Year: 2013

The ridiculous new NFL bag policy

Jeromey Balderrama

Reacting to this story on ProFootballTalk: League alters bag policy for safety, convenience

What an absolutely stupid rule change.  It only becomes more obvious that the NFL doesn’t give a crap about the fan experience.  I love how their primary reason for this change is to reduce the wait times for fans entering the stadium.

I realize that NFL brass are used to going through their VIP entrances, so let me enlighten them on the typical fan experience: there are already express lines for fans who don’t bring bags to the games! The fans that do bring back already choose to sacrifice their time by standing in a longer line.

There are good reasons why fans choose to bring a bag:

  • Trying to gear up for a cold weather game. In Denver, there’s always at least 1 game that requires a multitude of blankets, layers and hand warmers.
  • You somehow have an aversion to paying $4 for a bottle of water, electing to bring in the same bottle that costs 1/10th as much – same is to be said for snacks.
  • You have young kids that require a diaper bag

The NFL can hide behind “safety” they want, but the reality of the situation is that bags cost the NFL money: be it in the form of additional security that screens them and lost revenue from outside food sales.  For them to claim safety being the issue is deplorable – they just want more Coin.  Let’s be honest: anyone who is looking to bring or do something terrible would already be causing plenty of damage outside of the stadium, or find another way in – just like how two random guys managed to wander their way into the Super Bowl.

I don’t blame the NFL for wanting to operate like the business they are, but I do take offense when they do it in the guise of safety, showing little regard for their customers.  I wonder if their “Fan Conduct Committee” actually includes any paying fans. It’s only a matter of time before the NFL’s customers grow tired of repeatedly being kicked in the ass.

Dave loves drums

Jeromey Balderrama

As a drummer, you get used to gigs like this: You play out of your mind during a set, take a break and pretty much disappear in the room because no one watches the drummer and were likely focusing on the singer.  Luckily there are a few out there – like David Letterman – who spend their time watching the drums (if not the drummer).  Check this out:

The reason he asks if the drums are theirs is because a band will likely rent the larger equipment like bass stacks and drums if they had to fly in for the performance.  In other cases, bands will add these performance dates to their tours, and likely bring their own equipment.  I love how he comments on pretty much everyone but the singers.

I’m not buying an Xbox One

Jeromey Balderrama

The Verge (which is now my favorite tech news site) has some excellent write-ups for all of the video came console news that happened yesterday between the Playstation 4 and the X-box One:

Xbox at E3 2013: everything you need to know

Sony PlayStation 4 at E3 2013: everything you need to know

xbox_one_frontview

I love my Xbox 360, so much so that I actually justified having two of them at the same time – largely due to the Media Center functionality. I’ve gone to great lengths to digitize our movie collection and offering them through the Media Center Extender My Movies plug-in.  I (begrudgingly) pay for an Xbox Live account to unlock features like Netflix, ESPN and my Xfinity content – content for which I feel I’m paying double for one thing.  I’m not a huge gamer, but over the 7 years I’ve owned an Xbox I’ve accumulated nearly 2 dozen games (1/3 of them being that year’s version of Madden). In all the hours the Xbox is on, I’m only playing games less than 25% of the time.

Given my love for streaming media through my Xbox, I was eagerly anticipating the reveal of the next-gen console. After digesting the reveal from a few weeks ago, combined with the data we learned in yesterday’s E3 announcements, I find myself more drawn to the PS4 rather than the Xbox One, boiling down to a few, key reasons:

          • Xbox One is going to require internet connectivity to authenticate the games.  I know we live in a connected world, but the Xbox is a device that I use for relaxation/recreation.  That doesn’t help when I want to take it up to the mountain cabin where 1x internet is spotty at best, or when I want to take my Xbox when I travel to blow off steam in the hotels. Internet is pervasive,  but unless the Xbox can navigate one of those quirky hotel WiFi interfaces, you’re hosed.  I realize Microsoft wants to appease the game manufactures (especially since they get a cut from game licensing), but this has been done at the expense of their customers.
          • XBox 360 games won’t be able to be played on the Xbox One.  Given that I have nearly 2 dozen games, I’m going to have to leave/put another box below the TV. In an era where I’m looking to consolidate devices, this is the last thing I want.
          • Xbox One wants to give you the full TV experience, but the best it can do is supplement your cable box, not replace it. So again it’s not helping me consolidate the number of boxes under my TV, and to make matters worse it’s going to use the crappy IR Blaster hack to navigate the cable box. The Blaster experience is barely tolerable on the Slingbox, but is absolutely unacceptable when I’m sitting in the same room.
          • They’re charging you $500!

          Over the years I’ve detested Playstation 3 for various reasons, but yesterday they made a very compelling case to reconsider them. They have a response for pretty much every problem I have with the Xbox for $100 cheaper. Even if the PS4 doesn’t deliver the streaming experience I want (and there’s no indication it doesn’t), I could get a Roku and PS4 and still save money. Given that Xbox is already saying “screw your old games” with the One, I might as well go out and get the cheaper next-gen box.

          So thanks for the memories, Microsoft. It’s been fun – but I think you’re learning the hard way that in the effort of being everything to everyone, you’re everything to no one.

          Photography Fun: Maternity Photos

          Jeromey Balderrama

          JBA_2084_p

          As we’re on the final stretch towards the birth, we’ve been playing with our Nikon D7000 and figuring out how to get decent photos out of it.  Opting to spend money for a newborn photo shoot, we decided to go it alone and take a few maternity photos of Bethany.  Below are some of our favorite ones:

          I’m having a lot of fun playing with the various settings, figuring out what makes a good photo, then figuring out how I can best enhance it in post-processing.  While I’ll never be a photographer, I’ve been learning a lot over these last few weeks.

          So we now have Vine

          Jeromey Balderrama

          Well it took many months, but it looks like Vine finally came to Android.  After downloading it and playing with it, I’m sorry to say I’m not too impressed.  First and foremost, check out my crappy first attempt at making a Vine, showing off our nursery we’ve been working on.  I’d love to have embedded the Vine into my post, but alas they don’t offer that functionality. Update: Stupid me didn’t see the “Embed” link at the bottom:

          Speaking of limited functionality, some of my first thoughts of this app include:

          • Seriously, the videos just auto-play when the app loads?!?
          • There’s no way to mute the volume??? (at this point I regretted starting the app while in the office)
          • How does this Twitter app not use Twitter O-Auth?
          • Why is this audio out of sync when I record?

          What I don’t get is how a nearly 10 billion dollar company like Twitter can take so long to release an Android app, and when it does, it feels so lack-lustered?  I can definitely appreciate the intricacies of app development, and I realize that you can’t simply throw more bodies to make an app better, but this seems incredibly half-baked.  It’s a little ironic that Twitter, a company that is sacrificing (3rd party) app functionality in favor or their web interface, produces an app like Vine that has such a bare-bones web presence.

          I understand that apps are a journey, but in terms of first impressions on the biggest mobile platform: this seems to have fallen pretty flat…