Inside the Mind of Suz

You’re all welcome

Who else?

Seriously, if you don’t think she’s exciting to watch, then you’re blind. It’s just as simple as that. Now the Big Ten Network wants you to learn a little bit more about Sammy’s back story.

She played tackle football when she was younger and also engaged in a ton of pick-up hoops games on some of New York’s most notorious courts. Explains a lot!

I love Sammy’s story. I love her boyfriend, Evan Turner’s story. Both wear #21. Both will probably be POY in the Big Ten conference. Makes for a very cute basketball couple, right? That’s what I thought too.

I’m trying to decide which women’s game to go to next!

I know I tweeted the hell out of my followers on Thursday from the Cavs/Lakers game in Cleveland, but there was one point in the game where I thought the place would explode. And no, it wasn’t when they showed Lil’ Wayne on the jumbotron.

It was very late in the game, with about 24 seconds left in the 4th quarter. Cavs were up 2 points and coming back from a TV time out. The sound guy put on the Eminem verse from “Forever” — a song by Drake feat. Kanye West, Lil Wayne & Eminem, that appears on LeBron’s movie soundtrack — on the loudspeaker as the teams returned from the timeout. To say King James was fired up was an understatement. He was rapping along to the song and the crowd got on their feet! It was soooo loud! Very cool moment that made its way to YouTube:

Clearly, LeBron wins at life.

I do have a couple of pics I took during the game. They’re coming later…

One of the big knocks on Apple was that they knew their 3G iPhone was capable of capturing video, but has refused to approve any apps that used this capability…until now!

It used to be that, in order to record video on an iPhone 3G, one would have to jailbreak their phone and use iPhone Video Recorder or Cycorder. I think that was the driving force behind my initial jailbreak. Shortly thereafter, though, I found many other bonuses to having a jailbroken phone.

Having said that, I’ve been having a great time with video capture since February. 3G users not willing to join the jailbreak nation have essentially been deprived until Apple finally approved the Ustream.tv Broadcaster app earlier this week. They’re late to the party, but can at least play now!

Broadcast live to your Ustream Show from your iPhone, Nokia or Android phone with the Ustream Broadcaster Application. Easily stream live moments from your phone and share with your friends, family, fans, followers and others — and have the recording of your video afterward! Interact with your viewers during your broadcast using chat or Ustream’s Social Stream, which integrates a live feed of Twitter, Facebook, MySpace and AIM messages and send status updates to Twitter and Ustream.

I’ve been checking out the Broadcaster app and, for the most part, it does what it says. Best part is that it’s free. Taking that into account, the video quality is ok. As others have noted, it does lag a little.

I like the option to save and share later, but I’m having a little trouble with that. I want to enable the option to upload to YouTube, but the app tells me to do so on the website and then restart the app. I haven’t been able to find where to do that on the Ustream site, so this review will be “To be continued…” until I can get that sorted out. (Directions would be greatly appreciated ) Nevermind, found it!

Here’s a video I recorded with the Broadcaster app:

Judging from the quality of the uploaded YouTube video, I might have to stick with Cycorder and/or iPhone Video Recorder as their vids look much better. Although I love the interface of the Ustream app, and the ease with which one can share/upload video, I’ll sacrifice all that for a better quality video.

If you followed my tweets earlier, you know that my two cats, Puddles and Gracie, had their yearly appointment with the vet today. If you have cats, you’re probably thinking, “yea, so what’s the big deal? We do that every year too.” Well, if it’s not a stressful event for you, consider yourself lucky. Because in my household, we need to create a military style plan to get our cats to the vet! It’s not pretty!

The cats know when they have to go to the vet. We must release some pheromones or something that tips them off because they scatter. We have to close all the doors upstairs and corner them in one room. Then Puddles starts howling as if you’re trying to kill her. My mom has to put on these ridiculously thick gloves because Puddles’ claws will be coming out to attack. And I have to stand in the doorway and act as a block to stop her, if she gets away from my mom. One time, she ran towards and knocked me over. No lie!

