N85 Falling In Love?!

I cannot keep this secret any longer, I'm slowly falling in love with Nokia N85. The charm of this phone had already creep in my system and I cannot resist anymore.

You might be asking why, me a Nokia N82 enthusiast, falling in love to a device that is not by far different from my current device.

The answer is.. I dont know, its really difficult to explain, love is really difficult to comprehind, love is blind and Im talking nonsense already but then I'll try to figure things up along the way.

All I know is that I want something different. The biggest catch I guess was the hardware, Nokia N85 has the impressive AMOLED screen which was reviewed fantasticaly, citing it as the best screen ever emulating the best and surreal color. The screen doesn't need backlight like LCD so it would mean power conservation to the maximum. The dual slider form is a big factor as well, ever since I have been using candybar phone being a solid and sturdy but with the advent of mobile device revolution, new models comes up every now and then leaving us wanting to upgrade also every now and then, the notion doesn't apply anymore for me and slider have become acceptable in my standard for the least 6 months to a year of usage.

Factor number 3, the Feature Pack 2 that N85 carries. They say that theirs really no big difference between FP1 and FP2 but its undeniable that the transition effect separates them big time and I love it.

Other factor would be the dedicated media buttons, I'm a big media freak, playing music every now and then, games left and right, movies, youtube etc., having dedicate buttons for all this is heaven sent. FM transmitter is a welcome addition to N85's media strength and Naviwheel also seem interesting. Although I'm not a big fan of Dual LED being a former Xenon flash user, I think I can live with that.

The problem now is weither I have the courage to dump my Nokia N82 for N85, will my love for N85 overpower my love for N82? Obviously I can only choose 1 because I cant afford both, I have to sell my N82 if I'll go for N85 so this is going to be very hard.

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The Amazing Race US

Gone were The Amazing Race Asia days friends and welcome to The Amazing Race US blog day, the original, the genuine race around the world.

I was a bit disappointed with how the Asian version wraps up its 3rd season, it didn't cover other continents compared to the 2nd season, hopefuly the show is not in the state of regression like the US economy.

Anyways, back to the US version, the race is now on the last 3 leg, 4 teams left and the next episode will then cast the final 3. Of all the season of The Amazing Race US, this was perhaps my most liked and enjoyed because of the unique tasks done by the races and has the most diverse teams. It was the first time also that I like all the remaining 4 teams at this leg of the race with hated teams got eliminated one by one.

The teams left were mother and son tandem, Toni and Dallas, ex-couple Ken and Tina, sibblings Nick and Starr and fratboys Dan and Andrew. I love all this teams and whoever wins between of them will be a welcome result. I like the brewing romance of Dallas and Starr, it brought color to the race. I like the helpful personality of Tina, she never hesitate to help other teams that deserves to remain. I'm a fan of the stupidity and dumber character of Dan and Andrew, they come out funny and hilarous on serious and difficult tasks. The last episode is their best moment specialy the marching tasks, I laugh the hardest because Andrew looks very stupid while marching. You should see this episode friends if you want to work out those smile muscles in your face.

I was very excited on the next episode as a speed bump task involves dancing for Andrew and Dan, I believe it will be another laugh out loud moments for them and I can't wait to see that. c",

Team Standing:
1. Toni and Dallas - Its their very first taste to the top. They've been on second position for several leg and they truely deserve this position for their unwaivering competitiveness.
2. Ken and Tina - I mention already the reason why I have sympathy for this team, hopefully they will exert more effort to pull out another lead, they finish 1st twice already and I know they can itch another lead.
3. Nick and Starr - Their combination is lethal, a very competitive and smart team. No wonder why they finish first placer 5 times so far.
4. Dan and Andrew - They're dead last in this leg because of the marching stint and acquire a speed bump as a consequence. Obviously their a weak team but I like them because making me laugh all the time.

I wish all the of them LUCK on the next leg. Cheers to reality entertainment!

