Random musings of Jeromey Balderrama
This week I have taken a bunch of pictures from two really fun events. The first the John Butler Trio & Spearhead concert at Red Rocks on Saturday. I was surprised to see some of the shots that the Casio “concert sneaking” camera took:
See the pictures on Flickr.
I also have pictures from the Rockies game on Tuesday. I also managed to get a few cool fireworks shots as well:
See the pictures on Flickr.
I came across an interesting story today in the Star Tribune, that talks about the Minnesota Vikings’ plan to boost their preseason ticket sales. This year, for their single-game ticket sales, if you want to buy tickets to their home games against their biggest rivals (the Bears and Packers), you can only do so with a special “two-game mini-pack”. However, these aren’t just any two games – they’re the two preseason games. Worse yet, you don’t get any discount, you basically are buying tickets to two games.
If you’ve never been to a preseason NFL game, it’s pretty much night & day when compared to a regular season game. I wouldn’t say they’re unwatchable – If you’re interested in seeing the younger players and the new talent, then they are exciting to watch. Are they worth the regular season ticket price – of course not.
As a season ticket holder, the preseason games are included in your price (of course, at full price). I usually try to give away the preseason games, and I believe I’ve once just ate the cost and haven’t gone. They’re usually at weird times (like at Thursday at 6pm), and it’s a bit of a strange atmosphere.
Still the NFL seems content in ramming these preseason games down their fans throats. It’s bad enough that the teams have 4 preseason games (2 of those being home games), but to have the audacity to charge you a full regular season price is simply highway robbery. For the Vikings to exploit their fans with this “2 pack” deal is an outrage.
If the NFL wants to drive interest an attendance to their preseason games, they need to make changes:
The NFL is by far the most successful and profitable sports league in the nation and do many things right – but they still have a lot of room for improvement when it comes to pick-pocketing their fans.
The third annual “Podcast Awards” are once again here, and what once a noble idea to recognize the hard work of podcasters has evolved into another way to generate revenue and self-promote the organizers and their endeavors.
The site, opened up to accept nominations on July 1st is now greeting visitors with a page full of ads. When the page loads it’s hard to see where your eyes should focus as the logos, navigation and content are broken up with banners, badges and Google Adsense advertising. My friend Matt nailed it when he sarcastically said “nothing says ‘we really care about this award and what it stands for’ than trying to generate revenue from it.”
There isn’t a clear description of what the podcast awards are about, or why I would want to nominate a podcast I produce or listen to. I found myself having to read over the content twice to find the “Click here to nominate” text. I have to do a lot of digging around to begin to understand the process and how I should participate. The category listings are laid out in a prominent manner, but are littered with redundant “Your Company Here!” linkages.
The page just comes across as tacky and would be better served with just saying “Give Us Money” – oh wait, there is a PayPal donation button. I understand that sponsors are needed to make these things happen, but solicitations need to be done discretely and respectfully. I could see how an advertiser would be leery in associating themselves in a site that puts so little emphasis on podcast outreach to promote blatant advertising.
As for the categories themselves: it seems that the organizers learned no lessons about distinguishing the differences between a science and technology podcast. Technology – arguably podcasting’s biggest topic – doesn’t even merit it’s own category. It gets lumped with “Science”, doing both podcast genres an injustice. There are many great scientific podcasts out there that will go virtually ignored due to the need to nominate the big tech podcasts. Likewise you will see a worthwhile technology contender left out because at least one scientific podcast should be represented. At this point an “Entertainment” and “Movies / Films” grouping would make more sense.
It’s interesting to see that the “Best Podcast Directory” was left out of this year’s awards? Was it because iTunes, last year’s recipient realized how these awards are perceived and had no interested in taking part? Apple is many things, but one thing they are is PR-savvy.
One last thing, and this may be some picky criticism coming from the son of an English teacher, but a good proofreading seems to be in order. The grammatical and punctuation errors cries out “unprofessional”.
I appreciate the intentions of the Podcast Awards, but unfortunately the poor execution does more harm than good.
I was lucky enough to make a trip over to Red Rocks – arguably the greatest concert venue on the planet – on Saturday night to see an amazing show put on by John Butler Trio and Michael Franti and Spearhead. When I first heard about this show, I couldn’t get tickets fast enough. These are two of my favorite bands and the opportunity to see them at together, at Red Rocks no less – that was too much of an opportunity to pass by. (Not having Dave Matthews Band come to town this year also made it an easy decision as well).
The concert itself lived up to all of the hype. Both bands put on amazing shows that gave off so much energy. It was a really inspiring event. Despite the amazing performances, I unfortunately can’t rank it in one of my top concerts, wholly due to the crowd.
It’s disappointing because the crowd at a concert can only hurt the show. I’ve never been to a concert where I’ve said “Wow, that crowd was amazing, they really added to the show.” But I can chalk this show into the “The bands were amazing, but the crowds made it a really crappy experience” column. In large part, it’s due to the fake hippies.