Something was different today, though. Puddles had no clue it was “vet day”. She was strutting around as usual, begging to be pet, and taken outside. Just another day. We’ve tried the outside thing before and she always knew what was coming, so never came outside. Not today! She came right on out! My mom put on her gloves and opened the hatch of her car. Before Puddles knew what hit her, she was in the car! Success! Gracie is always easy. She tries to hide, but isn’t very good at it. So, we can just pick her up and put her in the car. (more…)

One of my fave Pussycat Dolls tipped me off to King James being on stage with Jay-Z late last night. I immediately hoped there would be YouTube video, and there is! Now, granted you can’t really hear what he’s saying, but you can tell it’s him and the crowd is loving him. Check it out!

Jay-Z Intro and LBJ Talk

On stage with Jay-Z during show

On the eve of her team’s season opening game against the defending WNBA champion Detroit Shock, Candace Parker gave an interview to the guys at PTI (ESPN) to talk about her transition to motherhood and upcoming return to basketball. Watch it below:

I bemoan these corporate sponsorships of individual teams in the league. Someone likened it to Nascar with all the sponsor companies plastered all over the cars. I want to see team names on the front of athlete jerseys, not “Farmers Insurance” or some other sponsor. I know the WNBA is bleeding money, but this sets a dangerous precedence that I’m not sure anyone’s going to like further down the line. But it is what it is. Good luck to the Los Angeles Sparks presented by Farmers Insurance!

Cute interview! Sparks vs. Shock on ABC at 2:30 PM (ET).

UPDATE: Candace’s daughter is named Lailaa

My mother and I have a mother-daughter crush on Brian Robiskie. She says that if he weren’t so young, she’d have “picked him” for me. You have to understand my mother. She does this sometimes. It’s our own little inside joke. Well, maybe not so ‘inside’ anymore, since I just shared it, but you get the point! The last person she chose for me was also an athlete: Derek Fisher of the LA Lakers. And before him has been Heisman winner Eddie George, and another former Buckeye Jimmy Jackson, whom I still have a picture of up on my wall. True story! I can’t say I’ve argued with any of her choices. My mom knows me well and what my “type” is. Very nice, intelligent, athletic, and cute. We’re on the same wavelength there.

It’s all for not, anyway because I’m destined to be a “cat lady” with no man, no kids, and no life. I know that is my destiny, and I’m not going to upset the planets, ‘nawmean?

Anyway, my mom and I do disagree on something: the city of Cleveland. My uncle (her brother) played pro ball up there, for the Cavs back in the day. The team traded him (which he did not want), and when he returned with his new team, the fans booed him mercilessly. I know that is commonplace in pro sports, but that didn’t matter to my mother. Ever since then, she has hated the entire city. She also refuses to root for any of their sports. So while I was happy that Brian Robiskie was drafted by the Browns, my mom was sad. She will get over it, and we shall watch Robo highlights together someday.

So below is a news conference after his first Cleveland Browns practice yesterday. He will don the #80 jersey, recently vacated by K2, just like he did here at Ohio State. Good luck, Brian!

So, it’s no secret, that I am enjoying the spoils of having a jailbroken iPhone. It’s the only way to live, in all honesty.

I’ve come to the conclusion that there will be situations where I may want to broadcast live. Yes, I’m talking video. Probably not too many, but knowing how to work things when the time comes would be helpful. I’m pretty sure my work on various pool decks would be enhanced with a little live streaming. But not any race footage, because the big, bad boys will come after me and possibly revoke my media credentials. I don’t want that! (Avid swim fans should know what I’m talking about!)

If I just want to record some silly video to share and edit later, I’d probably use the Cycorder app. That’s where all the “Puddles Chronicles” footage comes from. It’s easy to use, and I can decide later whether or not I want to share recorded video.

Qik has its recording app, which is pretty established, while UStream.tv’s app is relatively new to the iphone market. I downloaded them both, so now I have 2 live video streaming apps that I need to try out. (more…)

Not only are they rather easily taking care of business against the Pistons, but they’ve also taken time out of their schedules to make us all laugh.

I saw this on SportsCenter and I am dying!

Nice to see the Cleveland Cavs’ fun-loving spirit (see what I mean, Ray?) continue to shine through as they spoof a recent Heineken Beer commercial.

Please let there be a Cavs/Lakers final. Please, please, please!