I don’t worry too much about the Seattle Mariners players productivity in spring training but Ichiro, the hitting machine, is making the cactus league more interesting by putting up a goose egg after 21 at bats. Larry Stone made me chuckle this morning with his article about the no hit streak.

Ichiro hitless? It’s like Paris Hilton going dateless, Jon Stewart going quipless, Eliot Spitzer going escortless.

Zing! I’m sure I-chi-ro as fans lovingly refer to him in these parts will get his share of knocks down before the real baseball season starts in a couple weeks. From his quotes in the article neither he or manager Mclaren doesn’t seem worried about the situation.

As for Spitzer and escorts…
Did you see the pictures of ‘Kristin’? Good looking, yes, but worth $1,000 an hour and breaking the law? No thanks. If Spitzer had a hooker fetish why didn’t he fly to Nevada where prostitution (in some places) is legal? If you haven’t seen Spitzer’s press conference where he resigned his position as New York Governor, check it out below or via YouTube here.

Note the expression of his wife, who scores big points for standing by her man in troubled times. I couldn’t help wondering: did she know?

Do you have a problem with legal prostitution? I don’t. Yes, even for people who are married provided the spouse gives consent. This subject came up on a talk show awhile back and a guy called into say he traveled north to Canada to be with prostitutes at his wife’s urging. Apparently the act of having sex was too painful for her due to medical conditions and she made an agreement with her husband that made this acceptable. Permissive use. Yes, he always used protection, unlike Spitzer who apparently wanted to go bareback. Dumb.

What consenting adults choose to do in their personal lives and marriages as long as it is legal doesn’t bother me. I think the world would be a better place if we stopped trying to make moral decisions about other people’s personal lives. This goes for politicians too when they are in the right, but that doesn’t apply in Mr. Spitzer’s case. What he did was stupid and wrong. Even worse for his family if these escorts were without his wife’s consent and knowledge.

Update Friday 3/14/08 7:38am PST: Ichiro got his first hit yesterday and is now batting .040.

Sites where you can review/rate just about anything are all the rage these days. I like the tagline for RateMyCop.com: "You have the right to remain informed." Despite the catchy name, I found the data didn’t run very deep in our area. Seattle had listings for over 1,200 officers but smaller towns resulted in a list of no officers being listed. 

But what if the officers in your area are overwhelmed with cleaning up the city? Do you believe in vigilante justice? A bar owner who turned a BBQ smoker into ‘Robocop’ seems to, at least in part:

It’s a barbecue smoker mounted on a three-wheeled scooter, and armed with an infrared camera, spotlight, loudspeaker and aluminum water cannon that shoots a stream of icy water about 20 feet.

The city is saying if his creation actually hits people it’s "assault" but it sounds like he’s using it to just spook away the drug dealers who probably don’t want to be caught on camera. As for using it to spray the homeless to make them move along, I hope Robosmokercop isn’t being used that way.

Maybe he should take it a step further and let people on the internet control the voice of Robosmokercop (not the water cannon). It would be cool to have it be able to play Charles Bronson lines from Death Wish. Or maybe Yul Bryner’s classic line from Westworld: “Drawww.”

In July 2008 if you use a cell phone while behind the wheel in Washington State you could earn a $101 ticket. Using a hands-free cell phone like the service Onstar offers will remain legal but is this any safer? A recent study says no.

Listening while driving led to a "significant deterioration in driving accuracy," Just and his co-authors write in the latest issue of the journal Brain Research. The drivers hit the guardrail and veered out of the center of the lane more often while listening. In the listening situation, MRI brain scans found a 37% decrease in parietal lobe activity.

Back in February 2005 a study pegged cell phone use while driving the equivalent of having a blood alcohol level of 0.08. Curious if other studies have been done on listening to podcasts or other non-interactive content and compared to hands-free cell phone use? In that post comments MRN writes:

Some research was done on this issue at the MIT Media Lab in the late 90’s. We found that a conversation with another passenger in the car didn’t create quite the same problem as a phone conversation: passengers in the car naturally adjust the conversation’s pace to account for changes in driving conditions, while remote interlocutors are oblivious to critical moments where the driver’s attention needs to be focused on the road.

