1. Lakers vs Celtics - I’d love to see the Celtics take it but Lakers, arguably, have the better bench and match up well physically. Derek Fisher is good enough defensively to keep Rajon Rondo in check and as good as Nate Robinson has been off the bench, he doesn’t have the play making ability of Rondo. Celtics will have trouble containing Gasol which will continue to lead to foul trouble for Kevin Garnett and Rasheed Wallace. I predict Lakers in 6.
2. Tonight Yuri Foreman defends his belt against Miguel Cotto in what is the first boxing match at Yankee Stadium since Ali defeated Ken Norton in 1976. Cotto hasn’t posted a notable victory in 3 years and in 2008 received a brutal beating at the hands of Antonio Margarito. Foreman, a Jewish immigrant from the Soviet Union, is undefeated in his professional career. Foreman was originally looking for a March 13th fight with Manny Pacquiao. However, Pacquiao rejected the matchup. I see tonight’s fight being a technical one with neither fighter being able to score a KO. It will go the distance and Foreman retains the belt via unanimous decision. (Post-fight update: I was way off. Cotto by TKO)
3. One of the bigger stories that circulated through out the tech-o-sphere this week was AT&T’s announcement to end unlimited data plans for the iPhone and iPad. AT&T subscribers can now look forward to paying more for less. Gizmodo has an excellent break down of the new fees and data plans being made available starting June 7th. Is the move to a consumption based model their only choice due to severe wireless network congestion? How will it impact use of streaming applications such as Pandora, Last.fm, and data-heavy downloads from YouTube? Remains to be seen..In less shocking news, Time Warner’s CEO Glenn Britt, said he supports AT&T’s decision and thinks pay-per-byte plans are the wave of the future. This isn’t surprising because Time Warner had recently tested (and promptly shelved) a similar plan for it’s broadband service in Rochester, NY. Although I’m not sure how this will work out for AT&T, I know capping broadband use or charging per byte would have severe implications for services such as Netflix, Hulu, iTunes and Microsoft’s Xbox Live which offers a variety of audio and video streams and downloads. Users of those services might be forced to limit their downloads with the possibility of going over the cap and consequently being charged per downloaded byte. Hypothetically speaking, if you apply AT&T’s cost of 2.25 cents per megabyte, an HD movie download could end up running you roughly $100. So good luck to all AT&T iPhone and iPad users, my fingers are crossed that Verizon doesn’t soon follow suit.
4. The World Cup starts next weekend. No better way to get in the spirit than to watch Nike’s “Write the Future” commercial a few dozen times:
