10/27+28 Colbie Caillat & Howie Day @ HOB-Sunset Strip
10/31 Phish @ Indio Valley
10/31 Rob Zombie @ The Palladium
11/5 The Bravery @ The Wiltern
11/9 So You Think You Can Dance @ LA Live
11/10 The Used @ The Wiltern
11/16 Kanye West @ Staples Center
11/20 Ray Lamontage @ The Orpheum
11/24 Wolfmother @ The Wiltern
11/28 Black Crowes @ Club Nokia

New Music Tuesday

New albums from David Gray(!!!), Vertical Horizon, and 3 Days Grace

New songs:
Meet Me Halfway - Black Eyed Peas
Mediocre song, will be overplayed so get use to it

Funhouse - Pink
A girly little Pink song

Midnight Romeo - Push Play
New band with a great name but it is Ryan Cabrera Jr.

Baby By Me - 50 Cent F. Ne-yo
Funny hook only an OK songs

Meet Me At The Equinox - Death Cab For Cutie
Great band, song off Twilight soundtrack

Blood On My Hands - The Used
Dark song, but another great NHL skate-in song

Substitution - Silversun Pickups
Solid song, but not wowing anybody

If You Only Knew - Shinedown
Sounds too much like Nickelback and not that's not a good thing for me

Monster - Skillet
Definition of a loud angry rock song

RECOMMEND Take A Bow - Glee Cast
Another great cover from FOX's new show

RECOMMEND Young Forever - Jay-Z + Mr. Hudson
Yes, another cover but it's Jay-Z so what's not to like here

Break - Three Days Grace
Too loud for my ears

Two Is Better Than One - Boys Like Girls F. Taylor Swift
Kept waiting for tempo to pick it up but it never did

10 Keepers for The Shuffle:
Down - Jay Sean
Empire State of Mind - Jay-Z F. Alicia Keys
The Fixer - Pearl Jam
1901 - Phoenix
Fireflies - Owl City
Uprising - Muse
Use Somebody - Kings Of Leon
Toes - Zac Brown Band
Never Say Never - The Fray

45 Premieres This Week!!!

DVR it
How I Met Your Mother, Mondays 8 on CBS
Two and Half Men, Mondays 9:30 on CBS
Best shows on CBS hands down, Neil Patrick Harris and Charlie Sheen are funny enough to watch them all

NCIS: LA, Tuesdays 9 on CBS
LLCoolJ and Chris O'Donnel come to primetime in the new one

Modern Family, Wednesdays 9 on ABC
Ed Bundy gets a new show similar to his old life

Law & Order: SVU, Wednesdays 9 on NBC
Guest star Wentworth Miller (Prison Break), then it's off my DVR for the year

CougarTown, 9:30 Wednesdays on ABC
On the name alone plus Courtney Cox

Flashforward, 8 on Thursdays on ABC
If you like Lost, this one is for you

SNL, 11:30 Saturdays on NBC
No election this year but wow that show got funny again last year

60 Minutes, 7 PM Sundays on CBS
Sorry I'm a dork like that

The Cleveland Show, 8:30 PM Sundays on FOX
Family Guy, 9 PM Sundays on FOX
Funniest cartoon ever and the remix

Dexter, 10 PM Sundays on Showtime
More from America's favorite serial killer

For you, maybe
House, Mondays 8 on FOX - not a big fan of needles
Dancing With The Stars, Mondays 8 on ABC - belongs below, but hot women put it here
Big Bang Theory, Mondays 9 on CBS - Comedy filler
Castle, Mondays 10 on NBC - Odd premise that I just don't get
The Forgotten, Tuesdays 10 on ABC - Christian Slater on TV round 2
The Good Wife, Tuesdays 10 on CBS - Chris Noth and Julianna Marguiles, I'm just not that old
New Adventures of Old Christine, Wednesdays 8 on CBS - Elaine is still on TV
Criminal Minds, Wednesdays 9 on CBS - Procedural drama #1
CSI, Thursday 9 on CBS - Procedural drama #2
Grey's Anatomy, Thursdays 9 on CBS - More needles
The Mentalist, Thursdays 10 on CBS - The guy from Devil Wears Prada
Ghost Whisperer, Fridays 8 on CBS - Jennifer Love Hewitt and Ghosts
Smallville, Fridays 8 on CW - Superman is alive
Law & Order, Fridays 8 on NBC - Still on the air? Solid show, but I'm over it
Extreme Makeover: Home Edition, Sundays 7 on ABC - Don't own one, but you might
The Amazing Race, Sundays 8 on CBS - Still going and picking up Emmys
The Simpsons, Sundays 8 on FOX - 20 years and they haven't grown up or moved still
Desperate Housewives, Sundays 9 on ABC - Eva Longoria and friends one last time
American Dad, Sundays 9:30 on FOX - it's funny but not that funny
Brothers & Sisters, Sundays 10 on ABC - Calista Flockhart and Sally Field, woohoo

Why?
Heroes, Monday 8 on NBC - Too man heroes, impossible to follow
Accidentally on Purpose, Mondays 8:30 on CBS - Knocked Up the TV Show
CSI: Miami, Mondays 10 on CBS - Procedural Drama #3
NCIS, Tuesdays 8 on CBS - Procedural Drama #4
Mercy, Wednesdays 8 on NBC - Needles, nurses, thought ER was off the air
Gary Unmarried, Wednesdays 8:30 on CBS - I hate Jay Mohr (TY Jerry Maguire)
CSI: NY, Wednesdays 10 on CBS - Procedural Drama #5
Eastwick, Wednesdays 10 on ABC - Witch show didn't work twice, let's try it again
Brothers, Friday 8 on FOX - Michael Strahan in a comedy
Medium, Friday 9 on CBS - Dumped on NBC, wonder why?
Dollhouse, Friday 9 on FOX - There is a reason it got the Friday night 9
Numbers, Friday 10 on CBS - #1 show on Friday, thinking about math on the weekend
Cold Case, Sundays 10 on CBS - Procedural Drama #6

Back next week for Shark Tank and The Hills premieres. Does Jerry Bruckheimer own CBS? It's his birthday today so they might as well give him a share. Sorry, I'm just not a huge fan of all these procedural dramas. Click the TV link below for the past few weeks premieres as well.

Waiver Wire All-Star Team for Fantasy Baseball

With MLB season winding down and the playoffs pretty much locked up I'd figured I'd take a look back at the best waiver wire team one could assemble. I'll be using ADP data from Fantasygameday.net which is a composite of many sites and any player drafted after 250 to define "undrafted" as most 12 team leagues goes 23 players or 246 players total. For actual values are taken from Yahoo's rating system.