How about eating while driving? Adjusting songs or playlists on the iPod or other portable music device? There are lots of driving distractions. How about a single law which encompasses any driving distraction rather than specifically calling them out?

In the case of my wife and son being hit in the crosswalk, the woman hadn’t taken the time to clear her windshield of ice. My wife has gone through neck surgery and still has a lot of pain. To date and to our knowledge the woman who hit her wasn’t even ticketed. The police should have leveled criminal charges at this woman’s negligence.

GHSA.org compiled a list of U.S states and other countries cellphone laws including whether it is a primary or secondary enforcement. Here in WA, the no cell phone while driving law will only be enforced if there is another driving violation. How is your state?

I see people talking on phones all the time and will be curious to see how this changes in July, if at all. My guess? It won’t change behavior that much. Hope I’m wrong.

Also see: Americans more dependent on cellphones (USA TODAY)

Those reading who despise spam might be interested to learn that the nation’s first felony conviction for spam was held up in Virginia today.

Jeremy Jaynes of Raleigh, N.C., considered among the world’s top 10 spammers in 2003, was convicted of massive distribution of junk e-mail and sentenced to nine years in prison.

Almost all 50 states have anti-spamming laws. In the 4-3 ruling, the court rejected Jaynes’ claim that the state law violates both the First Amendment and the interstate commerce clause of the U.S. Constitution.

Jaynes’ lawyer claimed this was a blow to first amendment rights but it’s hard not agreeing with the courts. Should sending bulk unsolicited email be protected speech? It clogs our inboxes and wastes our time.  It’s one thing to be an aggressive marketer, but this guy seems to have gone way too far.

Do you agree that mass unsolicited spamming should be a felony?

It’s about time government gives up the fight against marijuana. Long time readers of this blog know my position on legalization of marijuana: I’m for taxation and regulation, period.

I’m also for taxing and regulating online gambling. I see both these as a matter of economics and destiny. The government could take the money from this and help pay down our mounting debts. I want there to be some kind of future where America is not completely poverty-stricken. If you think these concerns are too premature, do some research on the subject.

America being bankrupted won’t happen in my lifetime, even if Republicans are in office for the rest of my years, but I’m looking for generations beyond. We have to make some sort of economic changes today, now, soon. Even if some changes are radical.

There are a lot worse things in the world to be focusing energy and resources on than chronic.

At least 11 states have figured out that pot, at least for medicinal purposes, could be helpful. Why are we telling the sick and infirm what they can take for pain? For that matter, why are we telling people in the privacy and safety of their homes that they can’t break out a bowl and light up?

BOOMj posts that Calfornia courts ruled that employers can fire workers who use medical marijuana with legal doctor approval. Is it just me who thinks this is wrong? Meanwhile, the American Medical Association is still labeling pot a "tightly controlled and dangerous drug that should not be legalized until more research is done."

Please.

Pot is dangerous how? I’m not talking the obvious dangerous like driving a motor vehicle stoned, which is stupid and should be prosecuted like DUI. I’m talking what the drug actually does to users. It makes them hungry and mellow. When was the last time you heard some maniac went on a serial killing spree stoned?

My wife has been in pain since being hit by a car in a crosswalk on November 2003. Surgery helped her for a little while, but the winter months really bother her. She’s looking at all sorts of options to help her get past the pain. I see that Washington is one of the 11 states (Alaska, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Oregon, Rhode Island, Vermont and Washington.) where medical marijuana use is allowed with doctor’s approval. I don’t know if my wife would be for smoking pot if it helped her because she has asthma, but I’m saddened seeing her live in pain.

We haven’t used Network Solutions for many years for domain searching. This morning I learned what the word frontrunning meant in Mashable’s coverage of a class action lawsuit aimed at Network Solutions and ICANN:

Frontrunning is the practice in which users would look up a domain name via the registration-site WHOIS, and would appear available, but every other internet registrar would show the names as unavailable, and registered to Network Solutions, thus forcing the user to purchase the domain from them.

