Ramble On ... Catching Up on Some Notes

I have a million things all squirreled up in the reporter's notebook of my mind. I thought I'd empty the trash today. Let me know what you think, please?

Yes, with tongue planted firmly in cheek, I wonder if NY Congressman Peter King (R-Seaford, Long Island) is asking NBA Commissioner David Stern why Maccabi Tel Aviv Coach Pini Gershon was "giving the business to the NBA, its replacement officials and New York Knicks?

Or, better yet, maybe the governments of the rest of the world should be asking Rep. Peter King why the rest of the world should do business with the US of A as the likes of Lehman Bros., Goldman Sachs and chumps like Bernie Madoff (Queens) were responsible for the global financial crisis. Also, the most recent financial meltdown-man - Sri Lanka's Raj Rajaretnam --was holed up in some Manhattan penthouse when he brought down Galleon Group, the hedge fund failed flavour of the day. The WSJ has the story.

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I know you've come to expect the unexpected while being thoroughly informed of newsworthy tidbits and current events by reading The Blog @ TerryLyons dot com, so here's something new and completely different, as Monty Python's Flying Circus used to say. Tell me? You haven't lived a complete life unless you've witnessed the World Conker Championships. Read on: click here

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I like to watch George Stephanopoulos on This Week on ABC News and I regularly log into his blog and have his twitter/tweets on my Blackberry. That's a full dose of George. Here's what he informed me about earlier this week:

It’s not quite the Nobel Peace Prize, but Japanese college students have awarded President Obama something a bit more hip: a place in their vernacular.

Jim Fallows points to reports that a new verb is popping up in Japanese college students’ conversations: obamu (literally “to Obama”).

One blog in Japan offers a definition:

obamu: (v.) To ignore inexpedient and inconvenient facts or realities, think “Yes we can, Yes we can,” and proceed with optimism using those facts as an inspiration (literally, as fuel). It is used to elicit success in a personal endeavor. One explanation holds that it is the opposite of kobamu. (which means to refuse, reject, or oppose).

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My fave Boston Bruins player Milan Lucic is out for the count. It will be a long four-to-six weeks. Here's what the Globe ran on Tuesday, a day after Lucic had surgery.

Bruins general manager Peter Chiarelli announced earlier this afternoon that forward Milan Lucic underwent surgery yesterday on his right index finger, which was broken in the second period of Friday’s 3-0 win over Dallas.

“He’ll be out four to six weeks,” Chiarelli said, following the team’s morning practice at Riscuccia Arena in Wilmington.

Yesterday, the right winger was placed on long-term injured reserve, which means he must now miss at least 10 games and 24 calendar days. In his absence, the Bruins recalled Brad Marchand and Vladimir Sobotka from Providence. Guillaume Lefebvre, who played in the P-Bruins’ 7-2 win over Portland last night and was recalled as an emergency backup Saturday, was also brought back up.

"Any time you lose a guy like Looch, one of those players that usually has a pretty good impact on the game when he's on top of it, it's certainly going to hurt," coach Claude Julien said.

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Plastics? In the movie, The Graduate, Dustin Hoffman was told by a friend of the family that the newest technology that was the secret to his success was 'plastics,' I will now predict that the secret to financial security and success in 2010+ will be "Bluetooth."

SEATTLE (AP) — Starting in mid-2010, new versions of gadgets like cameras, cellphones and computers will be able to talk to each other using Wi-Fi without needing to connect to a wireless network first.

The Wi-Fi Alliance, an industry group, said it is nearly finished putting together a Wi-Fi Direct specification, a set of technical “rules” that guide consumer electronics companies that plan to add the new capability.

Kelly Davis-Felner, the Wi-Fi Alliance’s marketing director, said Wi-Fi Direct will make it easier to liberate the mounting gigabytes of digital family photos that are trapped in cameras, smartphones or PCs. Now those gadgets will be able to connect directly to digital photo frames, TVs or printers.

In creating the specification, the Alliance is moving into the territory of Bluetooth, a competing wireless technology that already handles direct gadget-to-gadget connections.

Bluetooth uses less power but has much shorter range and a lower transfer speed. To tackle the latter problem, the industry group behind Bluetooth announced last year that it would co-opt Wi-Fi technology to make it possible to send videos and other bandwidth-hogging files around the house, much as Wi-Fi Direct promises to do.

Only one of the gadgets need have the new Wi-Fi Direct technology to make a two-way connection work.

In one scenario, you could connect a smartphone with Wi-Fi Direct to a laptop and piggyback on its wired Internet connection for a quick e-mail check without tapping your phone’s data plan.

Terry Lyons Sports Marketing and Communications LLC has a deal with Ace Marketing & Promotions of NY to market Proximity Marketing and other solutions of which Bluetooth technology will play a major role.

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