Enough with the tape delay, CBS!

Jeromey Balderrama

For someone who loves technology, especially the convenience that the DVR brings, I definitely watch a lot of live television.  An addict of Twitter, I love watching events and watching my stream light up with comments, jokes and discussion around what we just saw.  Broncos games in particular have me hitting “refresh” on my laptop frantically during the whole game.

On last week’s Vergecast, they had a fascinating discussion on this very topic: the relationship between social networks (particularly Twitter) and TV.  They both need each other: Twitter needs to be validated by other businesses, while TV Networks need to give viewers an incentive for people to watch live and immediately participate in the conversation.  It seems that every TV program (or commercial for that matter) is flashing a hashtag or a Twitter name of a personality.

So why the hell does CBS still insist to tape delay live broadcasts?  Two nights ago they aired the Grammys, and while I was watching 60 MInutes my Twitter stream started blowing up with reactions from those watching it in the Eastern and Central time zones.  When the Grammys finally started at 7pm in Mountain Time, my stream became a complete mess, with people reacting to stuff taking place live, now with us in Mountain time reacting to our events.  By the time our friends in the west join in, Twitter is just a cluster at this point.

This wouldn’t bother me so much, except for the fact that CBS and the Grammys disingenuously feature Tweets as a part of their show. Every time LL Cool J came back from a commercial he would read some random (and often crappy) Tweets, with the half the country being denied the opportunity to participate.

I don’t understand why the Grammys and CBS don’t get it.  The Oscars are broadcast live and everyone manages to watch it.  Aside from the Olympics (which still don’t get it), sports are always carried live and people manage to watch them.  Don’t sit there and pretend you’re inviting us to be part of the social media conversation, then turn around and slam the door on half of your viewers.  CBS: why don’t you join us in the 21st century and get with the program?

Adventures in Photography

Jeromey Balderrama

Now that the little one is on the horizon, we’re going through our shopping list of “things for/before the baby”.  This is a combination of some necessities (like a crib and a changing table), to a few luxury items in the “let’s get them before we can’t afford them for the next 18 years” (like a new bed) – to items things we’ve wanted for a long time, that we’re writing off “for the good of the baby”. Enter: our new camera.

d7000

A DSLR has been on my wish list for a while, and after getting the chance to play with one during Christmas, I began to daydream about the great pictures that we could take.  I don’t want to become a photographer, but I definitely would like to make sure we beautifully capture the special moments of our family, but didn’t want to break the bank.  After seeking some advice from my sister’s boyfriend, who is a fantastic photographer, I narrowed the camera down to two choices: the Sony NEX-5 and the Nikon D7000.  The Sony was definitely a tempting camera, but ultimately the ability to have more options with lenses down the road put the Nikon over the top.

After unboxing the camera, it became pretty apparent that I have a lot to learn about photography.  The Nikon is helpful because the camera will take some pretty good pictures on its own, but I definitely want to get out of auto and do some playing around. There are tons of great videos and tutorials out there, and I’ve started building a playlist with ones that I’ve found particularly useful.  Jared Polin’s videos have been particularly helpful, as he did a great walk-through of all of my camera’s controls, and has some awesome walkthroughs for beginning photographers.

In order to become decent by the time the baby comes, both my wife and my cat have been patient subjects.  Below you’ll find some of the better beginner shots that I’ve taken, and would definitely appreciate any feedback and tips.

Back for more

Jeromey Balderrama

Well I finally made some time to get a damn post up on here.  Every few days I’ll navigate out to this site only to have it stare me down and discourage me from making another post.  My thought process went something like this:

Hey I should post something! I have a great idea!

-That’s great, but you need to explain what you’ve been up to so people can at least get a semblance of where you’ve been these last few months.

That’s too hard and I’m tired from a long day, I’ll just go to bed.

I’ve just accepted the fact that there’s no way for me to begin to cover what I’ve been up to and find the time to pack it into a single post, so I’m just going to go with the big stuff and hopefully my thoughts won’t come out too random.  Also I apologize for sounding so disjointed, it’s been months since I’ve written this long that’s not a work-related email (sad, I know).

So let’s start with the biggest life changing event, which is best explained in our Christmas card:

ChristmasCardPicture 

Yes, we’re expecting our first child to arrive in June, and can’t be more excited!  As we’re finishing up our 21st week (well Bethany is, I’m not really doing heavy lifting), we’re starting to get a grasp of what we need to do to (try to) prepare for our young bundle of joy.  We’ve taken to calling the baby “In Beta”, coined after the software development term. At some point I’ll share some experiences we’ve had in this transition into forthcoming parenthood, but in the meantime I wanted to get this exciting gem out there and apologize to those of you who haven’t heard this news before.

$250k for mailing it in

Jeromey Balderrama

stern

Basketball Players’ Night Off Makes a Stand for Sitting Out

David Stern’s heart is in the right place, but as usual, his methods make a mess of everything.

I appreciate Stern’s coming from, and as a paying fan, I am grateful that he’s at least appearing to look out for his paying customers.  We sold our tickets to the last Broncos game against the Chiefs (the last game of the season) and right now I’m scared about the prospect of the team having nothing to pay for, and the tickets my friends are using for family Christmas presents won’t look as great without Peyton and Von Miller in the game.

Ultimately sports is in the business of entertaining people, more so in the NBA who actively markets their stars to the point of charging more for visiting teams with more famous players.  It’s not unreasonable for a fan to expect to see said stars when they buy tickets to this game.

Coach Popovich’s best interest is the well-being and competitiveness of his team, and I do respect his decision to limit the number of minutes for critical players. However, the ultimate error was when he had those players fly home and not even attend the game.  At least have these guys come in and sit on the bench, or even better: play them 2 minutes and throw the fans a bone.  It’s also one thing if you give one player a night off, but when four of your five starters aren’t even in the building – that’s a problem.

Stern, a business leader, is trying to serve his best interests: his paying customers (both the fans and TV partners).  Where Stern went wrong was with his tactics, by threatening the team before the game with an “or else”, then slamming the gauntlet and trying to set a precedent. The problem is that David Stern doesn’t have a lot of room to talk when he says “disservice to the league”, when he presides over a league that schedules 4 games in 5 nights, that experienced a lockout where games were missed last year, as well as belittling those who have the audacity to question the legitimacy of a lottery awarding their top draft pick to the league-owned team. David Stern shouldn’t be casting stones from his glass house.

All of this mess could have been avoided if one guy stepped in and did his job: Peter Holt, the owner of the San Antonio Spurs.  While Popovich acts in the best interest of the team’s competitiveness, Holt’s job is to straddle the line between competitiveness and entertainment enterprise.  Wearing his “enterprise” hat, he should have stepped in and canceled those plane tickets, forced the players to at least go to the arena: either in shorts or suits. It’s his job to look out for the greater good of his organization, and avoid a PR mess like this. Popovich may not have been happy, but would accept this compromise, because his boss – who is looking out for bigger interests – told him to.

Hopefully good can come from this. It’s time for the NBA to have a serious conversation about an 82-game schedule, and whether these crazy road-trips are really worth it.  People don’t start paying attention to the NBA until your 10-week playoffs start anyway.