C: Pablo Sandoval (Drafted 255, Actual Value 73, #3 Catcher)
Kurt Suzuki (Drafted 231, Actual Value 175, #5 Catcher)
1B: Kendry Morales (Drafted 372, Actual Value 53, #9 1B)
2B: Aaron Hill (Drafted 317, Actual Value 36, #3 2B)
2B/SS: Ben Zobrist (Undrafted, Actual Value 62, #8 2B. #4 SS)
Marcus Scutaro (Undrafted, Actual Value 91, #10 2B, #8 SS)
Asdrubal Cabrera (Drafted 360, Actual Value 112, #11 2B, #9 SS)
3B: Mark Reynolds (Drafted 222, Actual Value 17!, #1 3B)
OF: Adam Lind (Drafted 288, Actual Value 39, #11 OF)
OF: Michael Bourn (Drafted 368, Actual Value 59, #17 OF)
OF: Michael Cuddyer (Drafted 378, Actual Value 85 ,#27 OF)

Sandoval, Hill, Zobrist, and Reynolds are fantasy MVP's. Interesting that only 3 undrafted OF make the cut for top 30 OF this year.

I always draft my entire offense before pitching and here's why:
SP: Chris Carpenter (Drafted 340, Actual Value 13, #6 SP)
SP: Wandy Rodriguez (Drafted 290, Actual Value 47, #15 SP)
SP: Randy Wolf (Drafted 382, Actual Value 60, #18 SP)
SP: Joel Pineiro (Undrafted, Actual Value 80, #20 SP)
SP: JA Happ (Undrafted, Actual Value 93, #24 SP)
SP: Scott Feldman (Undrafted, Actual Value 94, #25 SP)
SP: Edwin Jackson (Undrafted, Actual Value 96 #26 SP)
SP: Tommy Hanson (382, Actual Value 107, #28 SP)
SP: Randy Wells (Undrafted, Actual Value 150, #37 SP)
SP: Jorge De La Rosa (384, Actual Value 158, #38 SP)
SP: Jarrod Washburn (Undrafted, Actual Value 161, #39 SP)
RP: Andrew Bailey (Undrafted, Actual Value #49, #2 RP)
RP: David Aardsma (Undrafted, Actual Value #83, #6 RP)
RP: Ryan Franklin (Undrafted, Actual Value #89, #9 RP)
RP: Michael Wuertz (Undrafted, Actual Value #108, #13 RP)
RP: JP Howell (Undrafted, Actual Value #116 #16 RP)

Happy fantasy baseball offseason!

New Movies for The Weekend

Best week of new movies in what seems like forever and will be up until November as there are 4 big openings this weekend plus a few other movies coming out.

SEE
The Informant! - Matt Damon stars as Mark Whitacre a who works with the US goverment to show a price fixing scheme at his work. I'm pumped to see it and you should be too as it's gotten rave reviews plus Steven Soderbergh directed it.

IF SHE MAKES YOU
Love Happens - Jennifer Aniston and Harvey Dent himself (Aaron Eckhart) star in a late in life suprising love story. Sounds like every another Jennifer Aniston movie, but it'll be what the wifey wants to see this weekend so play along.

IF HE MAKES YOU
Jennifer's Body - Megan Fox plays a possessed high school cheerleader whose a killer. Bad reviews are abound, but it's a R movie and it's Megan Fox people will see it.

IF THE KIDDIES MAKE YOU
Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs - animated movie based on the best-selling book sure to please the little ones and who doesn't want to see food fall from the sky like rain

LITTLE RELEASES THAT MIGHT BE JUST RIGHT
Bright Star - indie film about a young poet and his lover before his untimely death
Burning Plain - Charlize Theron and Kim Basinger star in a mother-daugher film trying to rebuild their relationship

Definitely something for everybody this weekend. Shanah Tovah to my Jewish readers.

A123 Systems to IPO Next Week

For those of you reading this you probably have no idea who in the world A123 systems is. A123 is a lithium-ion battery producer based out of Massachusetts. They've been making batteries for 8 years and already employ 1100 people. The reason why the company picked my interest is that they are a huge player in green cars. They make batteries for Aptera and Tesla Motors. After a quarter billion dollar grant from Barack, $160 in capital funding, A123 is out for more cash when they IPO next week.
Usually one would shy away from a company that has never produced a profit and has been cash flow negative for years. Their capital expenditures are huge and will continue to be in the future. I think the stock will do pretty well at IPO and down the road as their are very few true green pureplays are out there. I could see this being a story stock for brokers. I can see the call now. "I know you've been trying to diversify your portfolio and get into greentech. So there's this company out there right now who makes batteries called A123. They have deals with Gillette, GM, BMW, Delphi and are working on parts for the smart grid. Is that something that might interest you?"
The answer will be yes there more times than not even thought the company lost 17, 19, and 56 million over the last 3 years. Keep an eye on this one next week. I know I will be.

TechCrunch 50

This conference is held every year around this time to "get the best startups and launch them in front of the industry's most influential VC's, corporations, and press". Launching a startup is never easy. The best ideas out there are sometimes poorly timed or managed. 98% of startups fail within 5 years. On the flipside if all goes well, I will be there next year myself with my own green company. Here are this year's finalists: http://http://www.techcrunch.com/2008/09/08/announcing-the-techcrunch50-finalists/ (I figured out how to link on my blog!)

A few of what I think our the best ideas:

Blah Girls - it's has Ashton Kutcher's backing and gossip, it's a winner for the tweens
LiveHit & QuantNews - both use web based applications to track web PR/clicks
Exchange P - fantasy stock market for private companies
ICharts - Youtube of stock charts
Mobclix - monetizing IPhone apps
Bojam - musical collaboration over the Internet
Closet Couture - like the Clueless closer on the Internet

Analyzing the NL Schedules

Braves - 10 April Games, Interleague vs. Rays-Tigers-Royals
Marlins - 11 April Games, Interleague vs. Rays-Rangers
Mets - 16 April Games, Interleague vs. Tigers-Yankees-Twins
Phillies - 7 April Games, Interleague vs. Sox-Twins-Indians
Nats - 13 April Games, Interleague vs. Orioles-Pirates-Reds

Comments: The Phillies and Mets are the big winners here and the Nationals are the big losers, what's new?

Cubs - 11 April Games, Interleague vs. White Sox-A's-Angels
Reds - 12 April Games, Interleague vs. Royals-Indians
Astros - 15 April Games, Interleague vs. Rays-Rangers
Brewers - 12 April Games, Interleague vs. Twins-Mariners-Rangers
Pirates - 9 Home Games, Interleague vs. White Sox-Indians
Cardinals - 10 Home Games, Interleague vs. Angels-Mariners-A's

Comments: Pirates and Reds win here as they minimized the games during April pulled 2 regional teams in for interleague, also Cardinals do well with Ichiro coming in

D'Backs - 12 April Games, Interleague vs. Yankees-Blue Jays
Dodgers - 8 April Games, Interleague vs. Yankees-Tigers-Angels
Rockies - 12 April Games, Interleague vs. Red Sox-Blue Jays
Padres - 11 April Games, Interleague vs. Mariners-Blue Jays-Orioles
Giants - 13 April Games, Interleague vs. Red Sox-Orioles-A's

Comments: Poor Padres getting no Sox or Yankees, but they got Ichiro, Dodgers are the big winners here with the Yankees and minimal April exposure against the Lakers

Games vs 08 AL Playoff Teams:

15 Dodgers
9 D'Backs, Phillies, Mets
6 Rockies, Braves
3 Nationals, Cubs, Astros, Brewers, Pirates, Cardinals, Giants
0 Marlins, Padres, Reds

Comments: The Dodgers will win at the box office, but they might miss the playoffs because of it, while SF/COL head to the playoffs. Same goes for the Marlins winning the East while the Phillies stay home to count their regular season money.

