A Bad Gumble

I was going to make this article available to less than half of the people, but decided against it.

I was able to watch my first NFL Network game broadcast this week, as I was at the in-laws' and they just got a new LCD TV and digital cable. Anne's worried that I might get TV envy. She doesn't have anything to worry about. At least not until after I get my laptop.

Anyway, there were a couple of things that I really enjoyed about the presentation that NFLN had: Chris Collinsworth is a very good color guy; the graphics that they had were nice and unobtrusive; and the HD looked fantastic. Okay, maybe a bit of TV envy. However, the biggest problem I had with the production is the play-by-play. Bryant Gumble is paid very well for his ability to use the English language in a clear and consise way, but I noticed many times where he was using the wrong words for things. After a failed third down conversion: "...and once again the Vikings will turn the ball over on downs." Actually, they're going to be punting. He also just doesn't have the voice for the gravitas of the NFL, deserved or not (it is just a game, after all). There's too much tenor in his voice for my tastes as a play-by-play man. Contrast that with his own brother, Greg. Granted, Greg has more years of being in the booth under his belt, but his voice is perfect for calling the game. From what I've seen of his games, he's accurate and consise.

Now, on to my biggest problem with the NFL Network: that it even exists. I don't like having a network that is completely owned by a sports league. I'm also not crazy about a team owning a network, but that, to me, is more acceptable than having a network owned by the league. The league is able to mandate that teams give an unprescedented level of access to the network so that they always have the best stories, the biggest stars while completely freezing out any sort of competition. Also, it worries me that this is a pre-cursor to having pay-per-view NFL games. Doing that would have the potential to kill the league. And if it ever came to having pay-per-view games, I hope that it would kill the league. I hope that there would be a revolt against the league. The frightening part is the potential of people to go along with the whole idea like the sheep that we seem to be to the big sports. For instance, where is the outcry that a convicted cheater is going the the Pro Bowl? Did Shawn Merriman have a great season? Absolutely. However, he was suspended four games this year for violating the substance abuse policy of the NFL by using steroids. And no one seems to care.

Here's my question: Will we care if we have to pay $50 to watch each game of our favorite team to a league that is already making money hand-over-fist?

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College Initiation

As has been previously stated, I prefer the professional football game to the one found in college. Also mentioned at the same time is that I have two friends, Meldy and Ike, who are very adamant college football fans. It's pretty much to the point where we agree to disagree even though secretly, everyone agrees that I'm right. It's just that I'm not one to gloat. At any rate, Meldy and Ike decided to take matters into their own hands to convince me that I was wrong. It's happened once before. Hey, I thought betamax was the wave of the future. Anyway, we picked a Saturday in which to make a trek to the local college team's stadium to watch a game. I was looking forward to it. No, honest. I like football. I like time with my friends. For me, it was a no-lose situation. For Ike and Meldy, however, there's a completely different story.

Ike and Meldy are very much into their team. They have numerous articles of clothing with the logos. They watch every game they possibly can on the television. Every year for their anniversary gift to each other, Meldy and his wife purchase season tickets to the football games. Ike feeds his Diet Pepsi addiction accompanied by a frosty logoed glass. I think you get my point. They're really, really into their team. I'm not so much into their team. I'm a transplant here and haven't "caught the fever." Maybe I will one day if my kids go to the local college, but hopefully that's quite a few years off. Ike and Meldy were emotionally invested in the game while I was just there to enjoy the game. Well, that and gorge myself on the food prior to the game. One of the aspects of the college game that I really do appreciate is tailgating. Ah, tailgating. Never before have I seen such a large group of people socializing while all dressed mostly the same. It's like going to a party and seeing every other woman there wearing the exact same dress that you are, but for some reason it only makes you more excited to be there. Seeing as how the majority of our readership is male, I'm sure all of you can relate.

Tailgating provided me with way too much food, quite a bit of caffeine, and the opportunity to witness (let me reiterate: witness) my first keg stand. And my second keg stand. And my third keg stand. And my forth keg stand. Then they started over again. I found it interesting that the girls participating in the keg stand rounds were, for one thing, able to continue standing (they might have crossed triple digits in weight and had consumed mass quantities) and, for another, not carded. If they were of legal drinking age, it was just barely. I have some pairs of pants that looked older than these girls. But I digress.

