UFC's Crackdown on PPV Piracy - Why Suing Individuals Who Pirates Shows is Such a Bad Idea

The UFC is apparently making efforts to crackdown on websites pirating their pay per view shows.  For a cutting edge sport, this seems like a really backwards move to horde more wealth in their already fat wallets. UFC CEO Lorenzo Fertitta testified for the U.S. House Judiciary Committee earlier this month during a referendum on internet piracy of sporting events, stating that "the piracy of live sporting events is illegal, it kills jobs, and it threatens the expansion of U.S. based companies, the UFC is potentially losing millions of dollars a year from piracy."

Their solution? They want to SUE individuals who are pirating their live events.

Hmm... this reeks of how the record labels are trying to prevent the pirating of music. How are they doing with that anyway?

I argue that this is a horrible move by the UFC. For one, the UFC is built on their great relations with their fans. Dana White has a really close relationship with the fans through Twitter and gives out free tickets regularly. What other sporting league does that? To sue individuals who pirate UFC events will be counter productive in building relations with fans.

The same guys who are putting up the fights are the same guys who are passionate about the sport. While some are doing it for individual gain, most are true fans who just want to make the sport of MMA easily accessible to everyone. 

That brings me to my second point of building an international fan base. It's no secret that the UFC wants to take over the world, and they're slowly building their empire by holding events in the UK and in Europe (well, Germany). How do you think people got interested in the sport and the UFC brand in the first place? It certainly wasn't through buying a live PPV event, seeing how the time difference would make it difficult to catch any North American based shows. The internet is the only way that allows fans in the UK and Europe to stay in touch with the sport and the brand, and to cut us off would be detrimental to their efforts in expanding here. Boxing is still a much bigger sport in the UK than MMA, and I reckon that the UFC *needs* the internet to get more people interested.

I say the UFC should work with these people instead of going after them. There must be a creative solution somewhere that can make MMA easily accessible on the internet without burning the bridge between the league and the fans. After all, without those so called pirates, I wouldn't be a fan of the sport.

United State of Pop 2009 - The Official Song of 2009

Happy New Year! 2009 certainly has brought me a lot of happiness and excitement, I hope it was good to you as well.

If there was one song to sum up the year, which would it be? DJEarWorm has made it easy for you to decide by mashing up the top 25 songs of 2009 (according to Billboard) into one bite sized track. You might not like all the songs in the mash up, but you're certain to have heard them all before. United State of Pop 2009 samples Black Eyed Peas heavily, but unfortunately that really is the case of pop music in 2009.  

The remix is absolutely brilliant, and it took DJEarWorm about a month to complete. You can actually feel the year pass you by once more as you listen to the song.



For more brilliant mash ups, visit DJEarWorm's website.

The Hovis Commercial Is Better Than Their Bread

This commercial for Hovis Bread has been out for quite some time, but I've recently rediscovered it. I absolutely love the commercial, which might possibly be my favourite commercial of all time. The advert follows a young boy's journey to bring home a loaf of bread, but it also takes you through some of Britain's defining moments in history. The poor boy has to take his loaf of bread through wars and protests, making this the most dangerous bread delivery of all time.

Personally, I would have left the loaf at one of the wars. Doesn't even taste that great.

Dana White Twitter Account Suspended? That sucks.

[Nov 10, 09:45 Update:  If you have an RSS feed of Dana White's Twitter account, you'll still be able to get his tweets. Weird. Watch this space for updates if you can't access his tweets and want to know where he's giving away free UFC 105 tickets.]

[Nov 10, 16:31 Update: Dana is giving away 25 tickets in London and 25 tickets in Manchester. "I will give away 25 in london and 25 in manchester. So I only want people from london who are going to make the trip to MEN for sure." "Stay tuned!" Nuts. This is a far cray from the 3000+ tickets he gave away for UFC 104.]

[Nov 10, 17:05 Update:  I can't stick around to update the tweets any more, but I did find an alternative way of viewing Dana White's Twitter. If you managed to get tickets through my updates, let me know!... and save me a ticket?]

Dana White's popular Twitter account has been suspended. Dana's last tweet on DanaWhiteUFC was sent on 17:56 GMT, with him announcing that he's "taking off!" to London.

