| Toomer now realizes playoffs are special moment
He had a lot of attitude and not enough game preparation for a second-year player. All that did was land him on the Giants bench for their 1997 postseason showing. These days, the 33-year-old Toomer has given up on acting his NFL age. He's playing with far too much elusiveness and breakaway speed for a 12th-year elder coming off major knee surgery. That has him playing a lead role in his team's current joyride to Sunday's NFC Championship Game, where they will play the Packers at Lambeau Field. "I guess when I was younger, I didn't really appreciate what was going on," Toomer said. "The finality of the playoffs is something that you don't really understand as a young player. "Once you lose a couple playoff games, you're like, 'Oh, wow, this is serious.' " Toomer got his first taste of postseason disappointment at, of all places, De La Salle High in Concord.
Olympus Stylus 770 SW digital camera
The Olympus Stylus 770 SW is rugged and reasonably good looking. And that's pretty much where the praise runs out. The 7.1-megapixel camera is designed for rough outdoor use, with a sealed housing that's shockproof, freeze-proof, and crush-proof, and waterproof to depths of 33 feet to boot. It even has a manometer, which records the depth or altitude at which a photo was shot. The waterproof part is no gimmick, as the camera shrugged off repeated dunkings in salt water on a couple of kayak expeditions. If we had the time to go to Alaska, it no doubt also would have laughed at repeated drops onto the frozen tundra. Downsides? In Macworld jury tests, the camera did receive Good ratings across the board, but many shots came out soft and overexposed, and there's little room to override the camera's decisions.
Nikon Coolpix S200 compact digital camera
Nikon is world-famous for its high-end, professional cameras, but it's always struggled to break into the consumer market where rival brands have a much stronger following. In an attempt to crack this lucrative market, the company has launched a new ultra-compact – the Nikon Coolpix S200. The Nikon Coolpix S200 is by far the smallest camera that Nikon has produced to date and is as small, light and thin as anything else on the market, which is always a good start. .
Daytona 500: Hendrick vs. Gibbs
Joe Gibbs Racing has a two-time champion and two of the series' rising stars. How big is this Daytona 500 showdown? "It's going to be the epic battle, and it should be the battle of a lifetime and the century," Gibbs driver Tony Stewart quipped. "There may not be another battle of this proportion for the rest of my life, my career, for the century." OK, so Stewart was exaggerating. Still, when Hendrick driver Dale Earnhardt Jr. and Gibbs driver Denny Hamlin each won a qualifying race Thursday, it set the stage for a heck of a show Sunday. Oh by the way, Hendrick's overshadowed driver, Casey Mears, is starting ninth. That means six of the top nine spots will be filled by drivers from those two teams. Gibbs driver Kyle Busch will roll off from the 24th position.
2008 Predictions: Macworld's annual forecast of the year ahead
Usually, they wind up just making wild guesses. So without further ado, here's this year's edition of our fearless forecasts from four Mac observers hoping to be able to say the sweetest words in the English language by this time next year: I told you so. Dan Frakes, Macworld senior editor A Mac subnotebook: Apple will (finally) reintroduce a smaller, lighter laptop made for road warriors. Like older entries in this market, such as the PowerBook 2400c, the new model will forgo an internal optical drive to achieve a smaller size, but it will also feature new technologies that let it slim down while providing better performance and improved battery life, such as a solid-state hard drive, an LED screen, and a low-power processor. A new desktop: Apple will (finally) give us a midrange, screenless Mac—something in between the Mac mini and the Mac Pro—for people who don't want an all-in-one desktop system.
|
