Microsoft, Yahoo!, and Futurama: “Future Stock”

As I have previously stated before that the Microsoft bidding for Yahoo! reminds me of an episode of Futurama titled “Future Stock“. I am such a Futurama geek. The (evil) Momcorp was going to buy out Planet Express, Inc. and the stockholders of both companies must approve the take-over.

Are there any relevance between this Futurama episode and Microsoft’s bid to take-over Yahoo!? (That’s a bit tricky, the exclamation point in Yahoo! and the question mark at the end of the sentence which is a question.)

  • Futurama is great, just like Bender, who is great.
  • Shareholders from both Microsoft and Yahoo! must approve such take-over; similar to what shareholders of Momcorp and Planet Express, Inc. had to do.

Now, after a poor excuse for mentioning Futurama over and over again, let’s see what went on so far.

Microsoft says to borrow money for Yahoo deal

Microsoft’s cash on hand was estimated at 21 Billion Dollars, and they were offering Yahoo! 44.6 Billion Dollars in cash and stocks.

Yahoo! rejects Microsoft’s takeover bid

Yahoo! shares rose from $19.18 to $28.38 on February 1st after Microsoft announced their take-over bid. Meanwhile, Microsoft shares dropped from $32.60 to $30.45 on the same period.

Yahoo! Board of Directors Says Microsoft’s Proposal Substantially Undervalues Yahoo!

Yahoo! Board did not explicitly reject Microsoft’s proposal.

Now let’s see here. Microsoft offered to buy Yahoo! shares at $31 per share. It was a sweet deal when Yahoo! shares was still at $19.18 per share. On February 1st, Microsoft’s offer is only 8.45% higher than the value of Yahoo! shares. There has been some whispers that Yahoo! is holding out for $40 per share to approve Microsoft’s take-over bid.

Major Yahoo investor urges Microsoft to raise offer

Yep, a major Yahoo! shareholder wants to see payday, at $40 per share. Who doesn’t like making profit on the stock market?

Hypothetically, if Yahoo! shareholders wanted this take-over to happen (like this one), there would still be a lot of hurdles for Microsoft to make it happen. Microsoft would have a tougher time to convince their own shareholders to approve this take-over. Yahoo! take-over seemed to be a bad financial move for Microsoft. Can Microsoft actually afford Yahoo! without breaking their bank? What are Microsoft’s shareholders saying regarding this Yahoo! take-over. SmartMoney says that “Microsoft Shareholders to Pay High Price for Yahoo“.

I am not a financial analyst, but I am a huge Futurama fan. Based on what I learned from Futurama’s “Future Stock”, shareholders from both company must approve the take-over. If that held true, then maybe Microsoft shareholder might be the one who would stop Steve Ballmer and his pals from driving Microsoft over the cliff, metaphorically.

Let’s see how this play out.

Disclaimer: I do not own a single stock because I don’t have the cash or the guts to gamble, but I make stupid stock predictions for other people.

Known Fact: Bender is Great! So send email to Bender – bender@ilovebender.com

Carlos Alazraqui’s Stand-Up Tonight

I’m off to meet Carlos Alazraqui, one of the stars of Reno 911! and the voice-actor extraordinaire.

Live at The Ice House Comedy Club - 2008.01.25

Will bring you reports from Ice House in Pasadena.

Carlos currently can be seen on Comedy Central, in Reno 911!

Carlos will be performing on the following date and time:

View Carlos’s Video here.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lQLXRIBWgOE

Ice House Comedy Club
http://www.icehousecomedy.com/

Carlos Alazraqui
http://www.carlosalazraqui.com/
http://www.myspace.com/carlosalazraqui

South Park: The Imaginationland Trilogy is Coming To DVD March 11th, 2008

South Park‘s fans can not wait for the twelfth season to start, but no date has been set yet. In addition to that, no words on the release date for South Park: The Complete Eleventh Season DVD.