The outspoken UFC president has also promised to give away free tickets to this weekend's UFC 105 in Manchester while he's in town. But instead of finding the Dana's latest tweets, visitors are greeted this image instead:



Dana White's Twitter has been down as early as 20:00. Somebody ought to tell him, but I can only reach him through Twitter and he can't check for tweets while his account is suspended. Anybody have his email address?

Dana has been using Twitter really effectively as a marketing tool, and this really sucks for him that his account is down. More so for me, because this was going to be the only way I would be able to see the UFC and Randy Couture fight live. Can some body keep me posted on when his account gets back up? Cheers!

What does a 112 year old man and a 11 year old girl have in common?

Shocking headlines, that's what.

First a 112 year old Somalian man marries a 17 year old girl. Days later, an 11 year old Bulgarian girl gives birth to a baby on her WEDDING DAY.

What?

This 11 year old girl got knocked up by a 19 year old kid, and I guess they were trying to do the "right thing" by getting married before the baby was born. When she arrived in the hospital, she was still wearing her wedding dress.

The 19 year old is now facing jail time for having sex with a minor. I'd like meet the minister who conducted the ceremony and thought that marrying an 11 year old girl to a 19 year old boy was perfectly acceptable.

From Yahoo:

Eleven-year-old girl gives birth in Bulgaria

A Bulgarian schoolgirl, aged 11, has given birth to a baby girl on her wedding day.

Eleven-year-old girl gives birth in Bulgaria

Kordeza Zhelyazkova reportedly went into labour during her marriage to the child's father, 19-year-old Jeliazko Dimitrov.

It is reported the bride-to-be was still wearing her wedding dress when she arrived at hospital and gave birth to a healthy 5.5lb baby daughter, Violeta.

Zhelyazkova, thought to be the world's youngest mother, told the News of the World that she would not play with toys anymore as she has "a new toy now".

Her husband now faces up to six years in jail for having sex with a minor.

Every 112 year old Somali man's dream... is to marry a 17 year old?

Random office banter this morning led to a rather amusing news bit about a 112 year old Somali man who married a 17 year old girl.

Seventeen years old. This guy is almost 100 years older than his wife. That's mind boggling.

The best bit for me was reading his quote in an article on The Guardian's website.

"Today God helped me realise my dream," he said.

It's the same quote that you'll find when a baseball player wins the World Series, a fighter wins a championship, or even when a celebrity wins the latest edition of Masterchef. I wonder when he started to dream of marrying a 17 year old girl. Maybe he was having a full life crisis?

From The Guardian:

Somali man aged 112 marries girl of 17

• David Smith in Johannesburg
• guardian.co.uk, Thursday 29 October 2009 19.05 GMT

He is old enough to be her great-great-grandfather. But Ahmed Muhamed Dhore, a Somalian who claims he is 112 years old, said he had realised a "dream" by marrying a 17-year-old bride.

Dhore – who says he was born in 1897, the year that Queen Victoria celebrated her diamond jubilee – already has 13 children by five wives, but said he would like more with his newest, Safiya Abdulle.

Hundreds of people attended the extraordinary ceremony this week in Guriceel, in the region of Galguduud. "Today God helped me realise my dream," Dore said. He and his new wife, who is almost a century his junior, are from the same village in Somalia, he said, adding that he had waited for her to grow up to propose. He says his children and two other wives agreed to the marriage, as did Abdulle's parents.

"I didn't force her, but used my experience to convince her of my love, and then we agreed to marry," the groom said. The bride's family said she was "happy with her new husband". Somali adolescent girls are often married off to older men.

Dhore has 114 children and grandchildren. His oldest son is 80 and three of his wives have died. This was his first marriage for three quarters of a century.

Didn't I see this in Saw 3?

A quick thinking doctor in Melbourne, Australia, saved a young boy's life by using a household drill to make a hole in his skull. I wonder if he's a fan of Saw 3? (Ok, it wasn't a drill in Saw 3, but the idea was similar)

Taken from Canoe.ca:

MELBOURNE, Australia - A doctor in rural Australia used a household drill to bore a hole into the skull of a boy with a severe head injury, saving his life.

Nicholas Rossi fell off his bike on Friday in Maryborough, hitting his head on the pavement, his family told The Australian newspaper in a story published Wednesday.

By the time Rossi got to the hospital, he was slipping in and out of consciousness.

The doctor on duty, Rob Carson, quickly recognized the 13-year-old was experiencing potentially fatal bleeding on the brain and knew he had only minutes to drill a hole through the boy's skull to relieve the pressure.

