There seems to be a common theme that I am an idiot. This theory is further fueled by this week’s game industry news. Electronic Arts (ERTS) offer to acquire Take-Two (TTWO) this week was not unexpected, but has ignited a lot of discussion and speculation.

TTWO jumped almost 50% on the takeover offer but turned away the $2B offer, a la YHOO, and I painfully had the stock on my watch list and, of course, didn’t pull the trigger.

Many are concerned that EA buying TTWO is another step toward the game conglomerate becoming a monopoly in the industry, seemingly absorbing all viable competition. And by competition, I mean TTWO’s bread and butter, Rockstar Games, developers of the hugely popular Grand Theft Auto series. And not to mention 2k Games as the only direct competition to EA’s Sports brand.

Don’t let anyone fool you, the game business is not just games. It’s cash, big big cash. And no one is bigger than EA, so when they come a knockin, you know their checkbook is open. TTWO officially felt the offer undervalued their worth, but the real reason is they want to see how GTA IV performs financially when it is released on April 29th. Over three years of full-time development usually will get you attached to your product.

The fact is that EA will buy TTWO. And while I never like to see the little guy get beat up on by bigger companies, business is business. The two companies together could collaborate on some sensational future titles with their combined talent. I have no doubt that gamers would benefit from this proposal. The problem lies in EA’s seemingly corporate approach of streamlining and efficiency. I know big business needs systemization, but it can’t sacrifice the product, like many feel EA does so often. It would be terrible to start seeing GTA 2009, GTA 2010…great games take time, shareholders shouldn’t be #1 in any retail operation, customers have to be.

Another downside is the acquisition of 2K Sports. EA already has an exclusive NFLPA license for Madden. This would eliminate their only competition, albeit minor competition, but this is borderline illegal. If this goes through, why can’t Sirius and XM finally merge? What’s to stop conglomerate takeovers? I’m all for capitalism, big fan in fact, but these regulations are in place for a reason.

I see TTWO eventually going over to the dark side, we live in a world of dollars and cents and TTWO shareholders are going to want to cash out. The only hope is that EA lets TTWO continue their current logistical operations and only acquires them for the balance sheet.

I proudly consider myself something of a movie buff. If I have a couple hours free, I’ll often skip the book I’m reading, and head to the local cinema. Instead of lying in bed reading or working, I usually just pop in one of my stupid amount of owned DVD’s.

So I look forward to The Academy Awards every year, always have. I was pleased and relieved that this year’s awards went on with the settlement with the writer’s a week ago, despite the absence of the annual Vanity Fair party.

My predictions in the Big 6 categories (Picture, Director, Lead Actor/Actress, and Supporting Actor/Actress) left me at .500 with 4 out of 6 correct. Pretty good based on the surprises even with knowing who was going to win Best Actor and Best Supporting Actor.

Best Supporting Actress went to my prediction Tilda Swinton for her work as a lawyer in Michael Clayton. She’s not a prominent actress in big budget pictures, known more for her work in indie films. I guessed right in that the academy would reward her long career by giving her the award on her first nomination. She seemed genuinely surprised and gave a humorous acceptance speech.

Best Supporting Actor went to Javier Bardem for his terrifying portrayal of a borderline psychotic killer of a few words. He was the heavy favorite so that made this pick easy. But it wasn’t just momentum that carried him to the Oscar, his role was easily the best of the Supporting nominations. It was the first Oscar for a Spanish performer in the 80-year history of the world’s premier cinema awards.

Best Lead Actress went to a surprised Marion Cotillard for her work in La Vie en Rose. I had never heard of the movie let alone seen it, so my pick was obviously not her. The other actresses looked genuinely happy for her. I picked an upset with Ellen Page for her lead role in Juno but that didn’t work out. The award kept the theme of foreign winners chugging right along.

Best Lead Actor was also no surprise with Daniel Day Lewis earning the Oscar for his portrayal of a ruthless oil man in There Will Be Blood. Lewis’ role was one of the more powerful acting performances of all-time and he single handedly carried the entire film.

Best Director went to the Coen brothers for their work in No Country for Old Men. I just gave an educated guess in this category to be honest and it hit. I love the Coen’s movies. Most have trouble connecting with their style but I am a fan.

It was at this point that I was pretty sure No County would win Best picture, as I had no idea beforehand. When the Coen’s won best adapted screenplay, I thought they were the favorite. But then Diablo Cody won bets screenplay for Juno and I thought the teen pregnancy comedy would actually pull off a best picture upset.

Turns out the Coen’s held their ground and won best picture for No Country for Old Men. Awesome movie, loved it…end was a bit confusing but I’ll have to see it again. Tough night for There Will Be Blood which led in nominations but only really scored with Mr. Lewis. The Bourne Ultimatum took all three sound awards, thought that was pretty stellar.

