MTV Movie Awards

And, the MTV Movie Award nominees are:

Best Movie
"Black Swan"
"Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
"Inception"
"The Social Network"
"The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"

Best Female Performance
Emma Stone, "Easy A"
Emma Watson, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
Jennifer Aniston, "Just Go With It"
Kristen Stewart, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Natalie Portman, "Black Swan"

Best Male Performance
Daniel Radcliffe, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network"
Robert Pattinson, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Taylor Lautner, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Zac Efron, "Charlie St. Cloud"

Best Breakout Star
Andrew Garfield , "The Social Network"
Chloë Grace Moretz, "Kick-Ass"
Hailee Steinfeld, "True Grit"
Jay Chou, "The Green Hornet"
Olivia Wilde, "TRON: Legacy"
Xavier Samuel, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"

Best Comedic Performance
Adam Sandler, "Just Go With It"
Ashton Kutcher, "No Strings Attached"
Emma Stone, "Easy A"
Russell Brand, "Get Him to the Greek"
Zach Galifianakis, "Due Date"

Best Line From A Movie (New Category)
Alexys Nycole Sanchez, "Grown Ups": "I want to get chocolate wasted."
Amanda Bynes and Emma Stone, "Easy A": Amanda Bynes: "There is a higher power that will judge you for your indecency." Emma Stone: "Tom Cruise?"
Jesse Eisenberg, "The Social Network": "If you guys were the inventors of Facebook, you'd have invented Facebook."
Justin Timberlake and Andrew Garfield, "The Social Network": Justin Timberlake: "... A million dollars isn't cool. You know what's cool?" Andrew Garfield: "A billion dollars. And that shut everybody up."
Tom Hardy, "Inception": "You mustn't be afraid to dream a little bigger darling."

Best Villain
Christoph Waltz, "The Green Hornet"
Leighton Meester, "The Roommate"
Mickey Rourke, "Iron Man 2"
Ned Beatty, "Toy Story 3"
Tom Felton, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"

Best Fight
Amy Adams vs. The Sisters, "The Fighter"
Chloë Grace Moretz vs. Mark Strong, "Kick-Ass"
Daniel Radcliffe, Emma Watson and Rupert Grint vs. Death Eaters, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt vs. Hallway Attacker, "Inception"
Robert Pattinson vs. Bryce Dallas Howard and Xavier Samuel, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"

Best Kiss
Ellen Page and Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Inception"
Emma Watson and Daniel Radcliffe, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1"
Kristen Stewart and Robert Pattinson, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Kristen Stewart and Taylor Lautner, "The Twilight Saga: Eclipse"
Natalie Portman and Mila Kunis, "Black Swan"

Best Jaw-Dropping Moment
James Franco, "127 Hours," Cuts Off His Arm
Justin Bieber, "Justin Bieber: Never Say Never," Performance Spectacular
Leonardo DiCaprio and Ellen Page, "Inception," Paris Café Scene
Natalie Portman, "Black Swan," Mutilation: Pulls the Skin off Her Finger
Steve-O, "Jackass 3D," Port-A-Potty Bungee Stunt

Best Scared-As-Shit Performance
Ashley Bell, "The Last Exorcism"
Ellen Page, "Inception"
Jessica Szohr, "Piranha 3D"
Minka Kelly, "The Roommate"
Ryan Reynolds, "Buried"

Biggest Badass Star
Alex Pettyfer, "I Am Number Four"
Chloë Grace Moretz, "Kick-Ass"
Jaden Smith, "The Karate Kid"
Joseph Gordon-Levitt, "Inception"
Robert Downey Jr., "Iron Man 2"

Rafael Nadal v Roger Federer: French Open Tennis final live

Despite the lack of quality Americans in the sport, men’s tennis is seeing an apex in the game not seen since the Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras duels in the 1990′s.  This season has been dominated by one man:  Novak Djokovic.  Djokovic ran off a 43 match winning streak before being knocked off by Roger Federer in the French Open semifinal.  The victory gives us a fourth Roger Federer vs Rafael Nadal final in six years.  The streak and the transcendent rivalry gives sports fans something amazing that few people are actually watching.  More on the greatness of tennis today served up after the jump.