The South Park episode “Die Hippie, Die” does a great job of capturing the problem with fake hippies. They’re all about talking about hating on the system and going against the conformists, being one with nature, making peace (and down with war), and being great to one another. But in reality they turn out to be all talk, and let the opportunity for action pass them by. Just watch the concert sequence in that South Park episode to understand what I experienced Saturday night.
At the concert ETown (the host) started a campaign called “Green Rocks”, the attempt to make Red Rocks concerts more environmentally-friendly. In between the sets, ETown people came out to present an award to a Yellowstone Park Ranger for his environmental contributions, and they also managed to get the Governor on stage to say a few words about the environment as well. This noble cause was ignored by all of the hippies, who were more interested in talking to each other than offering any attention or any affirmation of the different efforts.
During John Butler Trio’s set, he played a song called “Ocean”, an instrumental song that he uses to invite everyone into a prayer and meditation. The hippies there ignored that as well, talking as loud as they would in between sets.
Moreover, we were inundated with this crowd that thought that their 4 tickets somehow entitled them to fit 8 people into the reserved section, crowding everyone out. Not only did they fill up the seats, but also sat on the ground in front of the seats, preventing people from passing by. At one point when my mom and uncle went to the bathroom one of them decided to sit right in their seats (which were covered by a blanket, cooler and bag). When I told her they were saved, then responded to her challenge of “we have seat #’s…”, she replied “You know what, I’m not going to move until they come.” When I pointed to them coming across the aisles (trying to maneuver their blockade) she said she was going to make it a point to dance all night. Wow, very considerate and peace-promoting.
Then comes the ever-present issue of the hippie lettuce. I’m completely against the stuff, and I do believe that irritates my body in an allergic manner. However, the hippies completely ignore everyone’s sensitivity, literally blowing smoke in my face. I realize that they use their hippie mentality to justify their addictio-errr-habit, but come on – there are kids around and not everyone appreciates the smoke. What you do in your home doesn’t bother me, but show some consideration in public. What really bothers me at concerts is the security/staff’s complete ignorance of the issue. They look the other way when people bring their illegal substances into the concert, but they make sure to confiscate our canned sodas and search for cameras. Heaven forbid I bring in an dangerous aluminum can into the concert. I’ve probably been to over 50 concerts and I realize that people think they’re entitled to Tree at the shows, but it bugs a lot more people than you think.
I realize there are people who are truly sincere in their hippie lifestyle and I definitely respect them for that. However, all of those who radiate their aura of enlightenment, tolerance and compassion: I can see right through your crap. The reality of it is that you just care about meeting you own needs with total disregard to others and use your false identify to justify your chronic lifestyle. I have more respect for those who blatantly project rudeness – at least they’re being authentic.
Today is known as “iPhone Day”, where in a few hours all of drooling Apple fans will finally receive their treats – the ones they’ve been waiting for over 6 months. This day can’t end any faster.
Everywhere I turn, it’s wall-to-wall iPhone coverage. I fire up my podcasts and even the sports & political podcasts I listen to are talking about the iPhone. The technology podcasts are the worst – basically forgetting all other technology exists, leading off with the iPhone stories, and then gargling the Apple Kool Aide. It’s gotten so bad, people are doing reports on people doing iPhone reports.
I fire up my RSS feeds and every blog is mentioning the iPhone, either touting the phone itself or the people who are waiting in line for it. You see all these pictures and videos spring up about people waiting in line. I go to message boards like the Buzz Out Loud Lounge, and every freaking discussion topic is about that stupid Phone, or people waiting in line. What’s funny is back in November many called people in lines losers for waiting for the PS3 along with the Wii, but that criticism seems more restrained this time around for iPhone fans.
This has really become consumerism at it’s worst, and you know that Apple is loving every minute of it. A company can’t buy this kind of buzz, moreover get it for free the way they’re receiving it. It’s funny to think that all of this hype is for a device that can’t listen to music, surf the Internet or manage your information as well as devices currently out there. The thing is on a slow network, doesn’t allow you to use any 3rd party apps (since Apple doesn’t understand what more you need than what they’re shoving down your throat), doesn’t let you replace the battery, doesn’t have a lot of storage space to make you even consider replacing your iPod, and worst of all – it costs $600! My Treo cost me a 1/3 of that and I still was reluctant spending that much, knowing how much phones ware and tear down.
All of these reasons are enough reason to warrant a scoff at the iPhone, but the biggest reason I’m not interested – all of the stupid hype generated around the Apple fans. I’m not going to buy into Apple worship, Steve Jobs or all of the other acolytes love to hate everyone that’s not using their products. Their rabid fanaticism is disturbing to say the least, and I’m not going to start foaming at the mouth about a stupid phone.
And yes, I realize the irony in adding to the hype by writing on my blog about how I hate the hype.