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What the hell? It’s been three years since I first joined this motley crew? I guess so. I’m a man of few words so I’ll keep this short. This is my last day with CrunchGear and TechCrunch. Thanks to Mike, Heather and John for giving me the opportunity to do something that I’ve grown to love over the last few years.

Ooh la la. A real deal Android tablet this summer? Am I dreaming? No! I’m so in love with this OS it’s disgusting. Put aside my sickening love for a freaking OS and consider taking a gander at AppsLib? It’s the Application Store for Android launched by Archos, which states that registration will begin on September 15 “following the launch of this initiative”. If that isn’t enough to whet your appetite then how about some specs for the Archos Android tablet?

Can Microsoft’s latest Zune, the Zune HD, take down the king? It depends on which king you’re talking about. As it stands, the iPod Touch is a whole different beast because of the App Store. What Microsoft has done with the Zune HD is nothing short of spectacular, but who is it really competing with? My BlackBerry can play videos and show me pictures taken on a recent trip. The HTC Hero and/or myTouch 3G can stream music from the likes of last.fm or Slacker. I can download MP3s from my iPhone. Everything the Zune HD does, I’ve been able to do with a slew of different devices that I already own. You see, the features that the Zune team has been touting don’t interest me much. I don’t really care to see an artist’s bio, their pictures or anything of that nature. Sure, the modified IE browser is nice and works great, but I want to know how deeply integrated the Zune HD is going to be with other Microsoft devices like the Xbox 360. I don’t need to fork over extra cash for an HD dock to stream 720p content onto my TV. I can already do that through my Xbox 360, FiOS and whatever content is stored on my NAS. Tell me what the plans are for the next six months. Tell me when the damn thing is actually going to launch.

So what is Booyah and what does it bring to the iPhone that no one else has done? Before we dive into that here’s a little background info on the Palo Alto, Calif.-based startup. Founded by three former videogame industry vets from Blizzard, Activision and Insomniac Games, Booyah looks to shake things up with real-life achievements for the iPhone (and iPod Touch). Booyah CEO Kevin Lee is an industry vet having worked on Ratchet and Clank, Diablo II, Resistance: Fall of Man before parting ways with Blizzard to launch Booyah with Brian Morrisroe and Sam Christiansen. Booyah’s main goal is “to motivate people to pursue their real-life passions while positively impacting themselves and the community around them. It’s the first achievement system for life.”

It's been twenty long months since the announcement of Android and nine months since its handset debut, but it's finally picking up steam. On August 5th, the HTC-made T-Mobile myTouch 3G will become the second Android handset to make its way to the shelves of a US carrier. In the time its taken for T-Mobile to cross the t's and dot the i's, we've already had a chance to review HTC's next handset: the bigger, badder, and (arguably) better Hero. Alas, the Hero isn't yet confirmed for any US carrier, so we'll take what we can get. Was the myTouch 3G worth the wait? Read on for our review.

Here’s something to mull over while you get ready for bed. The Street is reporting that Apple will launch the highly anticipated (and rumored) tablet with Verizon. Now, we’ve heard rumors that Verizon could be getting a CDMA variant of the iPhone at some point in the near future, but no one in China has leaked such a thing. According to Scott Moritz’s sources, Apple and Verizon “won’t be as tightly integrated” as Apple and AT&T and the rumored tablet has been ready for roughly a year. The kicker here is that, Verizon would subsidize the cost of the tablet without giving potential customers sticker shock.

Universal Studios announced today that they would be releasing the first iPhone app to control Blu-ray features in upcoming Blu-ray releases starting with the two-disc Special Edition release of Fast & Furious on July 28. iPhone and iPod Touch owners will be able to control certain features over their local Wi-Fi network and in the instance of Fast & Furious, they’ll be able to control and navigate the Virtual Car Garage. Said feature will entail control of “360-degree views of the movie's supercharged street-racers and instantly punch up exclusive technical specs for the film's high-tech cars.” Universal has not stated whether or not this will be the only feature enabled on the iPhone app.

Wiimbledon 2009 has come and gone and I’m happy to report that it was a great success! We had 98 tournament participants and everything went off without a hitch. With the help of generous eBayers, tournament attendees and Barcade, we’ve raised somewhere in the vicinity of $5,000 for the Child’s Play Charity. On behalf of CrunchGear, Wiimbledon and Child’s Play, I’d like to thank the following sponsors for hooking us up.

This year’s Wiimbledon is fast approaching (Saturday the 27th), but it’s not too late to sign up for the tournament. Jump on over to the EventBrite page and register for the tournament. Wiimbledon is free to all, but you’ll have to pay to play. Barcade is once again hosting the event and they’ve committed to matching our donations to Child’s Play.