Well, it has once again been awhile.  I keep promising to do better, but I have failed again.

It is time to weigh in on Tennessee’s Gubernatorial race.  I had been disengaged from this somewhat until a few weeks ago.  I knew Bill Haslam would be a poor choice.  Pardon some of the cliches, but he seems to be the establishment candidate.  On the surface he looks okay, but if you do much digging, I do not find much to like.  However, what about the other choices?

Thank goodness for the Gubernatorial debate a few weeks ago on television.  I thought it was actually one of the best debates of any type I had watched.  Instead of picking and choosing questions for individual candidates, all four candidates (three GOP, one Democrat) got to answer each question.  This was an excellent format for letting the public see where each one stood on various issues.

One of the first things I garnered from this was that Haslam deflected quite a few questions.  On some, he did not even try to give the party-line answer.  He essentially just ignored the question.  Mr. Haslam is clearly the front-runner and both the Republican and Democratic candidates knew this and spent most of their efforts attacking him.

I had been leaning towards Zach Wamp.  However, with his support of the stimulus bill, he is out for me.  His explanation for this vote is that he thought our whole economic system was on the brink of collapse.  Sure, we certainly had some challenges, but this bill was terrible and terribly unpopular.  I cannot vote for him.

So, on the GOP side, that left Ron Ramsey.  I was very impressed with the Lieutenant Governor.  He is clearly the candidate whose views most closely align with mine.  Obviously most of the Tea Party movement feels the same way, and that is why they are endorsing Mr. Ramsey.

An additional thought.  I was also fairly impressed with Mike McWherter, the lone Democratic candidate for the job.  While I disagree with some of his big government philosophies, he was impressive in the debate.  A couple of his tactics were downright genius (like attacking Mayor Haslam through a question directed to Zach Wamp).  McWherter specifically states that he would veto a state income tax.  In fact, I would have a hard time voting for Mr. Haslam in a race with McWherter, even though on the surface some of Bill Haslam’s views line up more with mine.  I just have a feeling he would be our next Don Sundquist, who killed the Republican chances at governor after his term due to his outright lies about a state income tax.

However, the Roundtable has decided to endorse and support Ron Ramsey for Tennessee’s next governor.

On the left side of the page, I have added a flag widget.  This will let you know whether the flag is supposed to be at full-staff or half-staff.  Also, if it is at half-staff, it will let you know why.  Often I will see flags at half-staff and wonder why, so this helps me out.  I hope you enjoy and it helps you out.

Amazon has now released their Kindle app for all three major smartphones – Blackberry, iPhone, Androd (although I think WinMo should be included in this, although it is dying a slow, painful death).  There is some concern now that because of this there is no need to purchase an exclusive e-reader.  However, I disagree completely.

I think the addition of these apps complement the Kindle rather than replace it.  I have a Kindle and possibly will buy a second one shortly.  I love the device.  When I want to read a book, this is what I want to read it on – not on my small, backlit cell phone.  However, this app is great when I have just a few minutes to read and do not have my Kindle with me.  For instance, when I go pick up pizza and have to wait a few minutes for it, I can use the smartphone app and read a few pages.  I am certainly not going to take my Kindle with me.  There are other situations as well where I will have my phone with me but not my Kindle.  The ability to read a few pages is a plus, and it makes me more likely to be loyal to one store, in this case Amazon.

So kudos to Amazon for getting the app out on the three major players.  It looks like a great complement to an excellent e-reader! (Now, just a couple more weeks until I can get the Droid X and try it out.)

Apparently a county in Silicon Valley (California, where else?!) has banned McDonald’s from including toys in their Happy Meals.  They say that the toys contribute to kids being fat.

And now a “watchdog group” is threatening to sue the company unless they remove the toys from all their Happy Meals everywhere.  They are saying the toys make kids fat.

Citing toys aimed at promoting the latest "Shrek" movie, the Center for Science in the Public Interest said that the plastic promotions lure children into McDonald’s restaurants where they are then likely to order food that is too high in calories, fat and salt.