But the small hospital was not equipped with neurological drills - so Carson grabbed a household drill from the maintenance room.

A Melbourne neurosurgeon talked Carson through the procedure by telling him where to aim the drill and how deep to go and soon, a blood clot fell out, relieving the pressure on the boy's brain.

"Dr. Carson came over to us and said, 'I am going to have to drill into (Nicholas) to relieve the pressure on the brain - we've got one shot at this and one shot only,"' said the boy's father, Michael Rossi.

Rossi was airlifted to a larger hospital in Melbourne and released Tuesday - his 13th birthday.
Carson was modest about his feat.

"It is not a personal achievement, it is just a part of the job and I had a very good team of people helping me," he told the newspaper.

Michael Rossi was more effusive.

"He saved our son's life," he said.

Freak Out!!

These videos are way funnier if you understand Cantonese. Even if you don't, enjoy the sweet sounds of Chinese banshees wailing in denial and discontent.

Thank goodness I'm marrying Scottish. ;)

Coming Soon: Newspapers on the Internet

I think this internet thing is going to stick around for a while.

Miley Cyrus = Brooks & Dunn = Arsenal Football Club

I received an email from a charity auction today, selling signed celebrity memorabilia to raise money for the greater good of mankind. Sad to see that a Miley Cyrus guitar is going for the same price as a Brooks & Dunn guitar, which is going for the same price as a soccer jersey signed by the ENTIRE Arsenal team.

Maybe it's because there's a guy named Tom Cruise playing for Arsenal. That would bring down the value of your team for sure.

How to sell a bike on eBay

If you're not laughing your ass off, you have no soul.

Did you hear the joke about...

James Iha (guitarist from Smashing Pumpkins), Taylor Hanson (from... uh... Hanson), the bassist from Fountain of Wayne, and the drummer from Cheap Trick walk into a bar one day...

http://www.tintedwindowsmusic.com/

A Quiet Anniversary

I looked at the date today and realized... it's been a a full year since I've moved to London. Hmm. Wish I had clued in to that earlier, I might have made it a bigger deal of it than working a full night on my freelance projects. I did have a beautiful roast pork dinner made by Jules though, and it was so good it can be considered a celebration on its own. So no complaints.

Looking back at my first blog, I've come a long way since I stepped into that Zoom flight a year ago. I've seen places I've never seen, heard accents I still can't understand, and worked jobs that has given me interesting experiences (and stories). Most importantly, Jules and I have defeated the nay sayers by being extremely happy together still.

Not bad for Year One.

Who steals chicken? Honestly?

Some of you know that my workplace delivers lunch to our desks daily, all of which are supplied by Marks and Spencer's. Each of us have a modest daily budget to order with, but some of us have devised an ingenius plan of ordering large portions of chicken and then rationing throughout the week. For me, these chicken portions have been vital for my pre-Jiu Jitsu class meal, so I look forward to making my chicken sandwich at 5pm every tuesdays and thursdays.

This morning, I open up our fridge to find that SOMEONE HAS STOLEN MY CHICKEN. Not only that, but the bastard just left the empty container in the fridge for me to clean up. This is like stealing candies from a child and then handing back the wrappers. NOT COOL.

Now I know what most of you are thinking right now: "he hasn't blogged in a while, and his first blog in a month is about chicken?"

Right. But who steals chicken, honestly?

LEARN BRAZILIAN JIU JITSU

A nine year old boy used brazilian jiu jitsu to save a twelve year old girl from a pit bull, and he had only been learning the sport for a couple of months. Below is an excerpt taken from The Bakersfield Californian:

"(9 year old) Drew was walking with his neighbor after getting the mail last week when the pit bull started attacking the neighbor's dachshund. She tried to save her dog, but the pit bull started attacking her instead.

That's when Drew, who his mother described as a "passive, sweet little boy" who "gets beat up all the time" in class, stepped in. He wanted to kick it, he said, but thought the dog would just bite his leg. Instead he put the move on him. "He was moving really hard, like one of those rodeo bulls," Drew said. "Then he went limp."

For more than 20 minutes, Drew held the panting dog until Animal Control officials arrived."

He used a rear naked choke. BAM. Give him his blue belt.

[ read the whole article ]

As of Saturday, December 13th 2008, Jules and I are engaged!