After a couple of hours of tailgating, it was time to head in to the game. We didn't actually sit in our seats the entire game. Instead, we stood up along the wall at the top of the stadium. The view was great. The wind was cutting. The nuts were hot and salty. Don't take my word for it, just ask the vendor. When a lady selling pop came by, my friends told me that for a dollar, the vendor would kiss you. The next time a vendor came by, I decided not to try it. I don't think I would have appreciated his stubble. Though it's made me realize that, for my wife's sake, I need to shave more often. The wind was blowing so hard that at one point one of the other spectators standing up against the wall had his hat fly off his head and over the afore-mentioned wall. He propped himself up a bit on the top of the seven-foot (or so) wall to look and see where it had landed. I couldn't resist. I walked over to him and said, "Dude, I'll hold your feet. You reach down and grab it." That earned me a high-five from his wife. At least, I think it was his wife.

The game was a lot of fun. It had been quite a while since I was able to go to a sporting event. The game would have been even more fun if not for Drunk Beligerant Guy. You know the type: spent way too much time with the girls who I'm sure were of drinking age (eye roll) doing keg stands before the game and somehow was able to stumble to his seat just in time to see his team do a dreaded "three and out" on their first offensive series. He then immediately starts to boo the team he came to watch and yells that they should put the backup quarterback in to play. Let me reiterate that it was after the first offensive series. You'd think he was a Vikings fan. Throughout the game, he made gestures at the refs and at the coaching staff of the team. Because from the field they can see DBG 50-some rows up. That's why they're paid the big bucks. As the game progressed (poorly for the home team, as it would turn out), DBG seemed to get more, well, B. The curse words became more common. At one point, a fifty-something lady turned around and asked him to be quiet. You can pretty much guess how that turned out.

After the game, it was essentially more of the same: food and fellowship. Something struck me as rather odd, though. It seemed to me that if the team would have won the game, a large portion of the attenders would have celebrated by cracking open a beer. As it was, people were drowning their sorrows and lamenting...with a beer. So the only real difference is the mood, not the actions. Just one of those things that I noticed.

So, besides Drunk Beligerant Guy, the game was a lot of fun. I wouldn't mind going to another one at some point. However, much to Ike's chagrin, it wasn't a transcendent experience for me. I still prefer the pro game while being able to appreciate and enjoy the college game and respect the fans. Especially those who must be a lot older than they look. They can hold their liquor. At least for the ten minutes I saw them.

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The Perils of the Geek and Tech Support

My father-in-law and I both have the same job title of Software Engineer. We both sit a computer for a large portion of the day and analyze algorithms and code, debugging problems or finding new and better ways to get the required jobs accomplished. However, there is a very large difference between him and me: I consider myself a professional geek while when he gets home he wants very little to do with the computer. At least he did before getting his new laptop, but that's another story. Anyway, since I'm a professional geek, I'm always trying to learn more about the latest in technology and what is coming up and how it will impact my life. I'm always drooling over the latest toys that are out of my price range. The FIL calls me when he has tech questions. This leads me to my current predicament.

As I type these words, the call counter on my cell phone has reached one hour and 20 minutes worth of call time; most of which has been spent on hold waiting for someone to pick up the phone and talk to me. The FIL thought it would be a good idea to save some money and switch his phone service to a VoIP (Voice over Internet Protocol) service. This is not, in and of itself, a bad idea. The quality of phone calls over the internet has been improving to the point where, if you have a good connection, it should be indistinguishable from a normal land line. However, instead of using the router which is provided by the VoIP service and pay a monthly rental charge, he decided to buy his very own router. Now, keep in mind that this router that he purchased says right on the box that it will work great with the specific service which he is using. As I'm sure you can imagine, this means that my in-laws have not been able to use anything other than a cell phone in their home for the last two weeks. This is where I come in. We're in town as a stop-over on the way to my families for the weekend. I decided that I would solve their problems. Mistake number one. After taking a look at the router configuration, I see that the router was not able to register with the VoIP service. Since the FIL said that he had to give them a MAC address (the address that's hard-coded into every piece of hardware that you use in a computer), I was fairly sure that he might have given them the wrong address. So, I decided to call technical support. Mistake number two. After a bit on hold, I talked to someone who was very obviously reading from a "choose your own adventure" tech support manual. He wasn't all that helpful. When I asked him for the MAC address that he had on file to use, he said that it was the one on the modem they sent to us. I informed him a couple of times that, in fact, it wasn't since the FIL had changed it. I asked him again for the MAC address that he had associated with this account. He put me on hold. Again. After a few minutes, he came back again and said that he didn't have that information. Would I mind being transferred to the department that has that information for me? I said no, I didn't mind. Mistake number three. This has caused my current predicament of waiting for them to pick up the phone while listening to a horrible recording of "Canon in D" by Johann Pachelbel. The recording was choppy and of horrendous sound quality. If the goal was to have hold music that would annoy customers to the point where they hang up in frustration, mission accomplished.