If what this lawsuit alleges is true, this is a dirty anti-consumer tactic and punishment should be severe.

Remember, this is the same outfit that once upon a time was charging $35 a year for domain registration when others were half or less the price. I’m not going to use this post to recommend other domain registrars, but there are plenty of viable alternatives to Network Solutions. These days you can register a domain for $5-8 per year and some hosting companies offer free domain registration if you pay for hosting with them.

This morning’s news that Toshiba is officially ceasing support of HD DVD and will shut down production in March signals a (small) victory for Blu-ray as many publications are touting, but also means the price of existing HD DVD inventory will plummet soon:

"We carefully assessed the long-term impact of continuing the so-called ‘next-generation format war’ and concluded that a swift decision will best help the market develop," said Atsutoshi Nishida, President and CEO of Toshiba Corporation

The writing was already on the wall with Wal-mart and Netflix saying they would only carry Blu-ray following the CES 2008 bombshell that Warner Bros. was going only Blu-ray. Now watch those PS3 sales soar even further.

Where does this leave the Xbox 360 which has the HD DVD as an add-on drive? Making a standalone Blu-ray Xbox 360 drive, possibly available in a few months, if you believe what alleged insiders told SmartHouse:

Insiders at Microsoft in the USA have told SmartHouse that Microsoft has already configured a standalone Blu-ray player that can be connected into an Xbox 360 and that subject to internal marketing and sales approvals the model could be on sale within 3 months

There is further speculation that Microsoft is working on a newer version of an Xbox 360 with a built-in Blu-ray drive, but I don’t think that will happen, at least in 2008. Microsoft would be wiser to continue to promote their Xbox Live Marketplace as a viable next generation movie download platform. They have the best online gaming and video area but Sony has HOME up its sleeve.

One big problem that Microsoft has is that their downloads are all wrapped in a DRM scheme on a proprietary drive while the PS3 supports using any hard drive. You can easily copy downloaded content on the PS3 to an external drive and can even run Linux. The Xbox 360 even with their 120GB hard drive is outclassed by the PS3 storage architecture.

Back to HD DVD, set your bargain bin sensor on high alert. In particular, watch for goodies like the Star Trek Original Series HD DVD sets. Star Trek Original Series Season One HD DVD (affiliate) I’ve seen the first season at the local Fred Meyer and hope the other two will be released. It’s possible all three will be available on Blu-ray.

More TV Seasons, please
I’ve been saying for some time that one major weakness in both nextgen HD formats is the lack of TV seasons.  A few TV seasons are trickling in on both HD DVD and Blu-ray, but not nearly the amount that are available in DVD. When/if this changes, Blu-ray might have a fighting chance for a little while staving off downloads.

It remains important when looking at the future of movies to remember collectors. People like buying and owning physical media. You can touch, display, there’s artwork and inserts and creative packaging. You can’t do any of that with downloadable media.

A break from my unannounced blog vacation to share financial analyst Jim Cramer’s comments on the tech sector:

Reluctantly I have to conclude that this is a group that on strength has to be sold. Anything I own that has tech has been killing me for Action Alerts PLUS.

Looking at my own tech portfolio holdings I’m seeing the following results lately:

AAPL (Apple) - down from high of $202 at end of 2007 to $129 today

GOOG (Google) - down from $747 near Halloween 2007 to $506

IACI (ask.com) - down from $30 in October 2007 to $24
VCLK (Valueclick) - down from $28 in October 2007 to $22

YHOO (Yahoo!) - UP from $19 to $31 on possible Microsoft acquisition, but down from $34 in October 2007.

Ironic that Cramer is famous for saying ‘bOOyah!’ and yet many of these tech stocks receive a ghostly boo since Halloween time. Google is among the worst performers since cresting the 666.66 mark. If I was more supernatural inclined, I’d say the big G was cursed, but a lot of the market has been miserable lately.

Despite the performance, I’m holding all my technology stocks for the time being.

What stock sectors to invest in during these troubled times?
I’ve been listening to CNBC on Sirius a lot more lately and reading a ton of information online trying to get educated on good buys and companies and markets to stay away from.