A big part of my moving to London (and when I say big part, I mean all of it) was to be with Jules, my girlfriend of then 2 years. I knew if things were good then I would ask her to marry me. Well, things turned out good, are still good, and as of December 13th, we are officially engaged!

The ball started rolling on December 1st when Jules met me at Victoria station after work. I gave her a little silver box, resembling a little like a ring box, with a chocoloate and a note inside. The note read that I would be giving her something sweet everyday from now until Christmas, just to tie her over before she can open her Christmas gifts.

So everyday she had a little box waiting for her, with a little note in it and sometimes even a present to go with it. The plan was let get her to expect these boxes and not to think that they were setting up for something big. She later confessed that she felt a little nervous watching me casually pull out a ring-boxish box the first time, but thought "naw, he can't be proposing to me in the middle of a station. Especially not since he pracitically tossed the box at me!".  Perfect, my plan was working.

Twelve days had gone by, and twelve boxes had been opened. On Saturday, December 13th, I made sure the day went on as normal. We went to the mall together, she started work, and I went to my Jiu Jitsu class. Except this time, I went after class to get a haircut and some flowers. I got home and told her parents of my intensions and got their blessings. I cleaned up her room, piled up twelve boxes on her bed, and even got changed into a nice shirt and sweater.

I mean I HAD to get changed, really. I don't care what you say, but proposing in my ThunderCats t-shirt would NOT be a good idea.

9pm rolled around and I went to pick her up from work. We went to a pub to get some dinner, and when we got home, she quickly dashed upstairs to speak to her folks without even glancing at her room. 

I waited patiently downstairs for her to finish her chat with her mum.

What I didn't count on was that the X-Factor finale was on at the same time. For those who don't know the X-Factor show, it's American Idol but better. Leona Lewis was discovered through the series a couple years back and this year's winner, Alexandra Burke, gave an emotional performance of Leonard Cohan's "Hallelujah" to win this year's crown. Simon Cowell is also a judge on this show; go figure that Simon Cowell is to blame for any mishaps of my perfectly planned proposal.

Jules watched the final moments of the show with her mum upstairs, even shouted down "Ant, X-Factor is on!"

Who cares?! I'm about to ask you to marry me!!!!!!!!

 

After a long while, I couldn't take it any longer. I marched upstairs, dragged my poor unsuspecting soon-to-be finacee down to her room to the twelve boxes that I had set up.

I also had left her camera in front of the boxes with a video for instructions...

She started cracking open the boxes after watching the video, at first not suspecting much. But as she opened more boxes to pieced together more letters, her spidersense went tingling. Why are the letters coming together like it's spelling "Will You Marry Me?" Why is the room exceptionally clean? Why are there roses beside the bed? Wait, why is he in a smart sweater? Wasn't he in his ThunderCats shirt this afternoon?

After she had opened all the boxes and pieced together the message, I got down on one knee and asked her to marry me. 

Am I ever glad she said "yes"... or that would have been embarssing. :P

Enter The Ping Pong

Just... awesome.

Only in London

Something rather amusing...

The company I work for delivers lunch to us everyday. We order from Marks and Spencer's lunch menu and it arrives usually around noon. But today, instead of lunch, we get this email:
=============================

Dear all


Due to road closers around Portland House (the Queen is visiting parliament) the M&S delivery chap is unable to bring our lunch in….but we have a plan… we are going to go and meet the delivery guy at Victoria bus station…please be patient with us, it will be delivered to you as usual as soon as we collect it.


===================================

Sounds a bit elaborate just to bring sandwiches in, doesn't it? Her Majesty The Queen has personally delayed my lunch. I feel honoured. And hungry.

Monkey Business

A friend of mine, from back in my future friendly days, has started a new line of momwear called Monkeywear. Dads can wear them too, I just think they look so much better on moms. Gone are the tacky extra peripheral baby carriers, here's a slick new way to take your baby around. I think it's genius. I swear I'm not getting a cut for saying this.

Monkeywear is the runnings for the SavvyMom Mom Entrepreneur of The Year award, a well deserved award for a very innovative product. Please go vote for them!

http://www.momentrepreneuraward.ca/MomBio.aspx?momID=265

Record Breaking

In 5 minutes, it will be July 21st. Which means that I will have officially beat my "longest employment in London" record. Hoo-rah!