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Mobile Shop Watch de Zamboanga

Some good news for Nokia N85 and Nokia N79 watchers along the Zamboanga Peninsula, Philippines, the two powerful device have finally landed on the shore of Asia's one and only Latin City, Zamboanga. I was there again 2 days ago for a business trip and visited MobileXpress shop, the biggest mobile phone shop in the city, and find the two phones on display. As seen in the pictures I took, N85 carry a price tag of 24,595 pesos while the N79 has a 20,995 mark. Still quite expensive to me but changes in the price well surely take effect in due time.

The two phones will surely be added to the Christmast list or wishlist of Zamboanguenos, no doubt as it have gained a lot of attention from on lookers. Well Nokia's portion of the store is always flooded with watchers and window shoppers compared to competitors areas but the shelve of N85 and N79 has more pickers than the rest. I myself wish I could own N85 by Christmass (hopefully Santa Clauss can read this post and decided to give me one) c", but that remains to be seen because I still have to find out if my budget can rich that much. 24,000 pesos is a hell lot of money to raise.

Anyways for some other news, I didn't saw the N96 in the shelves this time. I cited its availability on my previous blog post before and out of curiosity, I asked the sales personnel about it. She told me they have sold all their units already and currently out of stock. Isn't it a bad time to be out of stock during Christmass season? They say that there units are on the way anytime soon and the best thing they can do as of the moment was to add buyers to the waiting list, or cast a preorder payment hmm? a lame excuse. They should have ordered additional units before they ran out of stocks. I believe though that the huge turn out sales for N96 was unexpected for them knowing how hefty it was and that the country was battered by economic recession. Well, its a lesson learn, never under estimate the buying power of the public because price never matter among powerful products like N96.

Thats it for now folks, stay tuned for more mobile shop watch.

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Brain Power Up; Part 2

Some more brain power ups friends c", We should follow this advices religiously being very much vulnerable to memory loss ourselves.

41. Play ‘brain’ games. Sudoku, crossword puzzles or countless others.
42. Be childish!
43. Play video games.
44. Be humorous! Write or create a joke.
45. Create a List of 100.
46. Have an Idea Quota.
47. Capture every idea. Keep an idea bank.
48. Incubate ideas. Let ideas percolate. Return to them at regular intervals.
49. Engage in ‘theme observation’. Try to spot the color red as many times as possible in a day. Find cars of a particular make. Invent a theme and focus on it.
50. Keep a journal.
51. Learn a foreign language.
52. Eat at different restaurants - ethnic restaurants specially.
53. Learn how to program a computer.
54. Spell long words backwards. !gnignellahC
55. Change your environment. Change the placement of objects or furniture — or go somewhere else.
56. Write! Write a story, poetry, start a blog.
57. Learn sign language.
58. Learn a musical instrument.
59. Visit a museum.
60. Study how the brain works.
61. Learn to speed-read.
62. Find out your learning style.
63. Dump the calendar!
64. Try to mentally estimate the passage of time.
65. “Guesstimate”. Are there more leaves in the Amazon rainforest or neuron connections in your brain? (answer).
66. Make friends with math. Fight ‘innumeracy’.
67. Build a Memory Palace.
68. Learn a peg system for memory.
69. Have sex! (sorry, no links for this one! :) )
70. Memorize people’s names.
71. Meditate. Cultivate mindfulness and an empty mind.
72. Watch movies from different genres.
73. Turn off the TV.
74. Improve your concentration.
75. Get in touch with nature.
76. Do mental math.
77. Have a half-speed day.
78. Change the speed of certain activities. Go either super-slow or super-fast deliberately.
79. Do one thing at a time.
80. Be aware of cognitive biases.

More Power Ups to Come

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Nokia Email Service

One of the most remarkable add on software release by Nokia lately was the Nokia Email. A push email service that automaticaly deliver emails to a Nokia devices. The service provides user with up to date and on time mails from any Internet Service Providers like Goggle, Yahoo among others. No need to change email address or ISP site because it basicaly works with thousands of ISP site with Hotmail as an exemption. Nokia Email allows you to view, answer, forward, compose and delet messages as well as manage email inbox, outbox, draft and sent folders.