Bryan Vickroy

Few people in America could actually name more than two or three players on the ATP Tour, if they could name any at all.  Part of the reason is much of the tennis season is spent on other continents, relatively obscure players  playing for weeks at a time in the middle of the night for the American viewing audience.  Another reasoning is that there is no real American presence on the circuit since Andre Agassi and Pete Sampras were exchanging volleys.  Andy Roddick looked to be a rising star, and to a degree has been successful.  Roddick has won a US Open, but has been unable to add a second Grand Slam title to his resume since.  Mardy Fish has been steady, but has yet to prove himself in the second week of tournaments.  The television ratings may not show how good the game is today, but the public is missing out on some of the greatest individual performances in sports.

Novak Djokovic has spent this season mowing down opponents and taking home tournament titles, and the ridiculous sums of money that come along with that glory.  With all the fuss people make about Dimaggio’s 56 game hitting streak, but Djokovic strung together 43 consecutive victories.  Djokovic fell just three matches shy of tying Guillermo Vilas’ 46 match streak.  The length and endurance and skill it takes not only to compete at the highest level, but beat every opponent is amazing.



The streak by Novak Djokovic was snapped by someone with possibly an even more impressive streak.  Roger Federer reached a ridiculous 23 straight Open semifinals.  Despite struggles in the past months, Federer has shown a return of form by the greatest player in the last decade, some may argue THE greatest player ever.  Obviously the most intense, and entertaining, matchups in tennis have been between Roger Federer and Rafael Nadal.  Both men have achieved a career grand slam, two of only seven players ever to accomplish the feat.  They have met in four of the last six French Open Finals at Roland Garros.  The stranglehold between these two players over the years may not bring the parity to the game like most American sports posses, they have brought some of the most intense, interesting, and invigorating competition matches over the last few years.



While Roger Federer has been the most dominant player, Rafa Nadal has owned Roger Federer in Grand Slams.  Nadal has won six of eight showdowns, and sits one win away from tying Bjorn Borg’s record of six French Open titles.  Nadal is a magician on the red clay at Roland Garros, and no matter what shape his body is in, Nadal always finds a way to win in Paris.  The matchup is a blessing for NBC executives, as it showcases the game’s two best players in one of the most scenic venues in all of sports.  Despite the time difference, this matchup will be another one for the ages between the two, and promises to be historic.



While the author may be biased, having had a pretty damn good high school career (for Midwest standards), the men’s game is something America is missing.  While they may tune in to the women’s tour every now and then for an ogle or two of Maria Sharapov, the men’s game is where the true craft of tennis is so expertly displayed.  While technology has helped the game make quantum leaps from the days of wooden rackets, the game requires a deft touch and even quicker thinking.  Federer, Nadal, and Djokovic, and the rest of the ATP tour will give any athlete in any sport a run for their money.  It’s a shame more people aren’t watching.  So get up early Sunday morning, make yourself a nice breakfast, and take in some of the most dramatic, entertaining, competitive sports that you can ever see.




Bryan Vickroy has an addiction to hockey, and is willing to partake in all its forms.  He is skating extra shifts for The Sports Bank, covering the Minnesota Wild, the NHL, and NCAA hockey all year long.  Look for new articles throughout the week.  He can be followed on Twitter at www.twitter.com/bryanvickroy .  If you’d prefer to speak in more than 140 characters at a time to him, he can be reached at bryan.vickroy@gmail.com .



Weight Loss Success in a 3-D Virtual World

From the Science Daily (Posted June 3, 2011) — Participants in two weight-loss programs -- one involving traditional health club sessions and the other delivered online in a 3D virtual world -- lost similar amounts of weight and body fat, but the online contingent reported significantly greater gains in behaviors that could help them live healthier and leaner lives.

"It's counter-intuitive, the idea of being more active in a virtual world, but the activities that they do in a virtual world can carry over into the real world," said Jeanne Johnston, assistant professor of kinesiology at Indiana University. "Through visualization and education, they can try activities that they had not tried before."
More and more people have been turning to online weight-loss programs, but Johnston said the programs often lack important elements of human interaction. The IU researchers wanted to travel even farther into cyber space by evaluating a weight-loss program offered in a virtual-reality environment, where visitors use avatars to interact with others or the computer-simulated environment -- in this case, a simulated fitness club.
"The virtual world program was at least as beneficial as the face-to-face program and in some ways, more effective," Johnston said. "It has the potential to reach people who normally wouldn't go to a gym or join a program because of limitations, such as time or discomfort with a fitness center environment."
The findings in the study "Comparison of a Face-to-Face versus Virtual World Weight Loss Program" are being presented at the American College of Sports Medicine annual meeting in Denver.
For 12 weeks, members of the each weight-loss program spent at least four hours a week attending meetings at a virtual or real club. In both they learned about nutrition, physical activity, changing habits and how to benefit from social supports. The study involved overweight and obese people -- mostly women. The average age of the face-to-face group was 37. The average age of the virtual world group, which provided training in how to use the Web-based platform Second Life was 46.
The participants in each group lost a comparable amount of weight -- on average almost 10 pounds -- and saw similar decreases in body mass index and body fat. The big differences between the two groups involved behaviors. Participants in the face-to-face group reported no significant changes in any of the behaviors evaluated -- actions involving healthy eating, physical activity and sleeping habits. The virtual world participants reported positive changes in all the healthy eating and physical activity measures except the number of hours slept.
"They also had more confidence in their ability to perform physical activity in difficult situations, such as bad weather, vacations, low-energy days," Johnston said.
In collaboration with Celeste De Vaneaux, creative director and CEO of Club One Island, the study was conducted by Johnston, Anne P. Massey, Kelley School of Business, and Victoria S. Lee, a graduate student in kinesiology in the School of Health, Physical Education and Recreation.

