The Core Junction

Clearly over here at The Core we are huge baseball fans, and I, being a Met fan always wondered about the origins of CitiField, the new home of the New York Mets. Citifield—named due to its funding by Citibank—was built over the last year to be the new home to the Mets following Shea Stadium. Coming from a business perspective, this only begs the question:  How many people are really going to become involved in Citibank because of the name of a stadium?

With modern technology and the internet, the new place of advertising in our society has been well documented. People can see how many eyeballs they are attracting on their blogs, who is reading what type of article, who clicks on what, and what gets the most hits. Bottom line: advertisers can see the true effectiveness of their advertisements.

Even in the days of early television, a company could air an ad, and then see how many viewers there were, and how their sales boosted (if this was a single isolated ad). However, with something like Citifield, or a product placement in a movie, there is no ability to gauge the overall effects. You don’t know whether a Pepsi appearing in a new Angelina Jolie movie is going to boost sales by three or three million. Read the rest

Team with MLB enovy Pat Boyle

Dear Friends,

It seems like just days since my previous update, but a lot has been going on since then.

In class during the first two weeks of June we worked on restaurant skills as well as cooking. We have learned how to be a better waiter, how to set up menus, as well as Cajun, Creole, and general dairy cooking.

The school’s slow-pitch softball team finally got its second win, 16-8. We have finished the regular season and are the number one seed in the Tier II playoffs.

My fast pitch softball team hasn’t been playing as well lately – we are on a 3 game losing streak. I came in as a pinch hitter in the last game with men on second and third with one out, behind by 8 runs. I hit a line drive shot between LF and C for a 2 run double. Though we have not been playing so well we finished the year 4th in our division, good enough for a playoff spot. We play a one-game elimination playoff Wednesday, June 10th for a right to play a best out of 3 against the number one seed. Read the rest

In a truly bizarre moment, Rod Blagojevich made a guest appearance at The Second City, Chicago’s famed comedy club, on Saturday Night. After being prepped backstage, Blagojevich surprised the audience and started the show by entering the stage with his hands in a crucifix-like pose.

The comedy troupe was performing their show entitled “Rod Blagojevish Superstar,” of which the governor and his political corruption are central themes. Blagojevich who was removed by the Illinois state legislature, then recited a monologue to a stunned audience.

According to CNN.com, the cast then erupted into one of the main songs in the show: “What kind of isoit sells a Senate seat”, while the former governor was present, of course. Blagojevich also participated in a post-show improv session where he made fun of his own use of large hair brushes.

Although Second City had planned to end the show’s tenure, sustained popularity has caused the comedy club to continue performing it until the end of the summer. According to CNN.com, while audience members enjoyed the show, several people just found the entire situation awkward. CNN.com failed to report that Blagojevich apparently made the appearance on behalf of a charity.

But while the mainstream news reports end here, this writer wants to know what Blagojevich possibly had to gain by appearing at a show that mocks his very existence? Read the rest

Abramovich's Yacht Pelarus

Just when we all thought that the world financial crisis was really hitting home, Russian gagilionaie Roman Abramovich launched his new yacht in Germany yesterday. Abramovich, who was recently estimated to be the 51st richest man in the world by Forbes (with $8.5 billion), will add his new ship—Eclipse—to his private fleet which includes four other luxury yachts.

Abramovich's Private 767

The new yacht—which was built in secrecy—will have two swimming pools, two helipads, a spa, several tenders and a multitude of VIP guest suites. The 557 foot ship will also include a military-grade missile defense system, bullet proof accommodations for Abramovich’s suite and a submarine that’s intended to serve as an escape vessel if needed. As expected, the yacht is the biggest in the world is rumored to cost as estimated 300 million pounds.

The 43 year old mogul is the former mayor of Chukotka and the current owner of the Chelsea Football Club. Although the Jewish businessman lost a reported 3 billion pounds during the current crisis, he will certianly find some comfort on his new ship. To see pictures of Eclipse, click here!

photo credit: akifui, VitaliK

Its that time of year again. School’s out, the sun is shining (well, kinda), and for techies, this means one thing: new toys! The summer has only just begun but electronic manufacturers have already rolled out their newest gadgets, gizmos, and miscellaneous electronic thingamajigs. Microsoft has introduced its Google competitor search engine “Bing”, Palm has launched its iPhone rival “Pre”, and Apple has countered Palm with the iPhone 3G S. With over 40,000,000 iPhones and iPod Touches sold and over 1 billion (with a “b”!) apps downloaded from the App Store, Apple has unveiled its complete plans for the next generation of the iPhone.

On June 8^th, senior vice president at Apple, Inc., Scott Forstall took the stage at Apple’s Macworld convention to discuss the new iPhone and its firmware. Cognizant of the current economic climate, Apple has managed to both maintain and cut prices, while simultaneously improving its product. The two-hour long keynote address yielded a new hardware update called the iPhone 3G S and a new firmware update called iPhone 3.0. Furthermore, Apple announced that the iPhone 3G will remain in stores starting at $99. A new iPhone leaves current owners dealing with the conundrum of either dishing out $200 (if eligible for upgrade) for the iPhone 3G S or simply performing the free upgrade to 3.0. I hope that this article will alleviate your headache.

The iPhone 3.0 firmware is being hailed a major upgrade to its predecessor. Apple claims that this update carries well over 100 new features and I will highlight the paramount upgrades for your convenience.

1) Cut, copy, and paste: This seemingly trivial feature will definitely improve the iPhone’s popularity with the business world (though the lack of a tangible keyboard keeps RIM’s Blackberry series ahead in this market). Cut, copy, and paste appears to have been fine tuned to work across different applications with just a few taps of your finger.

2) MMS messages: Again, another feature that you would expect a “revolutionary device” to have installed on its first generation model. Nevertheless, the ability to send photos and voice messages via texts has, until now, been a ‘luxury’ attainable only through hacking (a.k.a. “jailbreaking”). However, there is one major catch and that is that customers within the United States will not have immediate access to this feature. Apparently, AT&T is unable to allow the sending of multi-media messages, but the company claims a solution is in the works.

3) Spotlight search: Apple is lucky and clever enough to have a product line from which they can “borrow” features from—its computers. Spotlight is the blazingly fast and smart search engine found on all Mac computers and now, it is coming to the iPhone. iPhone users will have the ability to search their entire phone (including apps, notes, e-mails, texts, songs, etc.) from the Spotlight page on their phone or in the individual applications. Another handy use of Spotlight is searching for e-mails that may only be on your server and having the ability to download them straight to your phone. Read the rest

Blackhawk forward Adam Burish risked being attacked by fellow Chicago tough guy Ben Eager for calling teammate Patrick Kane “embarrassing.”

No, Burish was not referring to the sophomore sensation’s disappointing offensive performance in the Western Conference Finals. Instead, he was talking about the 20-year-old’s playoff beard. If you could call it that.

Burish, whom coach Joel Quenneville throws out on the ice for the sole purpose of hitting anything that moves, has a point.  Patrick Kane, one of the two pillars of the Blackhawk franchise and the 2007-2008 winner of the Calder Trophy (Rookie of the Year), had better brush up on his beard-growing skills before next year’s spring tournament.

For the uninitiated, hockey’s second-greatest playoff tradition holds that a player must not shave from the end of the regular season until his team is eliminated from the playoffs. Most players manage some serious growth, especially if they make it to the third round or later.  (For the record, the best tradition is the hand-shaking ceremony following each playoff series). Read the rest