If tech isn’t any good, then what else? The million dollar question. Some gurus are suggesting the financial markets could be one good place to look. I sold NLY (Annaly Capital Management, Inc.) yesterday at a decent profit and am trying to decide what to buy next. I might go back and buy more NLY because this is a company that benefits when the feds cut the rates. If more cuts are on the way as some are speculating, NLY could continue to be a good stock to have.

What about new money to invest?
When the insurance money for my stolen tablet PC was received recently, I stuck it in our money market account which is currently paying 3.97%. Briefly considered adding to my Zecco account and buying some more stocks with it in the interim while deciding what computer to buy as a replacement, but the market is too uncertain for me to invest any new money at this time. Also considered putting in our mutual funds but those accounts are down too.

Where are you investing new money these days? In a holding pattern while the market corrects? Using your savings and money market accounts more?

Yesterday, news that Terry Semel was even further out than he was when he was replaced as CEO by Jerry Yang and today the news that battered Yahoo shareholders have been waiting for: Microsoft wants to buy them. Keep your eye on Yahoo stock price today (disclaimer: I own YHOO stock) as Microsoft has broken out their love ahead of Valentine’s Day.

Microsoft put an offer to the Yahoo Board of Directors to acquire all the outstanding shares of Yahoo! common stock for per share consideration of $31, which rings the deal in at $44.6 billion.

“We have great respect for Yahoo!, and together we can offer an increasingly exciting set of solutions for consumers, publishers and advertisers while becoming better positioned to compete in the online services market,” said Steve Ballmer, chief executive officer of Microsoft. “We believe our combination will deliver superior value to our respective shareholders and better choice and innovation to our customers and industry partners.”

A combined Microsoft-Yahoo would definitely stir the Google Giants because of the sheer amount of web eyeballs between the two properties. There are some in the tech community that said this acquisition would never happen, and it wasn’t until the Yahoo stock price started imploding that a reality for this deal came to fruition.

The deal isn’t done, but Microsoft believes the transaction could be completed by the second half of 2008. I’m excited by the possibilities of seeing my favorite Yahoo properties on places like Xbox Live and the Zune. Imagine Flickr integration on the Xbox Live blade. How about Zune social with delicious bookmarking (artist website tie-in)? And then there’s Microsoft AdCenter, the real belly of the beast that could rain on Google’s parade if only we could put it on our websites. Yahoo already has YPN so maybe AdCenter could shoehorn into that and voila, something that could seriously compete against Adwords/Adsense.

In December 2006 I wrote the one reason Microsoft might acquire Yahoo would be a defensive move to Google. This is even more true in 2008. I’m sure the tech pubs will be dominating TechMeme with this story today. For those who think this is a bad move for Microsoft or Yahoo, keep in mind that Microsoft + Yahoo = better competition against Google. If Google has no serious competition it will get lazy.

I think this is a good move for Microsoft if they don’t squander the assets. Whether they will or not assuming the deal goes through only time will tell. Exciting news heading into a weekend. Can’t wait to read what others have to say. Where did I first hear about this? On Twitter.

While Microsoft is in the buying mood, they should buy Twitter too. They have the engineering firepower to handle Twitter’s scaling woes.

Update 4:41am PST: Microsoft’s official statement. They are having a live webcast at 5:30am PST. Thanks for the head’s up ParisLemon, who also pointed out that YHOO stock price has jumped 60% in pre-market trading already. Google it’s ON.

What did the bird eat and poop out in this new Twitter is down message?

Clouds, a malfunctioning robot, the Twitter bird looking like it just had a bowel movement involving Pac-Man? Yes, it all adds up to more Twitter downtime as the service continues migration and settling into new servers. The only similarly popular service that has worse reliability and scalability is Second Life.

Maybe reliability will change for the better when the dust settles. Hopefully. If, however, the Twitter crew are taking cues from SL’s Linden Lab nothing will change and eventually Twitter will begin to lose loyal users to other places, strange error message graphics aside.

Twitter 0. Pownce and other competitors? +1.

Update 9:03am PST Twitter is back up. No explanation behind Pac-Man reference. Somebody get Namco on the line.