The schedule for the first round of the 2010 World Cup has been announced.

We’re still seven months out from the kickoff of the 2010 World Cup, but with the announcement of the groups today, and now the schedule, the excitement is already building.  Who will you be rooting for?

All times listed GMT+1, or six hours ahead of EST in the United States.

GROUP A FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Friday, 11 June 2010
South Africa v Mexico, 15:00
Uruguay v France, 19:30

Wednesday, 16 June 2010
South Africa v Uruguay, 19:30

Thursday, 17 June 2010
France v Mexico, 12:30

Tuesday, 22 June 2010
France v South Africa, 15:00
Mexico v Uruguay, 15:00

GROUP B FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Saturday, 12 June 2010
Argentina v Nigeria, 12:30
South Korea v Greece, 15:00

Thursday, 17 June 2010
Argentina v South Korea, 19:30
Greece v Nigeria, 15:00

Tuesday, 22 June 2010
Greece v Argentina, 19:30
Nigeria v South Korea, 19:30

GROUP C FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Saturday, 12 June 2010
England v USA, 19:30

Sunday, 13 June 2010
Algeria v Slovenia, 12:30

Friday, 18 June 2010
England v Algeria, 19:30
Slovenia v USA, 15:00

Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Slovenia v England, 15:00
USA v Algeria, 15:00

GROUP D FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Sunday, 13 June 2010
Germany v Australia, 15:00
Serbia v Ghana, 19:30

Friday, 18 June 2010
Germany v Serbia, 12:30

Saturday, 19 June 2010
Ghana v Australia, 12:30

Wednesday, 23 June 2010
Australia v Serbia, 19:30
Ghana v Germany, 19:30

GROUP E FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Monday, 14 June 2010
Japan v Cameroon, 15:00
Netherlands v Denmark, 12:30

Saturday, 19 June 2010
Cameroon v Denmark, 19:30
Netherlands v Japan, 15:00

Thursday, 24 June 2010
Cameroon v Netherlands, 19:30
Denmark v Japan, 19:30

GROUP F FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Monday, 14 June 2010
Italy v Paraguay, 19:30

Tuesday, 15 June 2010
New Zealand v Slovakia, 12:30

Sunday, 20 June 2010
Italy v New Zealand, 15:00
Paraguay v Slovakia, 12:30

Thursday, 24 June 2010
Paraguay v New Zealand, 15:00
Slovakia v Italy, 15:00

GROUP G FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Tuesday, 15 June 2010
Brazil v North Korea, 19:30
Ivory Coast v Portugal, 15:00

Sunday, 20 June 2010
Brazil v Ivory Coast, 19:30

Monday, 21 June 2010
Portugal v North Korea, 12:30

Friday, 25 June 2010
North Korea v Ivory Coast, 15:00
Portugal v Brazil, 15:00

GROUP H FIXTURE SCHEDULE

Wednesday, 16 June 2010
Honduras v Chile, 12:30
Spain v Switzerland, 15:00

Monday, 21 June 2010
Chile v Switzerland, 15:00
Spain v Honduras, 19:30

Friday, 25 June 2010
Chile v Spain, 19:30
Switzerland v Honduras, 19:30

Scattercast is 72 … and it’s getting to be an old man.

- Did you see the mention of my launching FunJug.com and RememberingChristmas.com?

- How is Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer still pulling over 10 million viewers?

- With the news of Tiger Woods’ affair(s) in the news, I take a look at what makes people have affairs. (for those ODed on Tiger, I barely mention him)

Here’s

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for those who wish to download it, subscribe to Scattercast via iTunes.

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Mark returns tonight from his house moving duties to join me for a second conversation about the NBComcast deal, you can view this as a sequel to Steven and I doing CobWEBs Daily Edition: Comcast & NBC now confirmed lovers – consumers screwed.  Mark’s viewpoint is different, but any way you slice this, SOMEONE is coming out on the short end of this deal, and it isn’t NBC.

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

You know, if there is anyone on the planet that kids will listen to, its James Lipton.

