My Divorce

I guess I should start at the beginning of this story. It all started when I moved into my house in the summer of 2002, and immediately broke up with my first TV provider, Comcast. She'd turned into a real bitch over the past couple of years, and I probably should have done it long before then, but she was my first, and hey, I was getting what I needed regularly. But once I was in the new house, her customer service got all bitchy and uncooperative, and who needs that? So it was so long, farewell, auf wiedersehen, goodbye.

And hello to the love of my life, DirecTV. More channels. Less money. Better picture. We were happy, oh so happy. A couple of years later, our little Tivo unit came along, and it truly was the greatest day of my life. We raised it right--so that sports was the only thing it ever showed live, and I never had to sit through any commercials.

Fast forward a couple of more years, and now DirecTV and I also have a new HDTV. And that was what changed everything. DirecTV just didn't look as attractive anymore with her non-HD signal. Oh, sure, most of her programming could be zoomed in to take advantage of my bigger 16:9 set, and it was certainly a decent, watchable picture. But how could I be happy at home knowing that there's better looking HD programming out there for a reasonable price? They were everywhere I went--bars, hotels, even friends' houses, flaunting their beautiful 1080p's right in front of my face.

The most persistent of all of these was Verizon FIOS. She sent me love letters, promising to do things no TV provider had ever done to me before. Heck, to do things I didn't even know a TV provider could do. She'd do things to my phone, and to my computers too. DirecTV and Comcast wouldn't touch those. (Well, Comcast had been willing, but only if I gave her way more money than it was worth.) Then she started in with the phone calls, promising all the sweet nothings she'd provide, and how little she wanted in return. Luckily, I was able to delete the messages off my answering machine before DirecTV heard.

Then, last night came the big blowup. Our little Tivo unit was starting to go astray, running with a bad crowd that got poor reception on the signal. DirecTV insisted that it would cost money to have it fixed, even though I knew it was far too late to turn it around. For my part, I wanted DirecTV to get an HD job. I know she can still look just as good as those other services, if she only wanted to. But she refused to do it without some stiff upfront charges, no matter how much I pleaded, wheedled, and even threatened to leave.

So this morning, I did it. I gave into temptation. I finally called up Verizon FIOS and told her to get her gorgeous little installation package over here just as quickly as she could. She's moving in a week from Monday, and bringing me HD DVR service, free long distance, and faster internet (just to name a few of her services), all for about the same price I was paying before to get none of those from DirecTV. I'm so excited, I keep reading the e-mail over and over because I just can't believe she's moving in with me.

As for DirecTV, I've got the papers drawn up, just waiting to serve them. But I'm sure she'll land on her feet. The last I heard from her, she'd gotten the HD upgrade after all, and was heading north to shack up with my father.

GM or Bust

Nice to see that all of those billions of taxpayers' dollars spent to keep General Motors out of bankruptcy have finally paid off. The federal government is going to be the majority stockholder, and between the government and the unions, there's only going to be about 20% of the company left to go around. People--like my almost-90-year-old grandfather--who were holding GM stock are going to get the shaft worst of all, probably losing 100% of their investments. (Don't feel too bad for my grandfather, though--he's a pretty sharp investor who was just gambling a couple bones on a recovery for fun.)

But...just ask the former Soviet Union how well governments do when it comes to running automakers. Or just look how wonderfully efficient our own government institutions are. They wouldn't stand a chance in a competitive environment. Maybe a post-bankruptcy, streamlined GM will be able to compete. But I wouldn't bet my retirement on it.

Back Door Man

New York politicians have a little bit of a history of going after video games over content--most notably Sen. Chuck Schumer with 25 to Life and former Senator Hilary Clinton with Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas. Fortunately for people who enjoy a little bit of violent content in their fictional entertainment, there's very little they can do thanks to ye olde First Amendment.

But fortunately for nanny-state government officials, there's a way to force your will through the back door, as discovered by an obscure New York State Assemblyman: rule it a "health risk", slap a sin tax on it, and add one more burden to the ever-growing list of "wealth redistributions". "It's bad for you" is the new "Think of the children"--the battle cry of the banal and the bland.

Carrie

OK, I'm mainly posting about this so I can put up the picture at the left--can you blame me?

Good for The Donald, though. Who'd ever have thought that he'd be a champion for free speech and the right to express a different opinion? All Carrie Prejean did was give an honest answer to a question. And just whose idea was it to make that little weasel Perez Hilton a pageant judge--a female beauty pageant, at that? As far as I can tell, his only qualifications for any sort of notoriety are being a flaming homosexual and drawing cock'n'ball pictures all over his site, like a junior high kid doodling in his textbooks. By that criteria, I'm halfway there myself. The guy's just an asshole--proving once again the old adage, "You are what you eat."

Swine And Dandy

Swine flu is this year's bird flu, with the mainstream media doing their damnedest to scare the bejeebus out of us all, so that we keep their station tuned in for all our Swine Flu Updates. I wonder how many infected from Mexico and South America will try to make their way across our borders in search of our superior health care, infecting every town they come in contact with. And I wonder what our government (now with Senate Filibuster-Proof Majority) will do to lower our risk. The next couple of days will be a golden opportunity to shore up our porous southern border. By this time next week, we'll know whether or not we've got a government that will give us "change we can believe in" on border security.