Philips 22PFL4505D/F7 22-Inch 720p LED LCD HDTV

This review is from: , Philips 22PFL4505D/F7 22-Inch 720p LED LCD HDTV Black (Electronics)

I have had this TV for almost a month and am completely satisfied with the performance. It is compact, thin and easy to set up--just follow the instructions on the screen after you have turned it on. The color was a little "washed out." I went into the color adjustment option and "tweaked" it a little. There is a protocol during the set-up that helps you select the color reception, however it proved not to be what I really wanted, so I did it manually. Now it is clear, sharp and very natural looking. I also adjusted the sound quality the same way. I feel this TV will rank with any more expensive Sony or Panasonic for quality and reception. If you are looking for a excellent, small 22" for the kitchen or bedroom, this is a keeper. The only problem, and it is a minor one, was during the "auto-scan" process to search for TV stations. It warns that it could take as much as 20 minutes--and it did. I had to do this three times since it turned itself off after about 15 minutes twice before completing the scan. It could have been my cable supplier, but don't worry. Be patient and all will be terrific.

5.0 out of 5 stars Great buy, fabulous Philips 22-inch LED LCD HDTV, February 17, 2011

Amazon Verified PurchaseThis review is from: Philips 22PFL4505D/F7 22-Inch 720p LED LCD HDTV, Black (Electronics)

I tried going for a smaller widescreen than everyone said I "had to have," and am I pleased! I suspected that since this is my first widescreen, and since I've been getting by on a 13-inch square since my 20-inch square TV went kaput, that a 22-inch Philips would seem like a huge step up. And does it ever. The picture is so sharp that I don't need a bigger screen in my little cottage -- certainly not until my upstairs 13-inch gasps its last. I can read the newscrawlers, subtitles and sports scores. The color is gorgeous, and I haven't even taken time to superfine tune it. The TV arrived days early from amazon.com yesterday afternoon, Free Super Saver Shipping, and I started setting it up this morning. Just then "Goodbye, Mr. Chips" came on Turner Classic Movies, and I hadn't seen it before, and wanted to, but I plunged ahead, watching while I looked at the Quick Start. I unplugged the old and was back watching the movie again before intermission. This HDTV has all the hoolymajiggits to hook up your PC, your video camera, your computer games, and I don't know what all, but being a film fan, all I have is a Magnavox DVD-VHS player, and that hooks up just fine. The remote operates intuitively, and I can move through the menu likewise without reading the manual. I just couldn't possibly be more pleased, especially since I've long depended upon the quality of Philips and Magnavox. Just after Christmas there were 22 of these sets, and they sold out before I could make a move. I let amazon.com know I was sold on the set, but couldn't buy in time. I was so sold that I was thinking of buying the same TV in the 32-inch if I couldn't get the 22. But true to form, amazon.com came through with more 22-inch Philips 720p LED LCD HDTV, Black. I bought one, it's here, and it's up and running, just like that, after weeks of checking availability. I actually think the 32-inch might be too big for my cottage as it is for my budget right now. My TV stands atop the entertainment tower for my component stereo system (remember those?) and it can face forward to the living room, or turn toward the adjacent bedroom (fishing village architecture). It's a very big picture either way. What I like about the Surround Sound is that a lower level is adequate because it's not all coming from one back speaker. No more blaring that makes my Chinese Shar-Pei rub her ears. I'm happy, happy, happy, and so is she. I won't be needing the free return, but in this neck of the woods, I'm grateful amazon.com offers it. Thank you, thank you, amazon.com.