I personaly love this service, now my email messages are on the go, on my mobile phone and delivery is promp as it happend when it happend. Now I dont have to miss any important emails ever.


The catch though was that the mobile device needs to be connected all the time to the internet and this isn't a problem for me since both my office and abode has WIFI. Using 3G in this service will definitely be costly and its not advisable. The service also eats up power as the phone needs to be connected to the web and its like browsing information every now and then.

Anyhow, I find those issues minor that can sufface the benefit you earn from using the service. For more information, you can visit their website at www.email.nokia.com

Enjoy Folks!

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Re-Mobbler

Mobbler the best Last.Fm scribbler (featured this great application before) has a very important beta software upgrade that brings a new look to the program, this time a more hip and vibrant page that soothed its users, mostly youth and the young at heart.

Among the changes in the mobbler page was the scrool menu, before it was a lousy one that only involves increase, decrease volume and next track, now it includes option such as Love It or Dump It. The Dump It button allows the listeners to block tracks that they don't like and this tracks wont be included anymore in their future tracklist. The Love It option saves the track to your favorite list thus allowing it to be played again in your future scribble.

The new page also displays a more bigger album art and track time and if you increase the volume using the volume racker, it change to volume gauge which I find useless, maybe they should replace the track time with a more usable one like lyrics of the song played. They should also include an option to mute the voice so what remains is the melody. This would make it the ultimate mobile karaoke software.

Pretty cool right? specially now that karaoke machines are slowly gaining attention all over the world. I'm planning to write a letter to mobbler hoping that they will grant my wish. c",

Other upgrades, Options menu have offline mode added and the User option was added on the Start New Radio grid.

Anyways, if you haven't update yet to the new mobbler version, head over their website at www.mobblr.com

Enjoy!

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U.S. Weekend Box Office!

November 21 - 23 Weekend

1. Twilight
$70,553,000.00
Gross: $70,553,000.00

2. Quanton Of Solace
$27,400,000.00
Gross: $109,483,000.00




3. Bolt
$27,000,000.00
Gross: $27,000,000.00

4. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
$16,000,000.00
Gross: $137,447,000.00




5. Role Models
$7,229,000.00
Gross: $48,037,000.00

6. Changeling
$2,643,000.00
Gross: $31,613,000.00




7. High School Musical: Senior Year
$2,006,000.00
Gross: $86,821,000.00

8. Zack And Miri Make A Porno
$1,700,000.00
Gross: $29,350,000.00




9. The Boy In Striped Pajama
$1,673,000.00
Gross: $2,653,000.00

10. The Secret Life Of Bees
$1,275,000.00
Gross: $35,649,000.00

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Smart Love!

I receive a mail from Smart Broadband informing me about improvements in my monthly statement of account.

The new bill will now have a separate entry for the 12% Value Added Tax that shows a more detailed computation of how much of payment is remitted as tax and the inclusion of Official Receipt of the payment covering the previous months bill.

This are bold moves by Smart Communications in giving consumers the best and the most transparent service and I uphold them for that. The bill will now be more specific and concise thus eliminating errors of mis-billing or mis-payment.

The only area that they need to improve now is the bill's delivery time. My bill was due November 15, 2008, yet my bill statement arrive on the 16th. Do the word prompt exist in their system? They should have delivered the bill a week before its due date. I know Smart Broadband can do something about this. Make it happen!

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The Amazing Race Asia; Final Pit Stop

A heart breaking news people, team Philippines only finish 2nd in the race.

I have to congratulate the Amazing Race Asia team though for giving us the most exciting and the most fun finale ever. Tasks are the toughest, difficult and excrutiating challenges come forth and luck came in to play.

It was luck that brought Sam and Vince to finish line first, it would have been Geoff and Tisha if they didnt picked the wrong taxi driver. I gues they didnt study the Race well before joining. American teams usually contact a cab long hand before arriving to their final destination, a cab driver that is knowledgable on the place, it would give them the biggest advantage.

Ida and Tania brought up a good fight but it was luck again turn astray that made them finish last. Missing a connecting flight killed their changes.

Anyhow congratulations to the three teams and their supporters. See you all in the next season of the most Amazing Race in Asia and the World.