Sexting, for those not familiar with it, is the idea of taking semi-nude/nude photos with your cell phone and texting them to someone, or they can also just be suggestive written messages.  It is becoming a larger and larger problem with teens today, and so the LG cell phone company decided to launch an advertising campaign entitled Give It A Ponder to try to teach kids why this is a bad idea.

They hired James Lipton, best known as the host of Inside The Actor’s Studio, to mock himself in the ad, and when a teen is ready to ponder if they should send the text, he loans them his beard to help them ponder.  The ads are cute and fluffy, and it’s always fun to watch Mr. Lipton mock himself.

The problem is that these ads are going to do absolutely nothing to help the problem, and launching this program in the wake of two teenage girls committing suicide over sexting incidents, this might not have been the wisest idea.  Admittedly I learned of both of the suicides and the ad campaign within a few hours of each other, so it was easy for me to connect the two in my mind, but it doesn’t change the fact that I think using humor to combat such a serious problem that is doing nothing but growing doesn’t seem like the best tact to take.

Teenagers are more sophisticated than people give them credit for, and trying to act “hip” never works with them.  Trying to act hip by using someone they probably aren’t even familiar with makes even less sense.

I highly suggest you do go read the post I linked above about Hope Witsell and Jesse Logan, and then see how you feel about the ad posted below (more in the series can be found at the GiveItAPonder YouTube channel).  Yes, people need to be educated as to what sexting is and the possible ramifications of the action, I just don’t think this was the right idea in the wake of deaths.  Perhaps pamphlets put in the monthly bills?  Another at the time you sign up for service?  Information sent home from school?  All viable.  James Lipton’s beard?  Not so mcuh.

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Steven and I discuss an odd convergence of stories this week over the politeness that seems to have crept into blogging and how we feel it is false.  At the same time there seems to be an uptick in “webtribution” (the act of getting retribution via the Web), and, oh yeah, we talk furniture.

The Dark Side of ‘Webtribution’ – The Wall Street Journal
What Caused the Blogosphere to Grow Up? – SiliconANGLE
Are People Just Fatigued of Your Brand? – Michelle’s Blog
I’m such a lucky guy in the most important ways – Shooting at Bubbles

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

I’ve been teasing this announcement for ages, and while I don’t feel 100 percent ready, the way I do things I would probably never feel completely ready, so I’m biting the bullet and introducing my two newest blogs: RememberingChristmas.com and FunJug.com.

FunJug.com

FunJug.com is my first ever time purchasing a site started by someone else, and while I’ve had it for a few months now, its felt a built like buying used clothes.  They don’t fit at first and you’re trying to figure out if they really ever will.  All that being said, I think I’m finally getting a handle on the site, so I’m ready to add it officially to my stable of sites that everyone knows about.

The site is all about wasting time with fun tidbits I find around the Web (which is actually the most difficult part as I didn’t calculate in the time it would take finding the funny stuff!) from videos to photos.  Some of it is NSFW (Not Safe For Work for those unfamiliar with the term), but I always make sure to mark those with a warning.

You won’t ever see me writing my usual diatribes on this site, it is all about having fun, letting off steam and winding down at the end of the day.  If you happen to find something you think would be a good fit for the site, feel free to send me a tip about it!

Make sure to subscribe to the FunJug RSS feed to have the funny stuff just delivered to you.

RememberingChristmas.com

RememberingChristmas.com is about … can you guess? … anything and everything to do with Christmas!  I’ll actually let the About page from the site explain this one:

RememberingChristmas.com is all about a love of a holiday that has come to represent so much more than just a religious holiday, but a time for family and friends come together and share a special time together at least once a year.

As a family that has worked in various forms of retail since our earliest years (Sean started working at age 8 off-and-on in retail, and was responsible for some purchasing by age 11), it has been hard some times for us to maintain the Christmas spirit during that specific time of the year.  As a family, we long ago decided to celebrate Christmas through out the year with at least one Christmas tree up on our house at all times.  We decided that perhaps we weren’t the only people in a similar situation, so we decided to help others keep Christmas in their hearts through out the year … without having to have a tree up all year long.  (Have you ever tried ducting a Christmas tree?  Not easy!)