Analyzing the 2010 AL Schedules

The optimal baseball schedule when it comes to the business side is to have as many key games on the weekend, play as little as possible in April whil NBA/NHL are still going, and hopefully pull off a big Interleague draw to make the most revenue. To many it is not a big deal but given the current baseball economics the difference between drawing the Red Sox and Orioles is probably 250,000 fans (due to leveraging) over the few games plus all the concessions, parking, merchandise, etc. The MLB lottery are taking a couple million each way for the teams depending upon who you get. I'll go ahead and run through all AL teams below:

AL East
Yankees - 7 April Games, Interleague vs. Astros-Phillies-Mets, Plus 2 Red Sox Weekends
Red Sox - 13 April Games, Interleague vs. Phillies-Dodgers-D'Backs, Plus 2 Yankee Weekend
Orioles -10 April Games , Interleague vs. Mets-Marlins-Nationals, Plus Sox & Yanks Weekend
Rays - 13 April Games, Interleague vs. Marlins-Padres-D'Backs, Plus 2 Yankee + Red Sox Weekends
Blue Jays - 15 April Games, Interleague vs. Giants-Cardinals-Phillies, Plus Yanks + Sox Weekend

Comments: Why didn't the Jays trade Halladay (again)? They got 3 teams who will beat them and not sell that many tickets. Poor Orioles & Rays won't sell any tickets and the teams that got the biggest help here is the Yankees and Sox who don't need it all to sell tickets

AL Central
Tigers - 10 April Games, Interleague vs. Pirates-Nationals-D'Backs, Plus Sox Weekend
Indians - 7 April Games, Interleague vs. Mets-Reds-Nats
Royals - 12 April Games, Interleague vs. Rockies-Astros-Cardinals, Plus Sox + Yankees Weekend
Twins - New Stadium, 9 April Games, Interleague vs. Brewers-Rockies-Braves
White Sox - 12 April Games, Interleague vs. Braves-Cubs-Marlins, Plus Yankees Weekend

Comments: The Indians are screwed here good thing they traded 2 of their best players already and Tigers got screwed too, only real winners here will be Twins with their new digs and Royals nabbing the 2 big boys on the weekend

AL West
Angels - Host AS game, Interleague vs. Dodgers-Brewers-Rockies, Plus Yankees Weekend
Mariners -10 April games, Interleague vs. Cubs-Padres-Reds, Plus Sox & Yankees Weekend
Rangers - 13 April Games, Interleague vs. Cubs-Pirates-Astros, Plus Sox & Yankees Weekend
A's - 14 April Games, Interleague vs. Giants-Pirates-Reds, Plus Sox Weekend

Comments: Most of the division comes up well as Mariners and Rangers have at least 10 sellouts with the Cubs coming (Ichiro vs. Fukudome) and the Angels have the All-Star game, A's got the short stick here

Games played vs 08 playoff teams via Interleague:
12 Boston, Anaheim
6 Yankees, Blue Jays, Twins, Royals
3 Tigers, A's, Mariners
0 Orioles, Rays, White Sox, Indians, Rangers

The Rays and Rangers might not be good for the regular season books, but I can see the Sox and Angels sitting home while the they print they're playoff tickets.

Facebook is Cash-Flow Positive

It's been a big week for Palo Alto based Facebook. For those you in the 25-27 age range a little company we once used as thefacebook is doing quite well for itself. They announced they have 300 million users worldwide which is 50 million more than they had in July. In pure sense 1 out ever 22 people in the world have Facebook. I can't think many of other products or services that penetrated the market so fast. Facebook launched in February 2004 and in a mere 5 years has 300 million users. This also represents about 30% of all Internet users. The company has been valued at $5-15 billion dollars over the past few years depending upon how you value companies.

One year ahead of schedule, Facebook is cash-flow positive. In a basic sense Facebook brought in more cash last quarter than it spent for the first time ever. Ironically, even though the mainstream would think the company is banking is has yet to turn a profit. They are a privately held company so they could be hiding it by making huge capital expenditures at the end of the quarter ala Amazon in its early days. Facebook is supposedly bringing in $500 million this year and might even turn a profit after burning through $350 million in cash just last year.

Facebook's future depends on the question that has plagued them for years: How do we monetize our users base? If they can master targeted ads on their site they will be just fine. With their large user base and tons of data pieces going threw their server monetiziing it now should be a problem. Facebook added search into their features over a year ago and has become a destination website. I look forward to the day they IPO so I can see what their books really look like. I'm truly interested into how much money is going in and out of there. How are they not making money or what I think is that they are and just hiding it. Time will only tell.

Where DOE is spending green loan guarantee progams...

Solyndra
A 4 year old company based out of Fremont, CA. Solyndra manufactures a propietary thin film photovoltaic (PV) panels and hardware to generate solar power. Solyndra received $535 million dollar loan in early March and looks to be a growth company in the years to come as solar panels become the norm on all buildings. Keep an eye out for the IPO in years to come because once they acheive economies of scale they'll be printing money

Nordic Windpower
After 20 years of R&D in Sweden this company has come to the forefront of windpower. They are SF based company that is slowly making its way into the mainstream marketplace. Windpower is only 20% efficient, but is highly effective in middle America. It will be a part of the solution

Beacon Power
This MA based energy storage company is a spinoff of SatCon in 1997. The company uses a flywheel-based regulation service to store wind and solar power for utilities to use. Beacon got $43 million in early July to apply put their research and facilities on the fast track.

Tesla
An electric car sports car company based out of San Carlos already has 260 employees. $465 million dollars from the DOE in June is going to go along way into getting down the prices of their lithium ion batteries. Elon Musk is on the right track here witha 300 mile rang and 45 minute quickcharge for a 0-60 electric car at 3.6 seconds for his $109,000 roadster. The Model S comes out in less than 2 years and for $50,000 it's our country's best bet to stay in the forefront of automobiles.

New Music

Albums
The Blueprint 3 - Jay-Z
This wil be the 11th solo #1 breaking record for him breaking Elvis record, pretty impressive for a kid from the Mecry Projects, ridiculous beats from the world's best producers, plus guest spots from Kanye, Alicia Keys, Drake, and more make this album a must have

Backspacer - Pearl Jam
Limited edition import only album that from what I can tell was made with Europe in mind as not much has been on the radio about the album except "The Fixer" which is a ridiculous track

Songs (Big week as the VMA's and back to school are an oppurtune time to drop new music)
I Will Not Bow - Breaking Benhjamins
Songs from the Bruce Willis movie "Surrogates" is sure to be heard on a bunch of previews is a decent rock song but not a must hear

Paparazzi - Lady Gaga
Sure to get a ton of play after her VMA performance this Sunday but it's really not a great song, sounds like she's trying to channel an electric dance song from Madonna which probably isn't a good thing

LOL :-) - Trey Songz
Amazing this song is getting play, almost worth one spin for a good laugh and that's it, the sad part is the beat is pretty decent but a whole song on LOL what will they think of next?