This is unbelievable.  Because moms and dads refuse to make their kids go outside and exercise and choose to eat fast food every night instead of cooking, now they want all toys removed from the kid’s meals.

"McDonald’s is the stranger in the playground handing out candy to children," Stephen Gardner, litigation director for the advocacy group said in a statement. "McDonald’s use of toys undercuts parental authority and exploits young children’s developmental immaturity."

The toys are not the problems, but rather than have parents claim responsibility, let’s sue the big, bad corporate giant, McDonald’s.  The company has even provided some better options, including apple slices instead of fries and mile or juice instead of pop.  However, this is not good enough for the “watchdog group.”

A Happy Meal should be an occasional treat, but today’s parents have become lazy eat out much more than we did growing up.  Here’s a tip, Mr. Gardner, parents can say “no” to their kids.  That would take care of the toys “undercutting parental authority.”  What a concept!

Opponents of toys in fast food meals say the promotions are feeding the nation’s obesity epidemic by making unhealthy food seem more desirable to children. But the food industry says that healthier choices are now available to children — and urges parents to take responsibility for what their kids order.

Amen, parents take responsibility!

Alright, so I have attempted to be excited about the World Cup.  ESPN ran ads months in advance, and I decided I would give it a try.  (On a side note, four years ago I watched a decent amount of the World Cup because it was one of the few things on in HD.  I had just bought by HDTV, and the colors looked incredible).

So, I tune in at 1:30 for the USA’s first game against England.  Well, it turns out the game really did not start until 2:30.  There was an hour of pregame.  Sorry, but I cannot watch an hour of soccer pregame.  The US was excited about a tie with England, which it turns out is not really a very good team anyways.

Then, in a sport that actually has more time between games than the NBA Finals, I tune it last Friday for America’s second game.  I am actually in the car, so I dial it up on XM Radio.  We apparently got dominated in the first half by a country that has less than two million people in the entire country.  Wow.  I realize soccer is not the primary sport in this country, but this is a bit ridiculous.  However, right on cue the come back and tie it up with less than ten minutes of “real” time remaining.  Then they score what appears to be the game winning goal.  But apparently the referee decided that is not the way he wanted the game to end, so he had blown his whistle and called something.  Yet, to this day – four days later – still nobody actually knows what he called.  In other sports the officials screw up at times, but at least they have to say what they called.  Simply unbelievable!

So here are my thoughts about the problems with the World Cup and why Americans do not watch it:

• Our team is not very good
• Too much time between games
• The fake flopping is out of control
• The referees call whatever they want arbitrarily
• Offsides is insane.  Give me a fixed line like in hockey, and I would be good with it.  This moving line of defenders is crazy.

So, enjoy the rest of the World Cup.  I may tune in a little, but I just cannot get into it.  Really, I have tried!

I read an interesting article earlier today (cannot find it now or I would link it) that mentioned that a perfect game is far more than the pitcher being perfect.  Everyone has to be perfect; the fielders, the catcher, the coach/catcher calling pitches, and yes, even the umpires.  There is a reason there have only been TWENTY of them.

Jim Joyce has gotten a lot of heat today for “ruining” Armando Galarraga’s perfect game by blowing a call at first base.  However, we have to remember that Roy Halladay got quite a bit of help from the home plate umpire in his perfect game the other night.  There were several borderline pitches, especially early in the game, with three balls.  The umpire easily could have called them ball four and with a walk the perfecto would have been over early.  So, let us not be too hard on the umpires for ruining a perfect game; they also helped create one.

For the second time in a week, it looked like we would have another perfect game in baseball last night.  Detroit’s Armando Gallaraga was perfect for the first 26 outs of the game.  A tough play on the 27th batter made a close call at first base.  First base umpire Jim Joyce ruled the runner safe, which broke up the perfect game.  Unfortunately for Mr. Joyce he missed the call.  He went on afterword to admit that he blew the call after seeing the replay.  Also, he apologized to Gallaraga, understanding the impact his mistake had.

