Into the Weekend Thoughts

Jeromey Balderrama

Well the week is nearly over, and while I have a bunch of random thoughts floating through my head, I’d figure I’d do a culmination of random thoughts in one big post.  So without further ado, here are my thoughts going into the weekend.

First a Friday thought.  I woke up this morning to find on Twitter that Barak Obama received the Nobel Peace Prize for doing.  Maybe he got it for closing Guantanamo – oh wait, it’s still open.  Well how about withdrawing from Iraq – oh wait, we haven’t done that either and are escalating things in Afghanistan (and don’t get me wrong, I think it’s important to fight on both of these fronts).  Maybe it’s for getting the Olympi-oh wait.  Ok, politics aside – can we all agree that the Nobel Peace Prize is simply the Norwegian way of promoting their politics?  Obama joins the hallowed names of Jimmy Carter (for whining about Iraq) and Yasser Arafat (for going to a meeting).

My brother-in-law pointed me to a Time.com article about this that is pretty spot on, especially in the end:

"Compare this to Greg Mortenson, nominated for the prize by some members of Congress, who the bookies gave 20-to-1 odds of winning. Son of a missionary, a former army Medic and mountaineer, he has made it his mission to build schools for girls in places where opium dealers and tribal warlords kill people for trying. His Central Asia Institute has built more than 130 schools in Afghanistan and Pakistan – a mission which has, along the way, inspired millions of people to view the protection and education of girls as a key to peace and prosperity and progress." [Time.com]

Again, so does this award have any less credibility to it? Hell, the Grammys are now more relevant.

Shifting to football: Historically people think throwback jerseys are cool, and I love the Broncos Orange uniforms (either from the late 60’s, or the ones from the 70’s to mid-90’s).  This weekend the Broncos are going to prove that Throwbacks can be ugly.  To celebrate their 50th anniversary, coinciding with the 50th anniversary of the AFL, the Broncos are going to wear their "mustard & brown" striped-socks uniforms.  Frank Schwab from the Colorado Springs Gazette captured the first look on his blog.  If you notice Jabar Gaffney (#10), he twisted his striped socks to look like a barbershop pole.

BroncosUnis

To make matters worse, I think the refs are again going to be wearing their cream-sicle colored uniforms again.  I think I’m going to avoid eating anything before the game, because all of these colors are going to make me sick.

Staying on the Broncos, I have to say I’m really nervous about the amount of press coverage Denver has gotten.  I wasn’t complaining when Denver wasn’t getting any respect for their first three games, I was completely fine with them flying under the radar. I think under-rated teams thrive when they have the "nobody believes in us" attitude in the locker room.  Now a week has passed, and the next thing you know everyone is talking about the Broncos and Daniel Graham is on the cover of Sports Illustrated. This is a little too much attention for my comfort level.  The only thing we have going for us is the national media’s infatuation with Tom Brady and the Patriots, and still don’t give Denver a chance.  Let’s hope the Broncos prove them wrong again.  My guess is that we’ll win 2 of the next 4 games to be at a very healthy 6-2.

My Rockies Prediction this weekend is that at least one of the games will get postponed or canceled.  It’s going to be a cold one this weekend, and far be it that baseball players face any kind of adversity when it comes to weather.

Lastly, I’m very pumped for Greenfoot’s first show for the fall.  We ended up taking time off in the summer due to my wedding and Julien working in California for a few months.  We’re really pumped to be playing a full night of music on Saturday night.  We’ll be over at Signature’s Night Club, which is a place that is gaining some really positive reputation around Denver for being a great place for bands.  If you’re in Denver and looking for something to do on Saturday night, come check us out!

Worth Reading: AT&T to Data Cap iPhone Users

Jeromey Balderrama

One of my biggest pet peeves is businesses that are too busy to address their failing business models and resort to going against their customers. We’ve seen this time and time again with the RIAA and MPAA, and now you’re seeing this with the these Wireless and Internet Service Providers.

Case in point, Gizmodo posted a prediction that AT&T may impose a cap on data usage for the iPhone customers.  AT&T justifies this by saying that 3% of their smartphone users (which are iPhone users) use 40% of the Smartphone Data.

Sometimes I wonder if AT&T is happy with the deal they signed with the devil – in this case Apple.  AT&T got a lot of new customers over being the exclusive iPhone provider in the US, but somehow they failed to understand that when you have one of the most feature-rich phones out there that boasts the largest applications store, you’re going to see increased data usage.

I’m on Verizon and don’t have an iPhone (I have a Windows Mobile phone, which I have a love/hate relationship), but I can tell you that my data usage far outweighs by voice usage, and the sooner that Wireless Carriers realize that the better off they’ll be.  Instead they’re going to start battling customers, imposing these continued caps and restrictions – pages directly from the record industry’s playbook.