RECOMMEND Haven't Met You Yet - Michael Buble
A true talent and great song, could be off a Jason Mraz album and I meant that in a good way

Runaway - Love and Theft
Country song from a new band that sounds really good for you country fans to enjoy

Shake My - Three Six Mafia F. Kalenna
Guaranteed to be played in every club this week as it a has solid beat and chorus to shake my "ask"

Replay - Iyaz
Nice slow tempo R&B track that Neyo & Usher fans will truly enjoy

RECOMMEND Fireflies - Owl City
Songs has been on KROQ for awhile but now is mainstream should be around for awhile

Body Language - Jesse McCartney F. T-Pain
I can't believe I just typed that and the scarier part is the song a actually pretty catchy

RECOMMEND The Fixer - Pearl Jam
Best new rock song out this week, hands down, listen for yourself

Do I - Luke Bryan
A nice country piano ballad about a relationship that lost its "magic"

Under - Pleasure P
Ginuwine sounding like slow R&B track is just OK

Number One - R. Kelly
Classic R. Kelly track from his "Down Low" days

RECOMMEND Startstruck - 3OH!3 F. Katy Perry
Another track that'll get mad play for catchy, jingly chorus and of course Katy Perry

Face Drop - Sean Kingston
I like the kid just not on this track

Million Dollar Bill - Whitney Houston
Can still sing after all these years, I really wonder how big she'd be if she didn't fall into drugs

Baseball Stats That Make You Go Wow!

Joe Mauer - .371 BA
Aaron Hill - 32 HR's
Marcus Scutaro - 99 runs
Brandon Inge - 27 HR's
Rajai Davis - 36 SB's
Derrek Lee - 33 HR
Pablo Sandoval - .321 BA
Albert Pujols - 47 HR, 125 HR
Derek Jeter - 192 hits
Russell Branyan - 31 HR's
Billy Butler - 46 doubles
Mark Reynolds - 41 HR, 194 SO
Zach Greinke - 2.19 ERA
Jorge De La Rosa - 14 wins
Mariano Rivera - 1.69 ERA
David Aardsma - 34 saves
Adam Wainwright - 2.59 ERA
Javier Vazquez - 216 SO
Edwin Jackson - 3.22 ERA
Scott Feldman - 16 wins
Andrew Bailey - 2.03 ERA
JA Happ - 2.77 ERA
Ryan Franklin & Heath Bell - 37 saves
Jair Jurrjens - 2.81 ERA
Joel Piniero - 3.21 ERA

NBC Premiere Week and more...

Categories for new TV:

DVR it - put it on or tape it if you can't see it
For you, maybe - some shows I just don't like but you might
Why? - who paid for this show to be on TV

DVR it

Gossip Girl, Monday a 9 on CW
The girls are all grown up and heading to college, can I just say that Josh Schwartz is a genius (Chuck, Gossip Girl, and the OC) although we'll see how the producers deal with not having the main characters at the same school and we all know that this could be the last season for Chace and Leighton as their careers have taken off from this sow

Jay Leno, Weeknight at 10 on NBC
The late night man himself is back and all of Hollywood is rooting against him because he chewed up 5 hours a week of what could be scripted TV on NBC, his first show features Seinfeld and Kanye (apologize to Taylor, please even though you were right about the award) so you can bet I'll be watching, if this works watch ABC who hasn't made good TV in awhile go after Oprah for their 10 PM slot next fall

SNL Weekend Update, Thursdays at 8 on NBC
The Office, Thursdays at 9 on NBC
Two Thursday favorites return to TV, The Office is probably the funniest show on TV and SNL weekend Update always does a good job making our sad daily newscast a bit more upbeat than the real one

The Community, Thursdays at 9:30 on NBC
Joel McHale graduates from the Soup on E! to major network TV as a lawyer forced back into college in NBC's best new show of the year which is sure to make NBC Thursday's the funniest night of TV on any 1 network

The Beautiful Life, 9 PM Wednesdays on CW
Ashton Kutcher produces this show about a modeling agency starring Sara Paxton and High School Musical's Corbin Bleu plus it has Elle McPherson as their boss and Mischa Barton as the model who has made it

Bored To Death - 9:30 PM Sundays on HBO
Rushmore's Jason Schwartzman and The Hangover's Zach Galifianakis start in a story about a fake private eye in New York plus Ted Danson is there too for some laughs giving you another reason to watch HBO on Sunday besides Entourage (and True Blood)

For you, maybe
Bones, 8 PM Thursdays on Fox
Fringe, 9 PM Thursdays on Fox
2 shows that people seem to love, especially Bones which enters its 5th year and is now syndicated on TNT every night if you can't get enough
Parks & Recreation, 8:30 PM Thursdays on NBC
Honestly I just need a 30 minute break from TV, just happens to be on the same night as every other funny show is

Why?
Survivor: Samoa, 8 PM Thursdays on Fox
19 seasons!!!, on since 2000 and people still get into it

The Biggest Loser, 8 PM Tuesdays on NBC
Now on its 8th season and watching people lose weight has never really done it for me

Crash, 10 PM on Starz
Never try to take a successful movie into a TV show, it just doesn't work

Week 1 Recap: Fantasy Football

A ton will be written this week about how certain players were genius picks (The Jones' RB) or how you never should have picked any Texan. Everybody chill out, it's one week and one game. You really need a month to see how you team and acquire your assets to help you through the bye weeks.

WOW! Performances of The Week

• Drew Brees - 6 TD!, it's the Lions in all
• Tony Romo - 3 TD, and he's on my team
• Thomas/Julius Jones - 100 yards and a TD each (Thomas even had two)
• Reggie Wayne - 10 catches and 162 yarda and #2 goes down
• Eagles DEF - 5 sacks, 5 picks, TD, and 2 fumbles

WTF! Perfromances of The Week

• Michael Turner - 65 yards
• Andre Johnson - 4 rec, 35 yds
• Anquan Boldin - 2 rec, 19 yds
• Steve Slaton - 17 yards and a fumble
• Brandon Jacobs - 46 yards (Ahmad outplayed you)

Trends to Keep An Eye On

• Ahmad Bradshaw/Donald Brown stealing carries from Brandon Jacobs and Joseph Addai
• How do RB committees for Cowboys, Jets, Cardinals and Bucs play out as well?
• Brian Westbrook and Lesean McCoy while McNabb is out
• Is Jake Delhomme done done?
• Should Joe Flacco be starting in fantasy after 300 yards today?
• Will Austin Collie step up in Indy with Anthony Gonzalez out?
• Hixon-Manningham-Barden as #1 NY Giants receiver