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Nokia Phone Leak

I just recently read an article about Nokia roadmap bearing future devices that leaked to the mobile world and I honestly believe that the suppose list is a pure hoax. It looks somehow like a product of imagination of a certain user or group of users that earnestly want this changes to be seen in future nokia phones. It also looks like a mere prediction thinking about the possibility that this devices in production and the authors of this article are the ultimate psychics who just want to make a buzz what so ever.

The information that it carries are nothing surprising. Most of the info written in the roadmap have been known already like the 8MP camera phone. It have been confirm long before than Nokia was working on it. The touchscreen flagship, E series upgrades etc. This have been long way buzzing in the mobile world. So what the authors did was combine this rumors with other rumors and come up with a road plan.

Worth noting though is the code names given to the devices, there amuzingly funny. Eitri for example sounds like Russian and Corolla sounds like a car, probably they got it from Toyota Corolla like that also of IPO8 which they probably got from Starwars. Ivalo still sound Russian, perhaps a Russian is behind all this. c",

It might be also a strategy from Nokia itself to fool competitors. They consciously want to mislead competitors that they will release those phones and yet release other phones instead, more powerful, more advance, more sophisticated and just caught competitors by surprise.

Well whatever the reason behind this, i strongly believe that this leaks are not true. Only one thing is sure, Nokia will continue to lean its product lines forward to the next level and we the consumers will benefit from it.

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Eagle Eye, My Thoughts

Got a little time lately folks to watch a movie, I was on trip this weekend and in a big city where decent movie houses splur so I didn't waste the opportunity to watch and just so happend that Eagle Eye was rolling.

I like the movie, in the scale of 1 to 10 with 10 as the highest, ill gave it a decent 7. The movie captured my interest from the start having a very good trailer and it didn't failed. The movie was indeed action packed with a theme that inflict curiosity, a scenario that might have already been true in many sense where in we live in a world that revolves around technology, internet or mobile communication. It shows how powerful our technology have become where it has the capability of knowing everything even to the point of being able to manipulate human beings. This isn't to far from reality. Right now we already have the technology to trace anyones location via GPS, trace phone numbers, personal files and even bank files. We call them the hackers of the system and there are hundreds of them in the web, an alarming strength.

Back to the movie, storyline was well made that moviegoers will be glued as to whats going to happend next or how will the story ends and the anticipation was on the upbeat. Their were times though that it become dragging but it pulled out just find. I just dont like the ending though. It lacks luster and should have been more exciting and cunning.

The special effects where dently made creating a soft finish scene, typical for a big budget film like this. Some unique stunts came to play among others.

On the acting department, Shai Lebaouf made a good portrayal and have carried the film all the way. He really was able to hone his acting being Steven Spielbergs favorite actor lately and will continue to grow in his craft in the upcoming years.

I will put a "go see the movie" tag on Eagle Eye and enjoy. Perhaps it will take sometime for Hollywood to make a reality driven movie like this.

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Putting Nokia N82 Battery To Test Using The Music Player With The Latest Firmware Upgrade V30.0.19

I was on my way to Zamboanga City for a work related matter when an idea pops out of my head, to test the battery life of my newly firmware updated Nokia N82 using the Music Player application. The trip was an excrutiating 9hours long on a non-aircondition bus, so it was the perfect oppurtunity since traveling this long is synonymous to boring moments except if I will be seated next to a beautiful and sexy chick. c",

I have been using my Nokia N82 music player everytime I travel and lets say in a month, it will be like twice or 3x depending on the situation and most of this travels, I oftenly use the music player extensively so I pretty knew about its battery limitations with the old firmware V20.

But before anything else, I must mention the following factors that might have affected the test.

