Carr and Panthers Stomped by N.O.

Thick gray clouds covered the sky like a blanket in Charlotte on Sunday, November 25, 2007. I went to see my first NFL game with my dad and brother. We had great seats, so I saw the players very well. On Sunday, the Carolina Panthers were battling the New Orleans Saints. Both teams were 4-6 at the start of the game, which meant that the winner would move up in the division ranks and have a better potential of getting into the playoffs. Vinny Testaverde was supposed to start as quarterback for the Panthers but was inactive due to a sore back from the previous day. To take his place, David Carr became the starter. Panthers fans knew what to expect from their team after the first half in which Carolina made only one first down to a penalty against the Saints. As time progressed through regulation, the Saints kept playing better, the Panthers worse. Carolina coach John Fox finally substituted David Carr with Matt Moore after hearing enough negative things from the stands. Overall, New Orleans played a pretty good game. They were aggressive on both sides of the ball and held the Panthers to score only two field goals by kicker John Kasay. The Panthers, on the other hand, played horrible. Their defense struggled against Saints running back Reggie Bush. The offense had a hard time moving the ball up the field, partly because of the simple mistakes of David Carr. But you can’t blame the mistakes of a team on one man. Or can you?

New Orleans Saints

1st Downs: 22
Total Yards: 373
Passing: 260
Rushing: 113
Penalties: 5-76
3rd Down Conversions: 11-18
4th Down Conversions: 0-0
Turnovers: 1
Possession: 39:23

Carolina Panthers

1st Downs: 11
Total Yards: 195
Passing: 152
Rushing: 43
Penalties: 5-35
3rd Down Conversions: 3-13
4th Down Conversions: 0-2
Turnovers: 4
Possession: 20:37

Week 12 Scores From Around the League

Green Bay (10-1) 37
Detroit (6-5) 26

New York Jets (2-9) 3
Dallas (10-1) 34

Indianapolis (9-2) 31
Atlanta (3-8) 13

Tennessee (6-5) 6
Cincinnati (4-7) 35

Houston (5-6) 17
Cleveland (7-4) 27

Oakland (3-8) 20
Kansas City (4-7) 17

Seattle (7-4) 24
St. Louis (2-9) 19

Chatting With Chad

Confused’s Question: “How do you tell if a guy is in to you?”

Chad’s Answer: Try smiling at him. if he smiles back, he might be in to you. If he smiled at you, ask him out. if he says no, start crying. He might go out with you then.-Chad

Cabbage Hater asks: “How do you feel about cabbage?”

Chad’s Response: I hate cabbage. It makes me puke. Read Taste of Tabor to learn more about cabbage.

Unlucky Luke: “I have a big test today. Should I study for it?”

Chad: Stop asking questions and go study.

Spideyman5 asks: “I didn’t make the sports team. What should I do?”

Chad: You should play on a recreational/community team. You are almost guaranteed to play.”

Chalk Hater: How come teachers don’t got no chalk board these days?”-I Ain’t Got No Grammer

Chad’s Chalky Response: I like chalk. White boards are replacing chalkboards these days. It’s not good.

Horoscopes

Aries (March 21 – April 19) – Bring your swimsuit to school today

Taurus (Apr 20 – May 20) – Beware of loud music

Gemini (May 21- June 21) – Be careful trusting horoscopes like these

Cancer (June 22- July 22) - Don’t play contact sports today (ping pong is fine)

Leo (July 23- Aug 22) – You will get caught chewing gum today

Virgo (Aug 23- Sept 22) – The opposite sex finds you irresistible today

Libra (Sept 23- Oct 22) – Look out for Virgos today

Scorpio (Oct 23 – Nov 21) Be sure to look both ways several times before you cross the street.

Sagittarius (Nov 22- Dec 21) Instead of wearing contacts, wear your glasses this week

Capricorn (Dec 22- Jan 19) Good things will come if you do go to your bus stop this week

Aquarius (Jan 20- Feb 18) Look behind you, quick!

Pisces (Feb 19- March 20) Eat cereal for breakfast tomorrow

Facebook VS MySpace

Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. Founded on February 4, 2004, it was created by Mark Zuckerburg. Originally created for only Harvard scholars, Facebook stretched over more well known colleges and universities in the Boston area within two months. Soon afterwards, Facebook was being used from people around the world. Over three years later, Facebook has become one of the most visited websites on the Internet and has millions of users.

Stats:

Facebook is a social networking website that allows people to communicate with their friends and exchange information. Founded on February 4, 2004, it was created by Mark Zuckerburg. Originally created for only Harvard scholars, Facebook stretched over more well known colleges and universities in the Boston area within two months. Soon afterwards, Facebook was being used from people around the world.  Over three years later, Facebook has become one of the most visited websites on the Internet and has millions of users.

Stats:

Active Users: Over 50 million

Monthly New User Average: 4 million

Daily New User Average: 200,000

Page Views: Over 15 billion per month

Searches: Over 500 million per month

Search Index Size: 200 GB

Largest Networks: London, UK (1,673,636) and Toronto, Canada (944,832)

Traffic Rank: 7th

Photos: 1.7 billion (which averages to about 44 photos per user)

MySpace is another social networking website. It has been more popular than Facebook in the past few years and has higher user averages than Facebook. MySpace was created in August 2003 and was used by employees of eUniverse, a publicly traded Internet company. The company held contests to see who could sign up the most users. Soon afterwards, MySpace became very popular!