Trade Targets

• Andre Johnson/Steve Slaton/Matt Schaub - after the Titans shut them down in week 2, schedule goes Jags-Raiders-Cards-Bengals-49ers so start the conversations now
• Brandon Marshall - bad first week, especially if you drafted early the owner is more likely to move him
• Anthony Gonzalez - out a month returns to Rams, 49ers, Texans fot Colts in weeks 7-8-9
• Steven Jackson - team stinks, but he doesn't
• Ahmad Bradshaw - give him some time and he'll be starting in NYG
• Anquan Boldin - injured and had a bad week

Waiver Wire Picks

• Mike Bell - Saints RB this week and more (ownership under 15% in CBS & ESPN before today)
• Austin Collie - Colts new #2 with Anthony Gonzalez down
• Earl Bennett - Jay Cutler's college roomie and now Bears tandem
• Matt Cassel (OAK), Jason Campbell (STL), Brady Quinn (DEN) - a QB if you lost McNabb to fill-in for you next week and possibly longer as McNabb is out until week 5 because there bye is in week 4 and I don't think Reid will rush him back for NO or KC

Note: This post will be Tuesday to include MNF and better injury updates moving forward

New Movie Friday

In what will be a soft new release weekend at the box office thanks to the return of the NFL and the VMA's on MTV on Sunday night leave us with the following new movie choices:

Whiteout - Kate Beckingsale (damn you looked good at the premiere) stars as US Marshal in Antarctica who must find the killer before winter starts in 72 hours

Sorority Row - I Know What You Did Last Summer at a sorority: 5 sorority sisters cover-up an accidental murder in remake of this 1983 film

Tyler Perry's I Can Do Bad All By Myself - Brad Pitt's mom from Button is in it and it's a Tyler Perry movie, people will see it just not my thing

9 - animated flick about an apocalyptic world without any humanss so it'll good for older kids, just not this one

Beyond A Reasonable Doubt - soft opening around the country so I might be jumping the gun in your city, but Michael Douglas stars as lawyer who frames himself for murder just to one up a newsreporter as he tries to run for office

Sorry to be so short and sweet, but next week should be much much better as Jennifer's Body, The Informant, and Love Happens all come out...

NFL "Recession" and Blackouts

As the NFL season kicked off tonight, the league begins its first year under our recession. Last season they had sold all their seats and sponsorship before the economy truly tanked in late 2008 as Lehman Brothers went bankrupt about a year ago this week. Much has been written about the effects of the economy on the NFL but I don't buy it. 2/3 of the NFL funds come from national sources such as their broadcast deals and licensing which are steady even in this downtimes. So let's say for example you are the Lions, who were last in revenue last year per Forbes and brought in a mere $208 million. $130 million is coming in from the league you do only 66% due to the "bad economy" of the 33% that is local you are still bringing in almost 90% of the revenue from last year. If your company is only down 10% in revenue this year I think your company is going to be OK. The economy is only a crutch because the league could be headed for a lockout so everybody is crying poverty but in reality everybody involved in the NFL is banking due to the national TV contracts.

One real problem the league will face though is going to be local blackouts throughout the country on TV for your local teams. As I type this the Cardinals, Bengals, and Raiders are all facing a potential blackout if can't clear out their inventories by the end of business day today. The Cardinals made the Super Bowl last year. As much as I blame the economy or the fans, some blame is on the teams for not allocating their seats properly to avoid these blackouts. The NFL rolled out a "solution" to the problem by announcing one could watch the game on their website at midnight. Who wants to watch live sports the day after? People will find a way to stream games by using "slingbox" technologies which allow people in the market to to get the game to logon to a website and stream it from somebody who doesn't face the blackout. I imagine a ton of these websites will pop-up soon. If you live in Cincy, Cleveland, Jacksonville, San Diego, Oakland, Detroit, Tampa, St. Louis, or Seattle this same fate might be coming to your team soon so find a friend with Slingbox out of town and an adapter cord so you are all good.

Van Jones and Background Checks

First off in the interest of full disclosure, I love Van Jones "The Green Collar Economy" and still recommend reading it. Until last week, Van Jones served as a special adviser to the President on green jobs. Last week some comments out where Van Jones is a "truther" (people who question what happened on 9-11) who organized copwatch.com which actually blames the NYPD for the loss of many firefighters on that horrific day. Additionally thanks to a firestorm from FOX's Glenn Beck a video come out where he referred to the Republicans as "a**holes". Van Jones resigned over the holiday weekend.

We as country all lived through this, Van. I sat through 2 funerals from the Pentagon crashes. One didn't even have casket. It happened. I wrote my college application essays on that horrible day. I read the governments 9-11 commission report. But, I'm not here to write about 9-11 or our country's reaction. Van, like all Americans, has a right to his opinion whether or not I disagree with it or not is truly besides the point here. Van, we agree to disagree.

I dug a bit deeper to find how such a perfectly operational campaign and now Barack Obama White House got "punked" in this situation. Apparently, there was no background check done when he was hired. All they had to do was Google "copwatch re-evaluating nypd performance on 9-11" and this blemish never would have happened. We live in imperfect world and expect our politicians to be perfect. The WH dropped the ball here on the background check. Politicians who we give the privilege of running our country to need to be perfect in order to get elected. I understand that, but you can't have this type of behavior and expect to hold a public office of any kind. For those of you in HR or hiring roles at your company, I implore you to not only do a basic background check so problems like this don't arise in your company. Here's to hoping the new "Mr/s. Green jobs" is properly vetted.

Life Settlements To Help Jumpstart Economy

I was reading the NY Times on Sunday and stumbled across an article about Wall Street's new plan to sell life settlements as a bond. At first, I was mortified. Insurance long has been an alogrithm for years in all, but to be betting (I mean investing) on somebody's life or really against it. The best bonds to own will be those of the elderly and ill with the worst being the young and the healthy. This idea is from the same people who brought you the Gaussian Copula function (Google it) which ruined our bond markets and our economy, credit derivative swaps, "structured" investment vehicles, subprime mortgage loans, recently starting doing re-remics (bundling dirty assets into a new higher rated one) and now these "life settlements bonds".

After my sticker shock was over, I thought about it a little more. These "life settlements" will not only work they really help everybody as horrible as it is to be investing for/against somebody's life. These "life settlements" will create cash for those whose retirements got killed and are underneath their loan on their house . I know it sounds just like refinancing your home loan. Plus these new securities will be a boon for Wall Street and in some weird way will help do what Wall Street does best "create something out of nothing".

I expect it will take a few months or even years to work out the details but get ready to for every American to be traded on Wall Street just like a stock. As long as these practices are regulated I have no problem with these hitting the marketplace. We don't need another marker like what happened in the un-regulated CDS world last year. I don't know if I'd feel this way if I were in my 60's because it's their life settlements that will really be in play here. Best of luck to Wall Street and Barack in figuring this out. I think we as people deserve some details first and then some cash later too if we like what we see.