Jon Stewart did fine in his second gig as host but shouldn’t be invited back. I love the guy but his humor of saying something, making a goofy face, and expecting laughs only works with 18-25 kids in his live audience that are more than likely not sober. It was the lowest viewed Oscar viewership ever. I love ya Stewart, just stick to zee Daily Show. Colbert would have been better.

And then afterwards Kimmel hit back on his show regarding his girlfriend’s now famous song about her having an affair with Matt Damon behind Jimmy’s back. Watch below, high comedy.

I’ve become obsessed with development in Dubai for about a year now and thought I’d share some of the current projects being worked on over there with my blog readers. There are a lot of pictures in this because words don’t really do a justice to the magnitude of the construction undertaken. Some of the projects are well known and some have slipped under the radar of the Western media, so prepare to be amazed.

This is the same street in 2003

Firefox v3 is now available in Beta. I wouldn’t use it full-time yet because it doesn’t play nice with all sites, but if you’re a tech nerd and wanna screw around with it, may as well take it for a little test drive. I’ve long been a Firefox fanboy. The tabbed browsing was a miraculous moment for myself and many others. But FF has started to sour a bit in my mind, especially when there are over 10 tabs open, it what many deem ‘memory leaks’ causing FF to use too much CPU memory and crash, and far too often. If you use a Mac, you’re probably comfortable with Safari by now. It’s available for free at Apple for PC’s as well if you want to give it a try. It can be a bit glitchy with some sites, but too infrequent to really notice. Opera is a fine and popular alternative browser. Flock is also a growing alternative. But the leader is still, somehow, Microsoft’s Internet Explorer. If you’re reading this in IE, search for one of the others I listed and try it, you’ll never go back.

Because sooner or later you need to make a choice….
I also know a cool little hack that will make your FF run noticeably quicker on any connection, email me and I’ll send ya directions.

With Junior Senator Barack Obama’s straight wins in Nebraska, Washington, Maine, Louisiana, Maryland, Virginia, and the District of Columbia he has taken over the delegate lead from Jr. Senator Clinton.

That TIME cover is from October 2006, a few months before he announced his candidacy. I remember seeing it in Wegmans and immediately buying it…I never buy magazines. Flashback to the 2004 Democratic National Convention. It was a night to rally Democrats around the ticket of John Kerry and John Edwards to dethrone the Bush/Cheney White House. While the results did not go as planned later on with the details being swiftboated, the keynote address that night remains entrenched in my memory. It was captivating, paralyzing, and exciting. It was given by a man who was running for a Illinois Senate seat, not even a sitting elected national official. It was given by longtime Chicago legislator Barack Obama. If you want to watch one of the greater political speeches in history, watch below.

Well back to the drawing board for Steve Ballmer.

Yahoo’s board officially announced today that they were declining Microsoft’s $44.6B takeover offer that would have forced Microsoft borrow money for the first time ever.

Why did Y! decide to turn it down? Simply put, Y! thought the offer severely undervalued their worth. So they decided to stick to their guns and continue to go it alone. The brand, the audience, the financial strength, and the technology is apparently worth more than $45,000,000,000.00

Online advertising market is projected to grow from $45 billion in 2007 to $75 billion in 2010. Y! is going to need to get their hands on as much of that as possible.The Yahoo! global brand is a tremendous base, often as the starting point for internet use. There are some 500 million Yahoo users (1 out of every 2 internet users worldwide). In America Y! is #1 in personalized home pages, mail, music, news, sports, shopping and travel. And is also #1 in time spent on their sites, an increasingly important metric for marketers. Yahoo clearly feels that their operating cash flow is sufficient to continue operations independently, and sizable enough to go forth with their growth strategies.

Or maybe Y! is simply leveraging for a bigger offer, or a different suitor. Microsoft could attempt a hostile takeover of the board, that’d at least be entertaining. Regardless, two of the industry giants will not operate as one, for now. Stay tuned to see how it plays out.

At the turn of the new year I predicted that the technology merger and acquisition market in 2008 was going to be dynamite, truly changing the tech game as we once knew it.

Two weeks ago I told just about anyone who asked to get a hold of some very undervalued YHOO stock, I don’t think too many listened. I’ll take my 50% ROI thanks.

MSFT then surprised everyone, including me, with a ~$44 Billion offer to buy Y! at a stock price premium of 62%. Not that it wasn’t unexpected, but the timing came out of left field and finally put Brin and Page on the defensive. Home Run Ballmer, Check GOOG.

Looking at Y! singularly, it is a fascinating tale. To build a company with more than $6B in sales and more than 25B in market cap is an astounding feat . Unfortunately for Y!, it has had to weather both the original internet bubble bursting and stock collapse and the emergence of Google as not a force in search and online advertising, but the leader.

MSFT has been trying to compete with Google for years now, always seeming to come up a bit short or be a bit behind their GOOG adversary. Windows Live was, well terrible…Vista still sucks, and their stock has remained stagnant while Google’s increased 7 fold.