We are quickly approaching the two-hour barrier of being on the phone. I'm sure 3/4ths of that has been spent on hold. I have determined that if I end up going over my cell phone minutes on the month, I will be sending the VoIP company the bill for the overage.

After crossing the two hour barrier, feeling like the Enterprise crossing the "Great Barrier," I hung up. Oh wait, I forgot that Star Trek V never actually happened. (Apologies to Bill Simmons). I'll probably call them back on Skype or something that doesn't cost me any money once my core temperature lowers a bit. Just breathe, Jeff. Just breathe.

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It's Mostly the Most Wonderful Time

Before really getting into my article, I feel that a note of explanation about the theme for this week is warranted. Didn't notice the theme? It should be pretty close to the gigantic "Pluckytown" you see at the top. Go ahead and check, I can wait. And we're back! OK, let me preface my comments and even the topic by the fact that I love Christmas. I love getting together with my family. I love the food (w00t for lefsa!). I love playing cards (family tradition). I love singing the songs about Jesus' birth. I love exchanging gifts and the old jokes that we've recycled over 20+ years. However, with that said, there are still some things about the Christmas season (not necessarily Christmas itself) that I don't like. Hence the topic. Everyone square? Cool. Moving on.

This afternoon, my family (read: Anne) decided that it was time to put up the family Christmas tree. We purchased this tree when we were living in a very small apartment while in college. We purchased it with the thought that we'd be able to grow into it as we moved on with life and eventually moved into a house. We put the tree up in our living room. It consumed somewhere in the neighborhood of 85% of the available space. That's a slight hyperbole for those of you keeping score at home. The correct ratio is 16% room, 84% tree. After we put the tree up, we said, "Why did we get such a huge tree? It doesn't leave us any space!" We've said that every year since. Seven and counting. We moved it from apartment to apartment and then to house. It's still way too freakishly big. And that leads me to what I dislike most about the Christmas season. No, it's not my tree. It's not even putting up the tree (which I held off doing as long as I could). It's how much work Christmas has become. The tree has only become an example of this.

When I was a kid, I loved putting up the tree. I would look forward to it for weeks. My mom would normally add the stipulation that if we're going to put up the tree, we need to get the whole house cleaned up first. I would throw myself into the work with a vigor unlike anything that doesn't involve food (hint: that's a lot of vigor). We would haul the boxes up from the basement for the tree and organize the branches ("Mom! This one doesn't have a color!"), put up the tree, put on the lights and all of the decorations. Then we'd turn all the lights in the house off and cuddle up together and just look at it for a little while, each one of us absorbed in his or her own thoughts. Now it seems as though I'm not allowed time to think. We have a mad rush that occurs around this time of year. It kicks off with one of the busiest shopping days of the year on the day after Thanksgiving and continues straight on through to the poor, confused husbands in the convenience store on Christmas Eve wondering if their wife would prefer "Pine" or "New Car" for her brand new air freshener.

Then there's the stress of the logistics. Whose family are we going to be spending Christmas with? When are we going to be with the other side of the family? How are we going to pay for all of the Christmas gifts? What do we bring for Christmas dinner? Are we spoiling the kids with the amount of gifts that we're buying? Did we not get them enough? How many licks does it take to get to the Tootsie Roll center of a Tootsie Pop? These questions need to be answered.

I lament the loss of my childhood innocence. The only thing I had to worry about leading up to celebrating Christmas was how I was going to be able to survive waiting for Mom and Dad to finish milking before we could open gifts. Now there's so many things about which we need to think. I suppose, to a certain extent, this same loss of innocence extends out to every aspect of life as an adult. As children, we long to be "grown up" and knowledgeable about the world. Now that I am grown up, I long for the simpler days of my youth. Sometimes, it's just hard to please people. And by people I mean me. It's the Pandora's box syndrome. We want to know what's in the box. Now that we know what's in the box, we wish we could put it back again. Stupid human nature.

So, there you have it: What I dislike most about the Christmas season. Although really it's not a new problem. I mean, wanting to regain our innocence could be traced back to, oh, Adam. Good to know I'm not alone.

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