New Music Tuesday

Some music as we eagerly await The Blueprint 3 to be legally released and Beatles Rock Band next week...

Albums

Phish - "Joy" is their first new material from everybody's favorite jam band since 2004, much like my thoughts on many TV shows if you are into it enjoy

PitBull - "Rebelution" is everybody's favorite dancehall reggae artist is back with more and more of the same but I'm loving the first single "Room Service" for now

Whitney Houston -"I Look To You" is her comeback album but I don't think the market has a place for her in the single/club music oriented world we live in today but hey she owned the 80's

Songs

"I Want You To" - Weezer
Classic Weezer song that a great summer driving song with a catchy beat and chorus

"Drop It Low" - Ester Dean F. Chris Brown
First song from Chris Brown since he one bad night with Rihanna that sounds like a Lil' Jon song but has him on the chorus to save the song from purely bad Southern rap

"Forever" - Drake F. Eminem, Kanye, and Lil' Wayne
Coming all over the radio to you very soon as the hottest new rapper out gets with 3 of the best rappers of all-time, you'll hear it soon and often

"Check My Brain" - Alice in Chains
Still pumping out new music 15 years later and a shout-out to California makes this a surefire KROQ hit

"Cowboy Casanova" - Carrie Underwood
This song was supposed to come out in a month but thanks to leak it'll be on country radio this week and should get onto top 40 really soon as well for a song that reminds me of "baseball bat" song

"Imma Star" - Jerimih
Guy's not there yet as a star but this song will him get there slowly as its radio-friendly beat should keep it out for a bit

"Stronger" - Mary J Blige
Song from Lebron's new movie soundtrack (that's not a typo) that is too slow for me

"Need You Now" - Lady Antebellum
Country song about those accidental late night break-ups that is just kinda there

"Ramping Shop" - Vybz Cartel
Reggae song set to the same beat as Ne-Yo's "Miss Independent" so the song is in court but it's sure to get some club play is its an easy loop for DJ's across the country

And finally some upcoming shows:

9/9 and 9/10 DMB @ The Greek
9/15 Arctic Monkeys @ The Palladium
9/16 Phoenix @ The Greek
9/16 The Killers @ The Hollywood Bowl
9/16 & 9/16 Colbie Caillat @ HOB - Anaheim
9/17 and 9/18 Blink 182 @ Verizon Wireless Amphitheatre
9/22 Miley Cyrus @ Staples Center
9/23 Britney @ Staples Center
9/25 PitBull @ Club Nokia
9/26 Mickey Avalon @ Galaxy Theatre
9/26 Common @ The Palladium
9/30 Alice in Chains @ Avalon
9/30 and 10/1 and 10/6-7 Pearl Jam & Ben Harper @ Gibson
10/1 Paramore @ The Palladium
10/10 Jason Mraz @ The Hollywood Bowl
10/16 Jamie Foxx @ Nokia Theatre
10/25 U2 @ The Rose Bowl
10/27-28 Howie Day & Colbie Caillat @ HOB-Sunset Strip
11/5 The Bravery @ The Wiltern
11/10 The Used @ The Wiltern

A September to Forget?

Many national beat writers have been writing obituaries for the 2009 MLB season and a quick look at the standings shows only the Wild Cards to be even remotely interesting standings-wise. Reminder, I picked the Giants and Red Sox a month ago so we'll see. Here are a few things I'm watching and you should be too:

The Pomeranz-Ranulado sweepstakes - Catching phenom Bryce Harper (another Boras client) will go #1 to the Nationals in 2010, but who will get the #2 pick for the chance to take the top pitcher the Royals or Pirates, as of this writing the Royals are "up" 2 games on the Pirates who just celebrated their 17th consecutive losing season in the "curse of Barry Bonds" who's free agency started their streak

Penny's Revenge? - Brad Penny recently signed with the Giants after his old team (Dodgers) and old manager (Rockies) refused to allow their team to sign him instead opting for Garland and Contreras, he faces the Dodgers twice next week but even if he wins his team still faces an uphill climb against the Rockies

Operation Shutdown - Sizemore, Soriano, Latos went down last week which begs the question will hurting players like Braun, Chipper, Hanley be next as their teams fall out of contention which is sure to put a wrench in many fantasy teams head to head playoff races

The Return of Pedro (that we remember) - A guy everybody seems to root for like Manny, he dominated SF last time out against Lincecum and pitches against the Nationals tonight, if he keeps it up the other 29 GM's have to feel dumb about not signing him for mere million dollars for the 2nd half

The Phillies and Cards bullpens - The two front runners for the NL pennant of late have had some trouble in the back of their bullpens of late as Ryan Franklin is off for a few days and Brad Lidge has 10 blown saves so just remember in October that the Dodgers have the best bullpen in baseball and the best closer in the NL

Is MLB an oligopoly? - 7 out of top 9 payrolls (Sorry Mets and Cubs fans) are going to the playoffs and with the NL wild card being the 14th and 15th highest payrolls (SF/COL) no team in the upper echelon of spending will make the playoffs which will lead to alot of talk about revenue sharing and the draft as the current CBA is due to run out in 2011 so this story will only grow next year when negociations begin

Sophomore slumps - Will players in their first truly full MLB season like Geovany Soto, Jay Bruce, Evan Longoria, Jair Jurrjens, Jacoby Ellsbury, and Joba run out of gas as they hit the last month after 6 months of real baseball?

Who's #3? - Every GM is thinking about this as there roster is set for the postseason now but who gets the ball in game 3 of the first round? There will be some tough decisions around baseball in every postseason town such as STL (Pineiro/Smoltz), LA (Kuroda/Kershaw), Philly (Pedro/Blanton), NYY (Burnett/Joba), DET (Jackson/Porcello), and ANA (Santana/Saunders)

The 7th and 8th inning muscle - The setup guys is one of my favorite players on every team, he never gets alot of credit and is always secretly hoping the closer gets hurt I saw Neftali Feliz pitch a few weeks ago and wow is all I can say plus keep an eye on guys like Matt Thornton, Matt Lindstrom, Phil Hughes, George Sherill, and Ryan Madson to continue their recent dominance

September callups - as rosters expand to 40 men in September it's always a good time to take a look at hot prospects like Buster Posey (C-SF), Neil Walker (3B - PIT), Carlos Carrasco (P-CLE), Michael Brantley (OF-CLE), and Tyler Flowers (C-CWS)

The Attendance Battle - Yankees (45,793 after 65 games) vs. Dodgers (45,756 after 72 games) lead their leagues in attendance with a month to go and a quick check shows that the Yankees max out at 47 even when they play the Sox so I'm picking the Dodgers as the favorite here to come out on top with their 56,000 person stadium and a season ending weekend series against the Rockies

The sale of the Rangers - Tom Hicks is selling and apparently 3-6 people are buying, he doesn't have the stadium too (it's leased) so look for this to draw out as he asks for top dollar, whoever buys the team is definitely in an enviable position in the long run with the best farm system in baseball, Josh Hamilton to sell tickets, and a smaller division to compete within

(Fantasy) Football Is Back

With Thursday's kickoff, everybody's favorite office game is back. I swear fantasy football is the worst thing to happen to office productivity in awhile. It's why the NFL kicks MLB's butt. The girls in the office who don't like particularly like sports can now know who Greg Olsen is like it's the name of Jennifer Aniston's new boyfriend. It's amazing how gambling and fantasy football combined with ridiculous PR at a league level have turned the NFL into's America's sport. I'll run through a few notes and my teams this year. I considered doing a start/sit but leagues now have so many different rules kinks that those are basically worthless. Moving forward, this post will be waiver wire Mondays until 2010 when it's back to baseball.