So, won’t you join us?  We are dedicated to bringing you stories of Christmas, free Christmas entertainment, recipes, crafting ideas and a lot more.

This is something we plan on working on year round, it just happened to be December when I finally had time to put the finishing touches on the site.

A big hat tip to Blog Design Studio for creating the theme for us.  They also did the work on SeanPAune.com and StarterTech.com as well as another site we have yet to launch.  (yes, there is another waiting in the wings)  They do great work at reasonable prices, and we highly recommend them.  (and no, I do not make any money from recommending them, I just really like them)

You can subscribe to the RememberingChristmas RSS feed or follow RememberingChristmas on Twitter.

Sean, are you insane?

Yes?

I’ve come to the conclusion that blogging is pretty much going to be my life for the foreseeable future, and these new sites will not be daily postings like my other sites.    I’m looking to diversify from just writing about technology so much, because I fear suffering burnout from constant postings about gadgets, social media and so on.  These will allow me to take a breath every once in a while and still feed my need to write.

I hope you will all check them out at least once, hopefully you’ll find something you like and become regular readers!

Let me know your thoughts!

Welcome to another week of the daily edition of CobWEBs, the flagship podcast of The Cynical Bastards!

For those who don’t remember from the other episodes, this is a new format for the show as we are going to try giving you daily bite sized chunks of our patented brand of cynicism over everything in the tech universe. The show will have a rotating host schedule between Steven Hodson, Mark ‘Rizzn’ Hopkins and myself. You’ll always get two of us, you just never know which two!

Steven and I spend some time discussing how he angered some doofus that works as an assistant editor at Splashpress Media.  Apparently Steven hasn’t a clue when he is talking about the Psystar settlement.  While I am in 100 percent agreement with Steven, this yahoo can’t come up with more than the moden day equivalent of “You’re a doodoo head.”

We then move on to the Comcast/NBC deal and how it is totally going to end up screwing the consumer.  Mark our words, it will. (Links thanks to Steven)

2010 could be the biggest disaster in the making for consumers and media – The Inquisitr
Too Big to Block? Why Obama Must Stop the Comcast-NBC Merger – Huffington Post
Could Apple use Psystar as a backdoor to a wider consumer marketplace – The Inquisitr

Push the big green button and have a listen in!

The first teaser poster for Iron Man 2 has been released, and yes, that is War Machine in the background.

Iron Man 2 has been finished filming for a while now and is deep in to post production, so it was about time some official artwork finally came out.  (never mind several minutes of footage being showed at San Diego Comic Con this past August that has still yet to officially hit the Internet)  You can click on the image to the right for a larger view, although it isn’t super huge like most images released online.

This is one of those times where I might go on and on about War Machine’s inclusion in the film, but for once I am taking spoilers into consideration because people who only know the first movie know nothing of the character and will want to keep it that way until the movie comes out.  If you want to know more about him, check out the Wikipedia entry on War Machine, but I will warn you I know the movie is following the same character being the secret identity, so spoiler warning for sure.

I am a little concerned for this movie.  I loved the first one, but the second film seems to be following the comic book movie status quo of “it’s a sequel, it needs tons more characters!”  We have Robert Downey Jr. back as Tony Stark, Gwyneth Paltrow as Pepper Potts, Don Cheadle stepping into the role of Col. James ‘Rhodey’ Rhodes and Samuel L. Jackson appearing in an expanded role as Nick Fury.  Then this is where it gets messy as they are adding Sam Rockwell as Justin Hammer, Scarlett Johansson as the Black Widow, Mickey Rourke as Whiplash along with an assortment of other minor characters.

Has Marvel learned nothing from the messes known as Batman Returns, Batman Forever, Batman & Robin, Spider-Man 3 and so on?  You can overdo the number of characters in a movie very easily.  I have a lot of faith in director Jon Favreau, but this is not off to a very encouraging start.

I’ll go into the movie with an open mind, but I am leery of what could go wrong here.