1. The phone is 124 days old.
2. Battery was charge the whole night before the test day. I took the charger off by 6:00am.
3. Downloaded Softwares: BBC iPlayer, Media Safe, DIVX, Nokia Audiobooks, Mobitubia,MobiReader, Mive.TV, WF Navigator, Goggle Maps, Location Tagger, 11 Games, Sports Tracker, Step Counter - I run this in the background, Wellness Diary, Taskman - run in the background. I cited all this because their might be softwares among them that might run in the background without me knowing.
4. I have 79 tracks on my playlist.
Fav Hits from David Cook, Coldplay, David Archuleta, Kid Rock.
New Hits from Flo-Rida, Coldplay, Second Hand Serenade, Daughtry, Chris Brown, Hotstylz
Old Hits - 12 Ballad songs, I dont know who sang them.
Pinoy Hits from Cueshe, Hale, Side A, Freestyle, MYMP.
I'm citing this because battery consumption might differ specialy on upbeat and low beat tracks. Upbeat tracks dominate more by 2/3 than low beat songs.
5. Theme - NTL by Flahorn, this is irrelevant but for the sake of transparency, I have to mention this.
6. Volume is in Full Blast with Equalizer set to Bass Booster.
7. Warning Tones were On.
8. Text tone use - gyilkolas-mobile.aac
9. I receive 47 Text Messages during the test and replied to all. My secretary usually text me a lot during this times.
10. I receive a call from my staff nurse, asking me for voucher, it last for a minute and 46 seconds.
11. Network Signal is not permanent since I'm traveling. So it means that the phone was continuesly searching for signal.

Music Playing was of course continues and uninterrupted and here is the Time Table:

8:00am - Started the music player, gunning all the songs on my playlist. Battery is full 7 bars.
9:30am - Battery is still unchange at 7 bars.
10:30am - I was shock to find out that its still 7 bars, I usually get 5 bars before after 2 hours of continues music.
11:30am - 6 bars registered on the screen.
1:30pm - 5 bars
2:30pm - 4 bars came up, this would usualy come up as 1 bar before after 4 hours of continuous play.
3:30pm - 2 bars
4:16pm - 1st Battery Low signal came up
4:21pm - 2nd warning
4:27pm - 3rd signal
4:31pm - 4th warning, thats a 4 minute interval from d last signal
4:34pm - 5th signal, 3 minutes interval
4:37pm - Battery Empty

A total of 8hours and 37minutes of music playtime. This result was really very impressive. I use to go empty before after 5hours of continious music play but with the latest firmware update, the battery life was extended for almost 4 hours.

This test should eliminate peoples doubts weither the v30.0.19 update improves battery life or not, it really does amazingly. Stay tuned for more upcoming test.

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Nokia N96 and E71 Buenvinidos de Zamboanga

I visited one of the biggest mobile phone shop in Zamboanga City, Philippines 2 days ago, the Xpressmobile Store, and find exciting new stuff on its shelves, first, the Nokia flagship device N96 is now up for grabs that bear a hefty price tag of Php34,895.00, a cost that can be compare to the price tag of a decent laptop computer, a thousand Maling Luncheon Meat and boxes of imported Malaysian Chocolates, might have Melamin on it, that flooded the city's suburb stores and public markets. (I wonder if this products imported products from Malaysia, are legaly binded, perhaps not.)

The phone is realy super expensive and its not for everyone to own. I myself can only dream of owning one. I wonder how the N96 become so expensive when in fact the only difference it has with my Nokia N82 is DVB-H receiver, .4 inch additonal screen, dual slide form factor and 16GB internal memory. It was the only cellphone store by the way that has the N96 as of the moment, others will definitely follow soon.

Another device that was new on the shelf was the beautiful, powerful and award winning Nokia E71 that was price at Php21,295.00. This price tag is still expensive but the least its reasonable compared to N96. E71 was indeed very nice to look at, look only because they dont have sample units to fuddle and try with, but then looks alone can already entice, and it did, to me the least.

How I wish I can own every Nokia devices in the market but reality bites, I cant, I would have to be a milionaire to do that. Anyways, new things keeps on coming to Asia's Latin City and hopefully on my next visit to XpressMobile I could see Nokia N85 and 5800 XpressMusic on shelves as well.

Beunas Diaz and Chao Everyone.

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U.S. Weekend Box Office!

