44 Years...

I'm happy for Spain.

Winning the Euro Cup after a 44 year trophy draught is an achievement worthy of celebration.

And believe me, all of Spain is celebrating right now.

I remember being in Sevilla with my wife before we were married, had to be at least 10 years ago, and we were staying in some hotel in the heart of town and it was night and suddenly there was this great commotion in the streets down below - cheering and horns honking and shouting because some Spanish soccer team had just won something. Obviously, I wasn't following soccer much at the time, but I remember being impressed by the fans.

And, I really like Spain.

I'm glad Cesc Fabregas experiences this now with his country - he deserves to taste victory for all of his hard work this year.

Sorry for Portugal.

This could have been their year - again.

Need to get over that psychological hump as Spain did, and banish the last soccer demons from the Iberian peninsula.

See you at the World Cup in South Africa in two years...

Thievery Corporation

Saw Thievery Corporation last night at Central Park - what a great show.

Actually, it's been a good welcome to the summer all around - took a long weekend at the beach in Montauk and spent the afternoon in Central Park yesterday feeling some good music and vibes on what turned out to be a perfect summer night.

Seu Jorge made only a brief appearance but he made an impact.
Honestly, the entire Thievery set was on fire, they rolled out all kinds of musicians and singers - even a belly dancer to compliment their exotic mix of sounds that range from the Middle East to the Caribbean.

Gotta give credit to the crew at Turntables on the Hudson also, who made the most of a short set.
Good to see they're still alive and clearly kicking - used to go to their parties down at the piers at the now defunct Lightship Frying Pan.

Can't forget the Frying Pan - no sir.

C'MON PORTUGAL!!!!

Not looking good right now, down 3-1.
Let's summon the spirit of Stallone and win this!

Who is Seu Jorge?

Going to a Central Park Summerstage concert in a couple of weeks for a nice line-up featuring some fine euro-latin talent - Thievery Corporation is the headliner, along with Bebel Gilberto, Federico Aubele and Seu Jorge.

I know the others, but who is this Seu Jorge? I ask.

Now that I'm looking, I'm finding he's one dynamic and fascinating individual.

Raised in the slums of Brazil, he played "Knockout Ned" in the fantastic "City of God."

City of God too violent for you? Perhaps an offbeat comedy is more your taste - he was also in Wes Anderson's "The Life Aquatic" where he became pals with Bill Murray and Willem Dafoe.

Oh, and he also did a bunch of Bowie covers for the soundtrack - in Portuguese.

Including the "Aquatic Sessions," he's released four solo albums and he tours the world.

You'll also find him in "The Escapist," a British prison break movie, coming soon.

And if that's not enough, Vogue Brazil once dubbed him "the coolest man on the planet."

Interested in more?

Independent

Zeigler Productions

I'm really looking forward to the show...

Euro 2008 Kick Off...

Nice start for Spain, leaving the Russians in the dust, 4-1.
Great to see Fabregas come off the bench and score at the end.
Up until that point it was the David Villa show, scoring all of their goals for the hat-trick.

Great bit of commentary from the soccernet gamecast:

What a day for David Villa. He's been superb today - Kolodin and Shirokov have pooped their pants every time he's got the ball.

Fabregas said recently if there's one player he'd like to see at Arsenal it's David Villa.

Amen!

Doubt he'll be affordable after this display though.

Holland/Netherlands also look dangerous after beating Italy, 3-0 (sorry Danny).

Portugal got off to a respectable start against Turkey, 2-0.

Apples and Oranges

More about Apple:

A good Time piece this morning talking about the iPhone gamble and why Apple has a good shot at becoming a mobile market leader (hint - they make your digital life simple and they do it with style).

We all know Apple makes great-looking intuitive products but the other side of business is customer service and support and Apple also does this better than anyone else.

We recently purchased a new iMac for the home to replace my desktop G5 that died and it was a breeze to set-up & get running in our network of various machines and devices.
And it looks good.
And if something goes wrong we know it will get fixed with minimal hassle (as long as it's in warranty).
That's it.
That's the winning business model.

My brother-in-law who is a photographer when he's not doing construction in the sweltering heat, recently asked me to help him get out of his .mac membership. I got pegged as the computer/mac guy early on so I get the call for anything computer related. He got the membership to put up a simple website to show his work but he doesn't need it anymore. After his credit card was charged for the renewal, he asked me to step in. I checked the refund policy and realized we were outside of the cancellation window by a couple of weeks, but after a quick email to support, we got a very pleasant response, indicating they would honor the request and issue the refund.

Gotta love it.

An Apple is an Apple, everything else is well...not an Apple.

After sleeping on it, investors forgive Apple for the wait...

AAPL - 186.48

And waiting...

It's everything they said it would be but we can't have it until July 11.

I guess I'll just have to live with this banged up old LG phone for another month.

The masses signal their impatience by driving the stock down...

AAPL - 181.68

New 3G iPhone Today...

Rumors of "mysterious boxes" arriving at Apple stores across the globe over the weekend.

Blurry images appear on the internet this morning from Apple’s Worldwide Developers Conference in San Francisco.

Apple online store is down for updates.

Danny is texting me from the road as he returns from some car race in Canada.

"When is it coming?"

Jobs takes the stage at 1:00 est today.

The world awaits...

AAPL - 182.97

Note to Peter Gabriel...

So big news today as famed musician, Peter Gabriel, launches his new website, "The Filter."
It's an entertainment filtering tool, designed to tell you what music, movies, tv, etc you should be checking out.
My first thought is "why?"
Doesn't Amazon and iTunes and everyone else already do this?
I decided to dig deeper, accepting the challenge that it will take "less than a minute" to start filtering personalized selections.
Ten minutes later, I'm still on step one, trying to rate my musical tastes to en-smarten The Filter.
Unfortunately, I can find no way to actually tell The Filter how I feel about the music selections before me because The Filter has decided that I don't have the correct version of Flash Player.
The Filter is wrong.
I lose my patience and leave the site.
I go back later and the site is down.

Don't quit your day job, Pete.