Brandon Marshall (UCF) - unsuspended yet still crazy and will be a Jet soon if you believe Kerry Rhodes Twitter page who says a "big announcement" is coming from the Jets which would be huge for Eddie Royal and Mark Sanchez

Carnell "Cadillac" Williams - starting RB in TB based on their new depth charts, hope you read my draft update and stayed away from this situation completely, poor Derick Ward

Matt Cassel - full practice for the injured QB but I think he'll play against Baltimore because there seems to be an urge from the team to get him out there (don't start him anyways its the Ravens defense) as he's their new face of the franchise

Matt Stafford - starting in DET, beat UCF alum Duante Culpepper if thats an accomplishment

Richard Seymour - traded from Raiders to Patriots a week before the season starts, wow talk about bad luck, at least he's a free agent after this year and the Pats got a #1 pick out of it

Team #1: 12 team PPR League with huge QB bonus and 12 man rosters (no TE)
QB: Tony Romo (Matt Cassel)
RB: Ladainian Tomlinson
RB: Ahmad Bradshaw/Leon Washington
WR: Calvin Johnson
WR: TO/Eddie Royal
DEF: Vikings/Dolphins
K: Prater (UCF!) / K. Brown
Note: This league is an odd one as you are capped by position in the draft, so week 1 waiver wire should be a fun one

Team #2: 8 team PPR League with Return Yards start 3 RB and WR plus Flex
QB: Donovan McNabb/Matt Schaub
RB: Steve Slaton
RB: Ray Rice
RB: Ryan Grant
WR: Larry Fitzgerald
WR: Calvin Johnson (on both teams congrats)
WR: Greg Jennings
TE: Jeremy Shockey
Flex: Lance Moore/Eddie Royal/Kevin Walter/ D Brown
DEF: Bears
K: Carney

Make sure you get your lineups in by Thursday morning as many will lock as soon as kickoff hits on Thursday night.

New TV, New TV, New TV & Football!!!

Sorry summer TV has been a bummer outside of Entourage and Mad Men. It's now September which means pools close in Maryland and no more big budget movies. NFL is back on Thursday!!! (Fantasy post later today) Also, it's time for the major networks to roll out there new shows. CW is this week, NBC is next week, and ABC/CBS the following week. FOX tiered their premieres but you can do that when you have 12 hours of week to program and very little of it is new stuff. I'll break down TV into 3 categories moving month:
DVR it - put it on or tape it if you can't see it
For you, maybe - some shows I just don't particularly like (CSI) but I know some people love it
Why? - who paid for this show to be on TV

DVR it
Melrose Place Tuesday at 9 on CW
It's back after going on hiatus since I was in high school, the drama-fights-scandal return to the CW and I'll be watching as they've had the best advertisements of any new shows so let's see if the product can back it up

Glee Wednesday at 9 on Fox
You probably remember this is the show that came on after Idol in the spring, the dramedy based on a real life "High School Musical" is here now for good as one of the best ideas to come along in awhile, so we'll have a TV show that can sell songs, albums, go on tour, and get ratings must be those people at FOX again

Jay Leno Show 9/14 and every night at 10 on NBC
The late night man himself is back and all of Hollywood is rooting against him because he chewed up 5 hours of what could be scripted TV on NBC, his first show features Seinfeld and Kanye so you can bet I'll be watching, if this works watch ABC who hasn't made good TV in awhile go after Oprah for their 10 PM slot next fall

Gossip Girl 9/14, next Monday, at 9 on CW
The girls are all grown up and are heading to college, can I just say that Josh Schwartz is a genius (Chuck, OC, Gossip Girl) although we shall see how the producers deal with not having all the main characters at the same school and we all know that this could be the last season for Leighton and Chace as their careers have taken off because of this show

Vampie Diaries Thursday 8 on CW
The best new show on CW follows vampire in high school so it's sure to be a hit with the Twilight and True Blood crowds but like many quality CW shows before viewers will be a challenge on Thursday night going against Bones and Survivor

For you-maybe
So You Think You Can Dance Wednesday 8 on FOX - going up against Barack's health care speech this week, but for Idol fans when there is no Idol
90210 Tuesday 8 on CW - ridiculously hot girls make this one bearable
Sons of Anarchy Tuesday 9 on FX - no clue, but its back on the air so somebody is watching it
America's Next Top Model Wednesday 9 on CW - Tyra Banks makes fun of skinny girls
Supernatural Thursday 9 on CW - Superman the TV show
America's Most Wanted Saturday 9 on FOX - I'm all for catching bad guys

Why?
Cops Saturday 8 on FOX - Don't we have YouTube for this now

Interesting Ways To Play The Recession

I know I said I'd pick stocks out today, but I'll grab a few extras next week instead. The best way to get instantly rich in the market is playing the IPO game, but how many times have you sat down to buy a company that you read or heard about only to find that a stock is private? For those wealthier people you can make a few calls thru your broker and buy-in sometimes but for average Joes like myself we are shut out of the pre-IPO stocks. Sharespost has come out recently giving you the opportunity to buy shares of privately held companies such as Facebook, Tesla, Twitter, eHarmony, and more. I recommend you check out the link to see if this investment strategy is right for you. Tread lightly as the are few shares out there so the demand is inherently higher and that big what if of going bankrupt is there to as you have no idea what the companies books look like because they aren't publicly traded.

Another to do well in this recession is to play inverses. I know I know it's betting against the market and the stimulus plan. Two companies are legally doing this are based locally here in Maryland: Rydex SGI and ProShares. Each company sells mutual funds that run counter to the market. In a recession it's a different way to view the market. It's just as hard to bet a company to drop in price as it is to go up. Both companies have been around for a few years so you won't get caught up in any legality issues. Happy Trading!

Labor Day Movies For The Weekend x2

Gamer - so the plotline is that gamers take over real people's body and fight, I think a ton of people will see this because it's the only newer action flick on a holiday weekend but I won't be
Also how did Gerard Butler pull Jenifer Aniston?

