NBA Dressed-Up For A Better Image

The NBA announced its player dress code. No more baggy pants, jerseys, shorts, sneakers, bling-bling, etc. Only business casual attire. The code gets very specific even about what players must wear on their way from the bus to the arena; a 100-ft distance! In other words, Chauncey won't have a problem adjusting. Rip might.

Obviously, the NBA is trying to rebuild its deteriorating image. More interestingly, the code was agreed upon by all parties: NBA commissioner, team owners, and the players union. I can understand the commissioner and owners' position as they're desparate to improve their teams' image. I'm not sure about the union's position. From the player's stand point, and strictly business speaking, the code reduces their endorsement bargaining power. In the end it's the younger demographic that's buying their jerseys and sneakers. A demographic not very impressed by business suits and leather shoes.

The code concerns me a little in terms of personal freedom of expression. I'm not happy with how "rapper-hip-hopic" the NBA has become; even though some hip-hop doesn't hurt (you can't say Dr. J's afro didn't make it more fun to watch him), but I think the code only suppresses it rather than solve it. Suits didn't stop players from participating in last year's Detroit brawl anyway.

The NBA ought to look at the way players are being recruited. The recently agreed upon age limit will partly help. You can't pay 18 year-olds millions of $$ and expect them not to enjoy it. Also, the great increase in recruiting European players will help improve the image, even though it takes away from the NBA's "dunk" edge. Those players have shown that they care more about the game's fundamentals than what's on off the court. Also, it's either today's coaches are too soft or players are too snobby. More effective discipline is needed. Last year a coach imposed a $10,000 fine on players not wearing suits, and to avoid the hastle, one player wrote a big check to him in advance because he wasn't willing to comply.

On the same day, the NBA launched it's "NBA Cares" charity program. Bad, bad, bad timing for the dress code announcement! which has taken over the news and done enough damage by the players reactions such as Stephen Jackson calling the code racist, and Iverson asking for more money to afford business suits, heh. They could've done PR for "NBA Cares," which is much more sincere and effective in improving an image than a dress code.

In a nutshell, NBA is playing a classic business, PR game in which they're fooling the fans whom they're trying to improve their image to.

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Side Note: Make sure to tune into Michael Jordan's interview on "60 Minutes" on Sunday at 7 pm.

زنــوبــة ولـهــــومــة

عسى ما شر؟ ما شفناكم هالسنة

Apple Again .. Now Video iPOD!

Ok, this is just ridiculous! Apple just unveiled their new video iPOD!

15,000 songs.
25,000 photos.
150 hours of video!
All in 60 GB for $399 (the 30 GB one is for $299)

Although the video feature is not very appealing to me, it just agrees with what I said in the last post about Apple's reliance on innovation.

Apple's Innovation

I finally got to see the new iPod Nano. Damn, it's even smaller than what I thought by looking at its pictures. I was fiddling with it in my hand and imagining how different it would be if I had a Nano in the gym or just walking instead of the GIGANTIC 15G that I have.

I always try to avoid walking into the Apple store because with the way their showrooms are set up, add to it excellent customer service, it's hard to resist buying something. And if I manage not to buy, I'd come back to it later. If I still manage, I'd be thinking about it for the next few days, or have serious thoughts of switching to Mac. Like today, all the extensive research I've done on windows-laptops was washed away when I saw the cute, shiny PowerBooks.

Don't get in the habit of buying something just because it's new because with Apple, you'll run out of money. They rely heavily on innovation, which I think is their most valuable intangible asset. In fact, I can't recall any other company that relies as heavily on innovation and aesthetics. Let Apple cease to innovate, and it'll run out of business.

Apple's boom started back in 2000 with their flashy, colorful iBooks, and it caught incredible momentum with the iPod. A look at their stock chart is enough to make a correlation. Shares bought 2 years ago (wish I did) have seen a five-fold increase in value now.

Gotta' admire the magic of Steve Jobs.

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Speaking of apple ... elyooo3 kaafer!

S/He is Him/Her

I'm in the lab right now, and I'm wondering who is this girl sitting to my left. I've never seen her in our department before. She goes away and comes back to her seat, and I realize this:

It's Larse!

A GUY IN MY CLASS!!!!!!!!!!! Apparently he had a sex change over the summer. S/he is different! Hair, body figure, boobs, 7arakat, etc., except the ugly face was still there.