This review is from: Philips 22PFL4505D/F7 22-Inch 720p LED LCD HDTV, Black (Electronics)

Not being a techno wizard I needed to replace the old analog TV as it was giving up on us. A little researce and going by other reccomendations I selected this TV. It was as advertised with one exception. Ease of set up and picture were near perfect. Only complaint I have is the sound quality, VERY poor. Even after going thru the equlaizer set up and selecting type of entertainment to view .ie . movie,news, music etc all sounds as if it were emminating from a tin can. I am currently looking for an external speaker option.

This review is from: Philips 22PFL4505D/F7 22-Inch 720p LED LCD HDTV, Black (Electronics)

Replaced a 19" Sanyo we had in our bedroom for 6-7 years with this Phillips 22". At the price we paid, we couldn't be happier. Very clear picture allows you to set coloration, tint and so forth manually, even has an equalizer for the sound. It's better than I expected.

This review is from: Philips 22PFL4505D/F7 22-Inch 720p LED LCD HDTV, Black (Electronics)

Over all, I'm pleased with this TV for the price. I mounted it to a wall over a tall chest of drawers in our bedroom. Its picture is bring and clear. And the viewing angles are much wider than I thought they would be. If I forget to pull the TV out from the wall and tilt it down to the bed, its still a good picture. However, the sound is pretty bad despite the availability of an equalizer in the menu. The preset sound and picture settings are HORRIBLE. I panicked at first thinking that there was something wrong with the picture. Then I found the settings to brighten it up. It was terribly dark out of the box. You should definitely play with the sound settings too to add some base and take out some of the highs.

The God Particle

http://tinyurl.com/5v96gcv

The discovery of the Higgs Boson or "God Particle"
There is great debate in the collective mind regarding science, matter, spirit, God or an all pervading intelligence and consciousness. Soon the two will camps will converge minus the "dogma" (Dogma is "am god" backwards by the way). One might say that both religion and science have it backwards.

The Large Hadron Collider (LHC) is a particle accelerator located at CERN, near Geneva, Switzerland.
It lies in a tunnel under France and Switzerland.
The real debate (religion aside) is whether the tangible gives rise to the intangible or vice versa and what role consciousness, awareness or the observer plays in the actualization of phenomena.
The Higgs Boson is a controversial particle believed to bestow mass on all other particles.  Which in one context would be the particle that converts the intangible into the tangible. The Higgs Boson (God Particle) is supposedly the key that would explain why particles have mass and the phenomena of solidity, Physicists believe that Higgs particles generate a kind of soupy ether through which other particles move, picking up drag that translates into mass on the macroscopic scale. If the Higgs Boson (God Particle), the cornerstone of 21st-century physics, is not there then the standard model of the universe collapses.  Since particles do have mass, we know that there must be some function that generates it. There is a good chance that we will find that function, yet at the same time the standard model of the universe will collapse, as we obtain a new understanding, a major shift in an erroneous perception and assumption upon which physics is based.
We find that we have a lot of good math, and empirical evidence that is sound and true, coming from various theories. Perhaps the fault lies in our interpretation of the math and in fact the very foundation of physics. A single flawed perception that leads all astray. When this misperception is corrected everything will fall into place and make sense.
In these writings he speaks of the "Death of Particle Physics" and the birth of  "Intangics." Physics is focused on the tangible giving rise to the intangible and the resulting "appearances".  Intangics is based on the intangible giving rise to the tangible and the underlying framework that gives rise to the appearances. In the writings he has put forth the notion that scientists have discovered consciousness and they labeled it "virtual particles".  The problem with physics is that it is based on particles, yet in his theory there are "no particles in the universe" only the appearance of particles. The same goes for travel; there is no travel, only the appearance of travel. For sure the experience, of the appearance of particles, and travel is real, our interpretation of the fundamentals of that experience are false. Such that reality is an incomprehensible (for a finite linear consciousness) collection of dynamically changing numeric values resulting from a dynamic non-linear consciousness, and what we see are the symbols we assign to these numeric values creating a comprehensible  picture that a linear consciousness can interact with. Perhaps humans are nothing more than a processing point for streams of data. For example the frequency value of green light is some 520 trillion pulses per second, we apply the symbol "green" to this numeric value. The picture of what is out there is formed in the mind.
Timed in conjunction with the startup and discovery of the God particle is a book release. Conceptual excerpts from the book. It will help to explain what is found and trigger insights that lead to the greatest discoveries as well as the implementation of a new energy device, one that stores and concentrates and redirects but does not produce energy because energy cannot be created, it is everywhere and everything. It will help us understand why the standard model as conceived is not whole.
So we have actually two "real" things the search for the God Particle will give birth to relevant to the supreme evolutionary principle. The collapse of "physics" as the foundation, as we know it, and the transformation of the Internet from a communications network to an extremely powerful computational grid. The latter is a result of the creation of enormous amounts of data that must be sifted through to find the one in 10 trillion anomalies which will represent the signature of a Higgs Boson. The Atlas, part of the Large Hadron Collider, and its three sister detectors will spew a thousand times more raw data in a year than in all the world's phone calls.
The Nobel Prize winning physicist Leon Lederman wrote a book "The God Particle" some 15 years ago.