Extract - bad reviews but who cares Mila Kunis is in this movie and so is Jason Bateman plus it was made by Mr. Office Space himself Mike Judge, I'm in

Carriers - OutBreak meets Roadtrip with Chris Pine, no go

Amreeka - single mother whos an immigrant and her son grow up in Illinois, so only if your wife takes you to see it, sorry I'm not that mature just yet

All About Steve - Mr. Hangover (Bradley Cooper) is a newsman being chased by an avid crossword puzzler Sandra Bullock so that makes it the date night movie of the week

Layovers from last week:

Final Destination 3D - I'm all for these IMAX and 3D movies just not when the object is to scare the crap out of you

Halloween 2 - It's August and a Halloween movie is coming out, doesn't anybody else see why this could be a problem? Why not have Christmas movies in October too?

Taking Woodstock - Can we just have a 40 year anniversary concert like Bonnaroo in New York instead of all these movies and documentaries? OK, it's not for me

Twitter+Google = Your New Stock Broker?

I my downtime I stumbled upon a site called: StockTwits. Ths site is an aggregate site for Twitter. Anytime there is a tweet/post about stocks it grabs it. I really like the idea of an open area to discuss stocks. Good work by the founders of this company. Stock trading is one space that works well for Twitter because to you can "tweet" and trade in real time. On the flipside, I feel like it's an area that is open to fraud like those penny stock e-mails we've all received over the years. I am going to give it a try next week.

Alos, I found on Google Finance they have a domestic trends category which allows to you use their search data to see what stocks you'd like to play with by sector only. You can graph Google searches vs the stocks. You have to do your own work on this one though. I think Google is onto something here especially with Russell and pre-IPO stocks if they ever get that far. If I could track little companies most searched for in Google, I'd be a millionaire already. I'm suprised Google doesn't haven't their own hedge fund for this exact purpose. Information continues to be the most valuable commodity out there and Google is leading the new as the "information leader" of the the 21st century.

PS Stock picks coming tommorow too don't worry

StubHub+Recession = Death of Season Tickets

Over the past few years sports teams have faced a challenging landscape in selling season tickets. Season tickets are the single biggest economic indicator for any team in any sport. The more you have the better. The best teams in baseball have well over 20,000, over 60k in the NFL in most stadiums, and over 14k in NBA is a solid number. As the years pass it's become harder to sell them for a few reasons:

1. Cost
As the economy has slowly collapsed it's hit people and business hard and the 2-15k thousand that people spend on seats isn't there anymore. I think it's hit the middle and lower-class the most as I think the wealthy are still well off but the middle and lower income are somewhat jobless and getting screwed by their ARM loans left and right. Large big purchases like vacations and sports tickets are one of thing the first things cut.

2. Time
Now let's say that you have the money to buy season tickets. Can you commit yourself to 41 nights of basketball, 81 nights of baseball, or even 11 nights of football? The answer is probably not. People work no more than ever and why pay for something upfront when you can now "figure it out later". Many people have partners in their seats but it leads to issues over playoff tickets and big games.

3. StubHub
Now you have the time and the money, would you purchase a product that is readily available at a lower price the second you buy it? Secondary brokers have a role in the changing landscape but they have done more for the fan and nothing to sports teams. You need a ticket to a soldout event or don't want to pay any PSL or licensing fees on your seats they have that. Many people requested seats from me all over the country this year and I send them straight here. The devalued cost of sports seats on the site is amazing and a huge problem down the line for the NBA and MLB due to the number of the games they play.

The team that best allocates, inventories, and price their tickets in the future and takes care of their customers will be the best business and teams in the future. Miniplans and allocations will be just as important as scouting in the next 5 years. Why the MBA's and finance majors are working in the scouting departments is beyond me. If it's my team I'm sending them straight to the head of tickets to maximize ticket revenues. Fortunately for me this area is something I know very well so if I end up back in sports I'm your man for the job.

A Look At August Retail Sales Figures

As a retail veteran of 7 years (Nordstrom+Dodgers) , I've always liked taking a peek at same-store figures once in awhile. I find them even more interesting during the recession to see who is doing well. A recession usually helps companies that sell everyday items such as groceries, gas, and fast-food. Meanwhile it kills the high-end goods and think you'd like to buy but don't need like a mattress company. Let's run through a few companies with their sales figures and comments.

Abercrombie (-29%) - getting crushed by the economy, always thought they had a problem in attracting management talent because their pipeline of people who want to work their our high school and college kids, now my thoughts are proving to be right
Aeropostale (9%) - good work, nice that their medium exposure to the economy to due to low numbers of stores and price-point is paying off
Gap (-3%) - Wow!, I'm very impressed with this company, they always ace the marketing aspect of their product and know who their customer and what they want to buy
Hot Topic (-8.1%) - a LA based company that stock I still up a ton this year, should continue to do well to low pricepoints as parents continue to cut kids off or just say no to high-end

JC Penney (-7.9%)
Macy (-8.1%)
Nieman's (-16.6%)
Nordstrom (-7.6%)
Sak's (-19.6%)
The more luxury you are of a brand the more you are getting crushed by the economy, it's no suprise to me that Nordstrom is "beating" everybody because in times like these you are looking for value added and their service is better than any store which continues to make it "the most valuable name in retail" additionally I know their margins do well because of the increasing number of in-house and off-brands carried in every department which lower they're overhead and get their sell-thru up during these tough times

Costco (0%)
Target (-2.9%)
Back to school is always a boon to these stores and this year it no different as school is back in session this week in most parts of the country, if you are looking for Walmart sales figures they've decided earlier this year to not release month figures but thanks to their amazing control over their distributors even in a bad economy their cash flows will be more than fine

Ross (6%)
Kohl's (0.2%)
TJ Maxx (5%)
More discounts and more sales increases coming from 3 of America's lower-end stores, I'd expect this trend to continue in the fourth quarter

Are Green Jobs > Greenovation?

I'm reading the NY Times this weekend and I stumble across an article from Annie Milkern over at Greenwire. (which a great green aggregate site for daily reading) The article refers to the growing number of lobbyists helping green startups chase federal funds. As somebody who was considering the process, I'm officially out before I'm in. The papers are 400+ pages and basically require hiring a lobbyist. Each company must demonstrate an ability to "meet policy objectives related to climate change and energy independence such as lowering greenhouse gas emissions, creating jobs, driving economic development, and spurring investment in new energy technologies.

As a follow-up to last week's article this sector is going to boom just not yet. This is where all next Microsoftsand Googles will come from. My worry is that even though $50 billion is going to green companies and tons have already gone that the economy will be used as a clutch to create jobs rather than give the funds to the best ideas. Entrepreneurship, my college major, has always fascinated me. I've always wondered when I see a success story how people got there. Whether it's a the timing, great product/idea, or great management I've never heard a new "it" company say we wanted to "hire the most people possible" or "open up new research center immediately" when we started which is why the green grant money system is a bit worrisome.

Best of luck to all the startups applying for these funds, I can see myself joining your team soon in the right situation. I hope none of these companies lose sight of their cash flows by increasing the overhead in order to appease their VC that being the government. The green revolution is going to be awhile. Thanks to Barack for putting it on the fast track but the "job rule" put it on a bit slower track.