Stats:

Accounts: Over 200 million

Daily New User Average: 230,000

Let’s compare both and see who is better than the other.

ROUND 1:

Layout: Facebook wins here because the profiles are well set up, organized and easy to navigate. Most MySpace profiles are ugly and inconsistent.

Overall Site Design: When compared to Facebook, MySpace looks amateur. Facebook is obviously the winner in here.

Profiles: We have a tie in this category. MySpace has a lot of customization while Facebook has a better default look and is neater and well organized.

Customization: MySpace and Facebook tie once again. While Facebook lets you add and remove applications, MySpace lets you do whatever you want with the page, if you know a little HTML. That’s why MySpace profiles look so disorderly, though.

Site Organization: Both are pretty well organized but Facebook wins here because of its clean layout that allows you to find everything right away.

Round Winner: Facebook

ROUND 2:

Pictures: Facebook wins here because of its neat picture section and the ability to tag people and to have people to tag themselves.

Videos: This one is a tie because both MySpace and Facebook let you upload video and they both have their own flash player. MySpace allows you to embed videos into your profile but you can post videos to Facebook as well.

Music: MySpace wins here since it is easy to place full songs in your profile. If you download the iLike application in Facebook, you’ll only be able to add clips of songs to your profile for free.

Round Winner: Facebook

ROUND 3:

Relationships: A big difference on Facebook is that the friends that you add are really your friends. It’s not a contest like MySpace, where people try to have the most friends as possible.

Groups: Both sites have groups, but Facebook makes them more well-known. They are a big part of the service and there are a lot of people using them for productive uses like planning meetings and giving info to fans. Many people who run businesses or websites have groups while others make groups just for leisure.

What’s New: Facebook beats MySpace by a mile here! On MySpace, the only way to see updates on you or your friends profile is to go look for it yourself. Facebook, on the other hand, notifies you when there is in an update.

Messaging: This is a tie since both have a place where people can leave messages and a basic mail system.

Co-Workers: Facebook is a perfect tool to communicate with people who you work with. Users can join networks of their company to see what’s going on. MySpace was mostly designed for teenagers so it doesn’t have these kind of features.

Round Winner: Facebook

ROUND 4:

Adding Friends: MySpace wins here because you can add any amount of friends in one click. In Facebook, you must go through a longer process just to add a friend individually.

Search: Surprisingly, Facebook wins in this category! Even though Google is the search engine for MySpace, it is very hard to find exactly what you are looking for. If you type in a name, you can find a profile with the name in it, not the actual person you were searching for. Also, Facebook’s search engine is smart enough to know if you are looking for a user or a movie in someone’s interests.

Navigation: MySpace and Facebook both have decent navigation, but Facebook beats MySpace if you’re searching for a specific person’s profile due to its superb search engine.

Privacy: It’s really easy to hide information from certain people and it takes just a second. MySpace has privacy options but aren’t as good as Facebook’s.

Round Winner: Facebook

AND THE WINNER IS… FACEBOOK!

For questions and tips, e-mail me at sean@whatsupwakefield.com

The Real Mrs. Piombino

Every week we’re (Marissa & Erin) interviewing the best of Wakefield Middle’ s faculty and staff. We’re delivering the inside scoop on your favorite teachers. Read more

Close Win For Wakefield

What did I tell you? A close win for Wakefield in the end, if I remember my prediction correctly. I guess what I said came true, because Wakefield beat Wake Forest Rolesville 13-8. Go wolves!   Read more

Motorola RAZR V8 – The Second Generation RAZR

The second generation of Motorola’s RAZR phone is not just an upgrade. It has been redesigned with the most unsurpassed features possible, including their new CrystalTalk technology which blocks out loud background noise and prioritizes your voice. Going down the highway at 65 miles per hour with the windows down is no match for this phone. Motorola’s claim is that CrystalTalk’s digital processor identifies speech patterns by the narrow range of frequencies it falls into, and by regular pauses. It rejects background noises and chatter, which merge into a continuous tone. It works in both directions cleaning up your voice and the person’s voice that you are talking to. The only problem is that CrystalTalk doesn’t compensate for poor cell phone reception. That’s not the only thing they’ve upgraded though, so don’t stop reading just quite yet. Motorola has outfitted the RAZR with a brand new 770mAh (milliamps an hour) battery that boosts this phone’s standby time to 330 hours and talk time to 470 minutes. They have also put a 500Mhz processor, making it almost 10 times faster than the old RAZR (Note that an average computer has a 1000Mhz processor, only twice as much). The camera has been upgraded to 2.0 megapixels and 8x digital zoom for much better image quality. Finally, this phone is fitted with 2 gigabytes of on board memory allowing you to hold up to 1000 songs and take almost 2 hours of video. The touch sensitive screen makes it a perfect music player for anyone. On the bad side, the phone isn’t cheap. Right now, you can expect to pay a whopping $400 for it. Motorola.com

Specs:

• Size: 103 x 53 x 11.9 mm
• Display: 2.2” (QVGA 320 x 240) – 262k colors
• Talk time: 470 minutes
• Standby time: 330 hours
• Processor speed: 500 MHz
• Camera: 2.0 megapixel fixed focus, 8x digital zoom
• Price: $400
• On board memory: 2 GB
• Connectivity: Micro 2.0 high speed USB
• FEATURES: Class 2 V 2.0 Bluetooth, up to 1000 songs and 2 hours of video, full HTML browser, and aluminum construction make it virtually indestructible.