Would the DVD set make any different since all of Season Eleven Episodes are available for purchase on iTunes Store and Amazon Unbox. Of course! The DVD is higher quality than the digital download version, and it is not crippled with DRM.

Good news for those who can’t wait for the Complete Season 11 DVD, because South Park: The Imaginationland Trilogy is coming to DVD on March 11th, 2008. Dubbed as “Uncensored Director’s Cut” and “New Feature Length DVD Movie”, fans can only hope that this dvd is worth every penny. No further details have been provided yet. In any case, this “New Feature Length DVD Movie” should make the wait a little bit easier.

Imaginationland Trilogy DVD

Reno 911! Kicks Off Fifth Season

Reno 911! is back. The show kicks off its fifth season with more questions than answers, intentionally.

RENO 911! (501)
Did Garcia steal Dangle’s husband? What’s happening to Wiegel’s Baby? Find out the answers to these and other exciting questions on the season premiere of Reno 911!

Well, that’s all I wrote for now because I spent the the whole day at Paramount Studio. Yelling at those WGA strikers……. well, in a good way. Cloverfield premiered earlier tonight, and I was expecting a lot more WGA strikers there.

Anyway, I’ll update this post with more relevant Reno 911! stuff. Why? Because I promised Sheriff Deputy James Garcia (Carlos Alazraqui) to do it.

Carlos Alazraqui from Reno 911! and Taco Bell Chihuahua fame is scheduled to perform at the Ice House in Pasadena, California. Carlos will be performing on the following date and time:

View Carlos’s Video here.
http://youtube.com/watch?v=lQLXRIBWgOE

Ice House Comedy Club
http://www.icehousecomedy.com/

Carlos Alazraqui
http://www.carlosalazraqui.com/
http://www.myspace.com/carlosalazraqui/

…….to be revised.

Family Guy: Blue Harvest – Fox Digital Copy

As previously reported, “Family Guy: Blue Harvest” DVD-set includes a second disc that contains a “digital copy” of the feature. The “digital copy” is compatible with iTunes and Windows Media Player. The digital copy then can be played in video-playing-iPods, iPhone, and any compatible PlayForSure device.

Blue Harvest - 2 DVD Discs and the Code

Each DVD package comes with a serial number that can be used once in iTunes or Windows Media Player to decrypt the “digital copy” and apply corresponding DRM on it. For example, if you’re using Windows Media Player to access the “digital copy”, it will extract and decrypt it from the disc and apply PlayForSure DRM on it. The serial number that comes with the DVD package can only be used once for one format only; iTunes or PlayForSure compatible format.

Family Guy - Fox Digital Copy Family Guy blue Harvest iTunes 7.6 - Family Guy: Blue Harvest - Chapters

< ?xml version=”1.0″ encoding=”utf-8″?>


25491
FAMILYGUY_BLUEHARVEST

244097
268387794


md5=”8b1c8432da51963a2e353a235a0d063a” length=”520081073″/>

Family Guy: Blue Harvest comes in two flavors; Regular and Special Edition. The Special Edition comes with limited edition collectibles:

  • Collector’s T-Shirt (100% cotton, Black, XL)
  • 3D Glasses
  • 12 Collector’s trading cards (in same style as original Star Wars trading cards) that form a 3D scene on the back
  • 20-page “Art of Family Guy Presents: Blue Harvest” booklet including sketches, notes and a letter from Seth MacFarlane

Blue Harvest Special Edition

Blue Harvest in Windows

Blue Harvest - Windows Media Player or iTunes

Blue Harvest DRM in Windows

Blue Harvest - iPhone

Blue Harvest - iPhone Chapters

Year 2007 Expires on December 31st at Midnight

Despite all efforts to hack the flow of time, the “year 2007” expires on December 31st at midnight. Teams of hackers are still working on cracking the encryptions to prevent “year 2007” from expiring. Unfortunately, their efforts so far bear no fruits.