...And New Photos

I've finally resolved to get my Flickr site up to date with the photos I've taken over the last, oh, 8 months or so. This first batch is photos I took at Camden Yards and Citizens Bank Park during a "two-games-two-days-two-parks" weekend, culminating with the eventual World Series champion Phillies clinching the division over the Nationals.

New Look

No, you're not at the wrong site.  I just proofread the post I just made and realized that my layout was giving me a headache.  So in the interest of easing eyestrain everywhere, I've changed my template to one that I think is a bit easier to read.  I'll be making some changes to some of my sidebar items (my Flickr link in particular takes up way more than its share of room), but I hope everyone likes the new look. (I welcome feedback if you love it or hate it; just use the comment form.)

You May Pick Your Seat

Anyone who knows me or who's ever read this blog (and I think all of you are one and the same) knows that I love the Yankees more than I love breathing. So it's out of love that I say this. Just like Chris Brown.

It's no secret that I hated the Yankees tearing down and replacing the classic, historical Yankee Stadium. In fact, over on my Twitter page, I likened it to seeing the Temple of Solomon torn down and having a McDonald's built on top of the rubble. Well, it looks like some of those proverbial McChickens have come home to roost. Seems that even during the inaugural series of...well, Yankee Stadium (I do give them credit for not naming it Macy's Stadium), there were an awful lot of Yankee fans who were disguised as empty seats and sitting very quietly. This was especially true in the most TV-visible lower seats, where face-value tickets ran over $2,000. And it's making one of (if not the single) most-followed, best-marketed-and-merchandised franchises in the world, let alone sports or baseball, look bad. There are lessons to be learned here--about tearing down the single biggest piece of the history that's made the franchise as beloved as it is, about spending billions of public and private dollars during one of the biggest recessions in recent memory, and about doing it all in the name of eliminating the bleachers and putting in more luxury boxes and "Legends Suites". Yankee Stadium isn't the only place turning what used to be entertainment for the working masses into a diversion for bluebloods and titans of industry only. But it's the worst and most visible offender. And a perception of inaccessibility is the first step down a very bad road for any franchise, sports or otherwise.

Sext and Sensibility

I never thought I'd be praising the ultimate blue-state government of Vermont, but this time they're working on a plan that actually makes sense. And that plan is to decriminalize sexting between teenagers. Yeah, yeah, yeah, religious conservatives, it'll probably lead to more of that kind of thing. But we're not talking about school shootings or fight clubs here. We're talking about stupid and horny kids doing what stupid and horny kids do whenever a new technology is invented: use it to get their rocks off. In a post-Megan's law world, is that worth being branded for life with the modern-day scarlet "A"? That's in the same category of stupid as stigmatizing someone for taking a leak in the alley behind the bar.

To Amazon: You Stink, No Link

I like keeping the Recent Experiences section over on the right hand side of this site up to date. It's a way for me to let my visitors know what entertainment I've been enjoying lately. To do that, I use the thumbnails from Amazon.com, just because they're there and easy to grab hold of. As a way of thanking them for not blocking me from leeching their images, I link back to the product's purchase page so that they can perhaps grab an extra sale or two out of the deal.

Well, not anymore. After I read this story on Slashdot today, I refuse to send them any more business until they back off this policy fix the "bug". Oh, sure, they're free to to sell or not sell whatever they want. But I'm also free to encourage others to send a message by taking their business elsewhere.

Sin Tax Error

I'm sure everyone's read the stories and the opinions, pro and con, about the biggest ever tax hike on tobacco in history. (And it is tobacco, not just cigarettes. In fact, the taxes on cigars are going up at an even higher rate in some cases.) Problem is, most of the money goes to increase funding to S-CHIP, the childrens' health insurance program. That's not something that's suddenly going to need less money if smokers quit en masse. This tax has two goals that are at odds with each other: to get more people to quit smoking (and buying cigarettes), and to fund government programs. If and when the first goal is accomplished, the revenue stream dries up for the second. And what does the government do then? Well, if the fiscal conservatives are in charge, they cut spending commensurately. But if the government acts in character for recent times, that's not going to happen. And in the end, when everyone's taxes go up to keep the money flowing in, even the saints will be paying the sin taxes.

Bailing Out The S.S. Georgie*

I don't necessarily agree with Barry Hussein's Bailout Bonanza, but I can at least get the arguments.

Bank bailouts--I get it. We can't let our banking system collapse.
Automaker bailouts--I get it a little less than the banks, but they do provide a buttload of American jobs.

But newspaper bailouts? I don't get it at all. At least the banks and automakers still have a type of product that people want and need. Do we really need to spend still more taxpayer money to preserve paper copies in the era of 24/7 news channels and the interweb? Why don't we just bail out Tower Records and the vinyl record industry while we're at it?

*If you don't get the title, watch the TV movie version of IT.