S/he was in many of my classes when I was an undergrad. What's interesting is that I noticed him/her acting in a way like if s/he's new to here. From the way s/he was talking to the guys who were doing homework with him/her, s/he was talking like a new, different person. One of the guys asked him/her skeptically, I thought, (hiff with these slashes) "Are you a new student here?" S/he answered with a truthful answer, but the way s/he was talking was .. hmmm .. I don't know how to explain :S

Unbelievable! We talk and read about sex change all the time and see people who've actually done it, but when you see someone whom you've been seeing on campus almost daily for the past 5 years, it just doesn't sink in very easily. I remember him being very outspoken and opinionated. He even used to write a column in our campus paper. More interestingly, he was a hippie!

Anyway, I'm leaving now. S/he's just distracting, so I'll finish my work at home.

Song of the Week

انت فاهم .. شنهو يعني؟

بكل سهـــولــة

إنــتـــهـــيـــنـــــــــا

Jandeef's Shorelines II

The saga of weird animal dreams continues. My uncle and I were on a camping trip, and we had a couple of zebras in a small room. My uncle pulled a little one out by his tail, I held it to the ground, and my uncle slit the lil' one's throat!

I didn't see any blood. So, what on earth does that mean?

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As SheWrites said, this summer in Kuwait went by so fast. I didn't get a chance to do many things I planned to do nor did I meet many people I planned to meet.

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Speaking of vacation in Kuwait, I should probably mention that my first Sushi experience didn't go very well =(. Maybe next time Q ethabbi6ni.

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A huge wave of Saudi students has come to the US this year. I'm hearing the government handed out about 10,000 scholarships. In our state alone, the number of new Saudi students is at least a 3-digit number. I'm surprised by how this many of them got visas!

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Speaking of new students, I'm starting to feel lonely here. Almost all my friends have graduated and I'm trying to develop skills to befriend people with whom I have a relatively large age gap. I met a new guy the other day and he told me he was born in 1987. Cuuuutee =)

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I spent some time during the first day of school hanging out in the middle of campus watching elraye7 wel yaay; mostly freshmen looking kind of lost. With that, crush rate remains high.

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From now on, I won't have that many classes to take, and I'll have a lot of "free" time on which I can go to school whenever I want and do as much research per day as I want. Unfortunately, I have a tendancy to not get things done without pressure from someone/something else.

Self-discipline is what I need.

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I'm changing my advisor today. He taught me 4 classes and I love him as a professor. However, since he became my advisor 6 months ago, I haven't been able to deal with him smoothly. Yesterday, I e-mailed him about a scheduling problem, and he responded by saying "I suggest you talk to your advisor" :/ Who the hell are you then!

Eghhhhh .. raiba

Not good to have within hands reach!

حـصــــار الــزواحـــــف

حلمت حلم غريب.

طالع من بيتنا من الباب الخلفي ورايح حق سيارتي ، وأجد سيارة جدي واقفة عند الباب وضب قاعد على الكبّوت! ألتفت حوالي وأشوف أكثر من بريعصي على باب البيت نفسه.

استاحشت ، فقررت أني أطلع من الباب الأمامي وألف حوالين البيت عشان أوصل حق سيارتي ، وانا ماشي في الحوش لاحظت إني ماسك بيدي حيّة مرنقطة بس بلاستيك مو صجية!

كملت مشيي في الحوش والا أشوف بريعصي رابي ، كرشه شكبره ، على طوفة البيت ، يوم قربت حواليه قام يركض صعوداً على الطوفة ، فجأة وبقدرة قادر انفجر البريعصي! وطاح على الأرض بالأقساط ، وكل قطعة منه تلبط!

كملت إلى الباب الأمامي ، وتوني باطلع وإلا أشوف Komodo Dragon مرتز عند الباب! تصروعت ورديت دشيت البيت.

قعدت من النوم أند آي واز لايك ... وات ذا هل!!

أي تفسيرات؟ والا أتصل على النهام؟

Crazy Sports Fans

According to ESPN ...

A Detroit Pistons fan who threw a coin at the Philadelphia 76ers' Allen Iverson, hitting him in the back of the head, received a five-day jail sentence Thursday.

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This is how things are taken seriously; even the slightest incidents. When people know that even one trouble maker will not get away with it, the other 20,000 in the arena will behave themselves.

I read this and had flashbacks of our soccer games and the animals who intentionally bring stuff in just to throw them! It's not like they happened to have those items in their hands. No, they brought them in on purose. They do their best to smuggle them. It's a shame that police guards have to hand-search the fans at the gates.

A few years ago I attended a soccer game, and Mohammad Bnayan (former Alqadsiya and National Team defender) was hit on his ear with .. guess what .. Fireworks! A kind of long-range 9a33aaadi was lit way up in the stands and it exploded at his ear! Nothing was done to the person who did it!