November 14 - 16 Weekend

1. Quantum Solace
$70,400,000.00
Gross: $70,400,000.00

2. Madagascar: Escape 2 Africa
$36,130,000.00
Gross: $118,018,000.00



3. Role Models
$11,710,000.00
Gross: $38,137,000.00

4. High School Musical 3: Senior Year
$5,879,000.00
Gross: $84,392,000.00



5. Changeling
$4,247,000.00
Gross: $27,625,000.00

6. Zack And Miri Make A Porno
$3,200,000.00
Gross: $26,519,000.00



7. Soul Men
$2,428,000.00
Gross: $9,449,000.00

8. The Secret Life Of Bees
$2,400,000.00
Gross: $33,689,000.00



9. Saw V
$1,790,000.00
Gross: $55,403,000.00

10. The Haunting Of Molly Hartley
$1,649,000.00
Gross: $12,695,000.00

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Nokia N82, 4 Months And Counting!

Part 5

Gaming capability is the last part of my Nokia N82 overview. It has been one of the strongest selling point of Nokia ever since and at the moment leaning it one step forward by introducing the N-Gage flatform that specialize in creating the best mobile gaming experience.

Nokia N82 is an N-Gage compatible device which carry a 3D graphic accelerator, a specs that can handle extensive games even in 3D format. Unfortunately though N-Gage games needs to be purchase and it cost hefty, only trial games are free to download from the N-Gage site. Worse of all N-Gage games cannot be purchase here in the Philippines so it was worthless than worthwhile.

Worry not Filipinos, Nokia N82 games doesnt revolve in N-Gage alone, it can support and play JAVA games and the regular game flatworm of almost every gaming company. My games on my N82 were not N-Gage, they're free games from Gameloft, Chocolat, Konami among others, and they are of good quality as well. I personaly like Assasins 3D and Asphalt 4, all of which have 3D graphics but Nokia N82 handles them well. If your going to think of it, why pay for something when you can get it free?

Anyways since this is the last part of the overview, I have to include other features of N82 that is worth noting as well like Accelerometer where you can rotate screen automaticaly by tilting. Good thing about this feature is not it is now being utilize by innovators and engineers to make it more useful. Games are now created that uses accelerometer as well as other application software so exciting things are yet to come.

To cap things up, Nokia N82 is the greatest device I have use so far and it definitely can go up par with the latest and expensive phones to date. N82 is greatly price as well thromping every other phone. I call it the Best Value Feature Packed Device to date.

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The Amazing Race Asia; Pit Stop 10

Another Amazing Race Asia Day Friends.

There are many reasons why we should call it an amazing day today. First, we have witness the most exciting and heart stopping episode of the season and Second, Philippines was part of the Top 3 teams who will be given a change to compete for the ultimate price.

The last episode was really crazy, it has the hardest challenges, the most difficult places to find and the most number wrong moves by the players. What keeps me excited was the catch up game of Goeff and Tisha, my team Philippines. I was like you'll get angry on their immature and irrelevant moves at the same time you're hoping that they can make up lost time and praying that other teams get lost or made the same mistakes as they did. Its a roller coaster of emotion, at first you're excited, then on the second part you loose hope and then on the next gearing up again then get disappointed and so forth.

I cant understand why two teams never made it to the last tasks. It looks easy, they'll just have to cross over the canyon gap via Tyrolean traverse, get their clue and then back to their position and they weren't able to do it. This is a big slap in the face of Sam because its a physical task and this should have been easy for him being a man and yet he was overtaken by a woman. I can understand AD not finishing it because of his body weight but Sam? come on!

Anyways here are the rundown of the Final Top 3.
1. Ida and Tania - Again, I'm very impressed by this team, they surely deserve a spot on the top 3 being amazingly strong and competitive.
2. Goeff and Tisha - A classic team performance and character they been doing in the previous episode only this time worse. In this episode, this team really performed the worsiest, there not focus, they rush things up without thinking and they easily loose patients. This is their downfall as I always cite up and if they'll not realize this very soon, they will not win.
3. Sam and Vince - I always cite this team as weak, and it really show up last night. I'm still not going to place my bet on them, Never!

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