This brings up the perfect opportunity for baseball to discuss expanding instant replay.  A couple years ago, several blown calls on homeruns led to Major League Baseball instituting replay on those specific calls.  Since then, many folks have wanted to expand instant replay, similar to the NFL or other sports.  I personally have been against it.  Maybe it is because I was an umpire for 10+ years in Little League baseball (doing anything from 9 to 18-year olds).

However, last night’s events may have changed my mind.  Maybe it is the right time to expand the use of replay.  I do not think the umpire, Mr. Joyce, would object to it.  His call would have been quickly reversed and nobody would have known his name.  The talk would simply be about the amazing second perfect game in the last week.

I do not think the call can be reversed at this point.  However, in the future with replay it certainly could be.

So, should baseball’s instant replay be expanded?  How should we handle it?  All replays from the booth or would each manager get a couple replays he could call for?

As mentioned previously, smartphones are becoming more and more mainstream.  It what seems like a move to make that even more the case, AT&T has announced lower prices for monthly data plans for the devices.  Instead of a $30 unlimited data plan, they will now be offering 200MB for $15/mo and 2GB for $25/mo.  Above that, customers will have to pay $10/GB.

There are different thoughts about this.  CNET announces that “AT&T’s new pricing takes smartphones to the masses.”  However The Salt Lake Tribune says “For new AT&T users, no more ‘all you can eat’ data.”

As a side note, I am a Verizon customer.  However, I like the fact that AT&T is offering these lower-priced options.  I wish they would keep the unlimited data plan, as well.  There are quite a few folks that would like to be able to have that option.  I personally do not see it as lowering their prices so much as trying to make money on overage charges.

What do you think about the change to plans?  Do you like it or hate it?

As I am sure some of you are starting to do, I have a laptop that is running Windows 7.  While I have been running Vista on my home PC for a while, there are some differences with Win7 from that.  One of the biggest things is that even though your user account is in the Administrator group, you do not automatically run items as Administrator.  One of the biggest places I noticed this was when I was running a command prompt (cmd).  If you navigate through the Start menu, you can find command prompt, right click on it and tell it to Run as Administrator.  However, I do not want to do that each time.

There is a trick.

1. Click on or press the Windows key on your keyboard.
2. Type cmd.
3. Press CTRL+SHIFT+Enter
4. The Windows User Access Control (UAC) will pop up verifying that you want to run this as an administrator.  Click Yes or press  ALT+Y.

There you have it.  I hope that makes your life easier.  Enjoy!

We are seeing more and more smartphones each day of our lives.  Even though I am not a big Apple fan, I certainly cannot argue that the iPhone has brought the smartphone to the masses.  Between it and Blackberry, many people now have one.  Add to the mix the huge momentum between Google’s Android phones and a few Windows Phones, and you have lots of options.

However, now companies are really starting to leverage the phones to help out their customers.  They realize that folks with smartphones take them almost everywhere.  They do not need additional items if at all possible.  We have seen apps that let us store all our “frequent shopper” cards in the phone.  Delta and United (and maybe some others) are rolling out the ability to never have to have a paper ticket.  Your boarding pass can actually just be on your phone.

Now Holiday Inn has joined the fray.  According to this article, they are demoing the ability to use your iPhone, Blackberry, or Android as your actual room key.  This is being tested at two hotels with the hope of then expanding it beyond that.

Starting next month guests at the Holiday Inn Chicago O’Hare Rosemont and Holiday Inn Express Houston Downtown Convention Center will be able to trial the new entry system. Instead of having to deal with key-cards, which are often easily lost, customers will be able to use a downloadable iPhone, Android or Blackberry app. The software allows guests to access rooms simply by holding their device next to a door sensor.

I think this is great use of the technology.  I hope this continues to expand.  I realize there may be some security concerns, and I can certainly weigh those as the consumer.  Do not make me use it, but give me the choice.  This is great.  What do you think??