Maybe the times are a changing. MSFT beat Google to the punch on Facebook, has had tremendous success with xBox Live and will soon be offering movies and music via the services (a la iTunes or moreover a better Apple TV), and now they have made a move on Google’s biggest competitor. While everyone will pretty much agree that Google is the internet search king, I remind you that Yahoo is still the internet’s most trafficked site primarily due to the huge email market share they possess.

Should Y! accept the offer? When Google came knocking on Y! CEO Jerry Yang’s door offering an acquisition because Google had won, Y! said thanks but no thanks and went back to work. Yang chose to run his company without Wall St interfering in their operations and instead continued to run their baby their way. That is why I think this makes sense for YHOO. MSFT will almost surely allow Yang to continue in day-to-day operations and run YHOO his way, MSFT isn’t complaining with YHOO’s balance sheet. Maybe Ballmer got this one right. Making a move instead of standing still. Act, not react. It hasn’t been MSFT’s position the last few years but maybe they’re getting back to what made them the giant they are.

Yang has said that Yahoo stands for You Always Have Other Options. Options will always be there. But I can’t think of a better option for Yang, his employees, and his shareholders to accept the MSFT offer and fall under their umbrella of security.

No CEO likes to see his company go to someone else, especially after all that Y! has endured, but there is no better option.

Let’s talk us some politics and some economic issues!

Florida’s primary win was monumental for Sen. McCain because it was his first real Republican win (New Hampshire and Carolina were more liberal and independent vote fused). McCain certainly becomes the favorite to garner the delegates heading into Super Tuesday to become the GOP nominee for the 2008 Presidential election.

The loss for Romney was disappointing but it didn’t kill him. He has the millions of moolah to make a big push Super Tuesday, especially in bigger states with more delegates, and could come out on top if he picks up some momentum heading into February 5th. The former Massachusetts Governor is noticeably more conservative than Sen. McCain, so I think he might be a shocking upset winner. He also has a long line of private sector economic experience which could be a huge factor for voters with the nation’s current problems. In his favor is that this GOP race is now a two-man sprint in my opinion, with Rudy being forced to drop out, Ron Paul not picking up any steam off his younger supporters, and Mike Huckabee generally scaring the hell out of people with some of his quotes (Notably saying he’d, ‘amend the constitution to God’s standards).

On the flip side, Sen. Clinton’s win in Florida didn’t mean anything as the DNC was punishing Florida (Like Michigan) for not cooperating with their desired primary schedule. An unfortunate but necessary message the DNC had to send to other states. But Clinton’s win was big in that it, at least, stalled some of Obama’s tremendous momentum stemming from his blowout win in South Carolina and his coveted endorsement from Sen. Ted Kennedy.

With Edwards surprising decision to drop out, the Democratic race truly becomes a two-head race between Sen. Clinton and Sen. Obama toward the Democratic nomination. I’d like to hope that it will be settled on Super Tuesday, but even then it may be too close to call. It would be a journalistic dream if it actually went to the convention, with maybe Edwards giving his delegates to one of the two and deciding the winner. Hollywood couldn’t write that stuff.

I wrote a few posts back that Edwards should simply drop out then and jump on as Obama’s running mate, which would have in my opinion already ensured Obama’s win. It’s possible that will still indeed happen. As for a running mate for Sen. Clinton, I think retired NATO Commander Wesley Clark is a possible fit. So get ready, politics at its finest is forthcoming.

The 4^th quarter GDP numbers came out and the growth was even less than originally expected. Growth was expected to be in the 1.2%-1.6% range but only came in at .6%. For those scoring at home, that is barely a growth margin and devastatingly less than the 3^rd quarter’s ~5% growth. The Fed has lowered the interest rate three times already, once in a panicked .75% rate cut. My Mom is a banker and she can tell you better than anyone the effect this is having, even on a local level, where Rochester has been better off than the rest of the country, especially in foreclosure percentages.

Now we have a bi-partisan, repeat….bi-partisan, agreement on an economic stimulus plan that would put money back into the economy to stimulate any spurt. Facebook had a question that asked if it was a good idea and I was shocked and happy to see that 88% of users said it was a bad idea. That speaks volumes to the nation’s youth, which mostly comprise Facebook, to recognize that even though most college kids are broke and wouldn’t mind $600 in their pocket, it would be bad overall for the country and we are the ones who will have to pay for it later on. It’s like the government is saying, “Uh sorry we f%@#d up your economy, here’s a thousand dollars!” We’re in our worst national deficit ever and we want to give out more money…this is again why we should have a President of Common Sense.

This economy is most certainly stagflation, an ugly scenario of a stagnant economy and inflation undertones that the media doesn’t seem to notice or report. Recession? Not quite. But these are troubled times and its survival of the fittest out there.