 

Tabor’s Taste: Outback Steakhouse

This week I went to Outback Steakhouse. This restaurant is Australian themed, with boomerangs and pictures of kangaroos everywhere. If you go on a Friday or over the weekend, Outback will usually be packed with people, so you will have to wait. The good thing is that it’s a big restaurant that moves pretty quickly, so you will usually have to wait about 10-15 minutes maximum.

When you get to your table your waiter/waitress will give you some really great bread with butter, so luckily you don’t have to wait for appetizers. For my dinner, I got a fillet (steak) that comes with a salad for an appetizer. For my side dish I got some cheese fries that have bacon bits on them. First I ate my salad, it was ok, I mean it tasted like all the other salads I’ve had. Finally I got my steak. Their steak is unbelievably good. It’s so juicy, and so flavorful. When you first eat it you get a flavor of garlic an onion. And as it goes down your throat it has a spicy kick to it, like chili peppers. Then I ate my cheese fries. When they say cheese fries they mean it, there is an enormous pile of cheese on them. I think there’s way to much cheese on them, I mean its hard enough just to find one french fry in the giant pile of cheese. Now it’s time for desert so I ordered a spotted dog sundae, which is vanilla ice cream with hot chocolate syrup, cookies and cream, topped with whipped cream and a cherry. Now doesn’t that just make your mouth water? It made mine. The sundae was so delicious, I loved it and all the chocolate in it. But it is very filling so leave some room for it.

Overall I would recommend this restaurant to anyone. It’s not just a steakhouse; they also serve seafood, chicken, etc. But this restaurant is pretty pricy, so if you’re on a tight budget I would not recommend this place for you. I give this restaurant a 9 out of 10.

Books & Video Reviews

Books:

The Edge Chronicles #1: Beyond the Deepwoods

By Paul Stewart & Chris Riddell

This book is about a child, Twig, who lives and was raised in a woodtroll village. Twig has always been interested in other places besides his village but woodtrolls never stray from the path or explore and he has constantly wanted to fit in because he isn’t a woodtroll. One day Twig gets sent to his aunts house. On Twigs way there he goes off of the path into the treacherous Deepwoods which inhabits horrible creatures. But worst of all by there is the Gloamglozer lurking nearby. I think this is a good book with excitement, adventure, and suspense. Someone who would probably like this book would like other fantasy books with strange creatures.

The Series of Unfortunate Events #1 : The Bad Beginning

By Lemony Snicket

In this book Violet, Klaus,and Sunny Baudelaire have been living a very happy life. One day they are at the beach Mr. Poe, one of their parents friends, arrives with bad news. The children’s parents had been killed in a fire. The Baudelaire children were going to be sent to their closest relative, Count Olaf, a horrible disgusting man who they didn’t even know. I liked this book and thought that it had mystery and suspense in it. Some on who would like this book would like other mystery books.

Warriors #1: Into The Wild

By Erin Hunter

Rusty, a young house cat, has always wondered about the woods, what happens inside it, and what it feels like to be a wild cat. One evening Rusty goes into the woods and finds himself being attacked by another cat. When the other cat realizes Rusty isn’t prey he questions Rusty and eventually takes Rusty back to his clan, the Thunder Clan. I enjoyed reading this book because it had action and adventure. Someone who would like this book would probably like other fantasy adventure books, I would also recommend this book to any cat owner.

Video Games:

Mario Strikers Charged

For Wii

In this game you can pick a variety of Nintendo characters to form a soccer team. There are many different abilities and fields that you can play on. Since the Wii is very interactive it is even more fun when you flick the remote in the direction of an opposing player and you check them into the wall. I think that this is a new twist on most soccer games and fun.

Dance Dance Revolution Universe

For Xbox 360

When you go to an arcade and see people dancing to the arrows on the screen and you try. It’s a lot of fun and you want to go again but don’t want to spend all the money that it costs. Well now you don’t have to, you can buy Dance Dance Revolution Universe for your Xbox 360. This game includes over 70 songs and has its own dance pad so it feels like your at an arcade. You can also unlock new videos and songs as you go. This game is very easy and fun to use.

Go Wolves! Go Wakefield!

“Go Wakefield!” Those words rang through the stands as parents, students, and cheerleaders shouted for joy. On Monday, November 5, 2007 with a score of 12-0 Wakefield won the game. But not without the help of their always cheery cheerleaders. With one minute and 20 seconds remaining, #16 made a touchdown although it wasn’t counted. The game was held til it got dark which meant they were always adding five minutes.

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