As he put it in his book:

“This boson is so central to the state of physics today, so crucial to our final understanding of the structure of matter, yet so elusive, that I have given it a nickname: the God Particle. Why God Particle? Two reasons. One, the publisher wouldn’t let us call it the Goddam Particle, though that might be a more appropriate title, given its villainous nature and the expense it is causing. And two, there is a connection, of sorts, to another book, a much older one…
Lederman then goes on to quote Genesis 11:1-9 , the Tower of Babel story about mankind dispersing. Finding the God Particle, he says, would be like undoing the confusion that followed.
I would say Lederman is correct in this regard, in that the common perception is that everything is separate including individuals and consciousness which gives rise to behavior leading to a lot of conflict and impeded human evolution. This new revelation will reveal that everything is in fact connected and we are all really One Being, both noun and verb. 

Boston/Northeast Weather watch

Important Information!
The National Weather Service has issued a tornado watch for Boston as hazardous weather forms in the northeast United States.
From the National Weather Service:

THE MAIN THREATS FROM THESE POSSIBLE SEVERE THUNDERSTORMS WILL BE FROM LARGE HAIL AND DAMAGING STRAIGHT-LINE WINDS. ISOLATED TORNADOES ARE ALSO POSSIBLE. A TORNADO WATCH REMAINS IN EFFECT THROUGH 8 PM EDT.

In total, seven Massachusetts counties are under a tornado watch, including Essex, Franklin, Hampden, Hampshire, Middlesex, Norfolk, Suffolk and Worcester.
The tornado watch, which is in effect until 8 p.m. tonight, covers eight states, from Maine to New Jersey, and includes New York, Newark, Philadelphia, Providence and Hartford.
The Associated Press reports that these areas could experience winds up to 70 mph as well as golf ball-sized hail.

Goodbye, Shaq

Basketball fans click here

Shaquille O’Neal announced on Twitter that he is retiring. He'll end his 19-year career after a disappointing season with the Boston Celtics. The man has lore in every NBA city in America, but special lore here in Sacramento.

This dude was completely unstoppable, no matter what you threw at him. He was the unsolvable puzzle. Kobe Bryant was fantastic during the great Kings-Lakers battles of the Glory Era. But Shaq? He was on another plane, just a gigantic problem, constantly. We had Vlade Divac, Chris Webber, Scot Pollard ... it didn't matter. If Shaq was on and focused; you weren't stopping him, period. In 16 playoff games against the Kings, Shaq averaged 30.7 points and 15.7 rebounds. Thirty and fifteen.

He wasn't just dominant -- he was completely hate-able. He called our team the "Queens." He made fun of us, and our cowbells. Even after his prime was gone and he no longer competed for championships, he pretended he had no idea who Spencer Hawes was. He seemed to genuinely consider Sacramento a joke he wasn't in on, a mistake on the NBA map that he'd rather didn't exist.

Shaq was a total villain in Sacramento in every way, so much so that I vomited into a garbage can when I walked into work at a bar on one fine afternoon in 2004 and saw the front of the Sacramento Beesports page, emblazoned with a big ol' headline that read "Shaq-ramento?"

I was appalled. An MVP-caliber center, a legit superstar and Hall of Famer on just the other side of his prime ... and I was appalled our fine newspaper would suggest him a potential target. That's how hate-able, how much of a villain Shaq was for us. I don't think I was alone. I don't think many other fans would have clamored for a Shaq trade, were one even possible. (It wasn't.)

We can all appreciate Shaq's greatness, and be thoroughly entertained by his antics. (His feud with Kobe remains a highlight.) But in the end, I'll always remember Shaq as the BAMF that destroyed the Kings when it mattered most, the guy that didn't break our hearts in one shot like Horry, but stomped our hope like a megalith Beelzebub.

Goodbye, Shaq. Thanks for ruining our dreams.