If you are affected by the expirations, please do not panic. Upon the expiration of “year 2007”, “year 2008” will automatically activate and resume any tasks carried over from “year 2007”. If for some reasons, you found out that other people in different part of the world were already upgraded to “year 2008”, please do not panic. That’s because you’re living in a different time zone that is a little bit behind the time. As a matter of fact, numbers of part of the world have already had “year 2008” activated at the time of this writing.

Q: Would I need a new serial number to upgrade from “year 2007” to year 2008″?
A: No. You don’t need any serial numbers at all.

Q: Is “year 2008” backward compatible with “year 2007”?
A: Generally yes. But remember to date anything with “2008” instead of “2007”. Let alone using “2009”.

Q: Where do I sign up for year 2009 beta testing?
A: Unfortunately such beta program has not been announced yet.

Q: I love “year 2007”, and I refuse to upgrade to “year 2008”. What can I do to stay with year 2007?
A: In a way it is a mandatory upgrade. You can pretend that it’s still
year 2007, but it’s going to be hard to interact with everyone else. There is one other extreme solution, but I won’t get into that; let alone recommending or condoning it.

Q: Will year 2008 performs better than year 2007.
A: Results may vary. It also depends on what happened in
year 2007.

Q: Will my love life be better after upgrading to year 2008?
A: Can’t answer that one. You’re on your own, buddy!

Q: What kind of warranty does year 2008 come with?
A:
Year 2008 comes with a limited lifetime warranty; the lifetime of “year 2008”. It’s guaranteed to run until December 31st, 2008. It also comes with guaranteed upgrade to year 2009.

Q: Can I get full refund if I don’t like year 2008?
A: You’ll get full refund of the amount you paid for purchasing the
year 2008. Basically you’ll get refund in the amount of nothing.

Q: I think I like year 2008. But can it run Linux?
A: You dirty unbathed Linux Hippie!

Q: Should I buy an iPhone along with year 2008?
A: Should you? Buy it if you want it. I’d suggest to wait until Steve Jobs is done with his annual Keynote at MacWorld San Francisco. If you’re recently given a T-Mobile Dash after you dropped and broke your Treo, just wait and listen to me!

Year 2008 is expected to be the time of many events, which some of them are carried over from year 2007. In the world of technology, many events are scheduled to take place in year 2008. Confirmed events to take place shortly after year 2008 activates are CES and MacWorld San Francisco.

According to many rumors, speculations, analysis, and pure imaginations; the followings are expected to be announced at MacWorld San Francisco 2008:

  • iPhone announcements. Second Generation iPhone with 3G network support?
  • New Mac announcements. New MacBook, MacBook Pro, Mac Pro, and Mac mini?
  • Updates to Apple TV with more features.
  • iTunes movie rental.
  • More DRM-free music on iTunes Store.
  • New Apple software. What could it be?
  • iPhone software updates.
  • More news on iPhone Software Development Kit (SDK).
  • Mac OS X 10.5 Leopard update. (10.5.3)
  • A new device from Apple. OK, this one can be classified “made-up”. Take that, Apple!

to be continued.

Panasonic HDC-SD5 Video Sample

As promised, I finally get to edit a short video clip taken using Panasonic HDC-SD5.

  • Stage lighting
  • Imported and edited using iMovie ’08 with 1920×1080 resolutions
  • White-balanced (in camera)
  • AVCHD
  • 1080i

Carlos Alazraqui - AVCHD Screen Cap

Get it here (960×540 – 20.5MB)
Carlos Alazrazqui, Live at Hollywood Improv, Nov 17 2007 – 11:00 PM set.

Carlos is scheduled to perform at the Ice House in Pasadena, California. Carlos will be performing on the following date and time:

Ice House Comedy Club
http://www.icehousecomedy.com/

Carlos Alazraqui
http://www.carlosalazraqui.com/
http://www.myspace.com/carlosalazraqui/