I understand that bandwidth isn’t free and these carriers aren’t a business but there are two issues that I have: 1) Carriers lock their customers into their contract and have sneaky ways of keeping you tied down with these new terms. 2) In the case of Telcos, the government provided them money to expand their networks, and they spent that money but seemingly can’t manage contain without “managing the network” steps.

Playoff Schedules: Who screws it up the most?

Jeromey Balderrama

Rocktober is here! The Rockies are in the playoffs and I’m really looking forward to see the Rockies take on the Phillies. only to find out that the game aired at 12:30pm on a Wednesday?!?  We’re talking about playoffs – the pinnacle of your season – yet MLB in it’s idiotic lack of wisdom puts the game on when the entire country is at work and can’t watch the game.  At what point is this a good idea?   I realize that these leagues feel like their game should be the only game on TV, but at what point does it seem like a good idea to air your game in the middle of the day compared to airing two games in the same night, or rotating the 4 games with 2 on each night for opposite nights?  Thanks for nothing baseball!

However baseball isn’t the only sport that screws up their playoff schedules.  Nobody is perfect at doing this, but a lot of leagues have a lot more to learn than others.

NFL

It’s pretty hard to screw up football, and the NFL does a pretty good job of not killing momentum with the playoffs.  With the “1 and done” format and the fact that the NFL is played on weekends, it’s not surprising the the Super Bowl is an unofficial national holiday.

What they need to improve: Get rid of the week between the Conference Championships and the Super Bowl.  While I’m sure all those involved with the game appreciate that week, it’s excruciating watching the hype-machine in overtime.  This year they’re putting the Pro Bowl in that week between the games, so hopefully this schedule/format change will improve things a bit.

NHL

The NHL arguably does the “best of.” playoff series most effectively.  The NHL isn’t afraid to alternate nights, and have teams play on the same night, yet ensure that each series effectively gets a share of the spotlight.  The playoff rhythm is strong and consistent from the start of the playoffs to the Stanley Cup Finals.

What they need to improve: Get on a network where people can watch them.  They would have the perfect playoff format if they were on at least a major cable network.

NBA

The NBA is obnoxious with it’s playoff scheduling, especially in the early rounds.  You have teams that play one night, then won’t play again until 3 or 4 nights later.  They get in a better rhythm in the later rounds, but it’s tough to get through the first round and realize that the playoffs are going to span a better part of 2 months.

What they need to improve: Go to a best of 5 series for the first round, maybe even for the 2nd round.  Alternate nights for these rounds so that the series won’t last longer than 10 days.  If necessary, air 3 games on the same night.  The Eastern/Western Conference layout makes it easier to make sure the home teams can get a the game on in their prime-time.

MLB

MLB has a lot of wrongs that they need to correct, and they need to start with October.  First off, they need to get their games at times when people can watch them. That means that they need to get their first-round games out of the mid-afternoon time slot, as well as get their League Championship Series and World Series at earlier start times so that people on the East Coast can watch them without staying up until 1-2am.  Trust me, the West Coast will tolerate a 4:30 start time for the World Series.

What they need to improve: Aside from the previously mentioned time changes, they need to move to an “Alternate Night” model and stick with it.  if a series ends early, don’t be afraid to kick it off reasonably early.  Rest after a series is not a right guaranteed to both teams, it’s something you earn by sweeping your opponent. It’s inexcusable that the Rockies had to wait nearly 10 days to play the next round.

Honorable Mention: College Basketball. They do the most effective job maintaining intensity for a 64 team playoff throughout the end. If they could just do away with the 64/65 “Play-In” game they would be perfect.

Dishonorable Mention: College Football. It’s hard to have a playoff schedule without a playoff.  Aside from that, the fact that the bowl games are played up to 5 weeks after their last game is asinine.

A sick day

Jeromey Balderrama

I’m not sure if it was from being out in the cold this weekend, or from yelling my throat by at the Broncos game (or a bit of both), but I’ve come down with a really bad cold.  There was something at work I could not miss, so I had to go in today and will be going back in tomorrow, so I’m going to turn in a bit early instead of blog.  Hopefully this isn’t cheating for the NaBloWriMo, but I’ll offer a better post tomorrow – I promise!

Qwest Fiber: The first two weeks

Jeromey Balderrama

After moving into our new house in Spring of 2008, we made the switch from Comcast over to Qwest, which I’ve been mostly happy with.  I was especially excited to hear the rumors that Fiber was soon coming to Qwest and our part of town.  When I got the email a few weeks ago, I wasted no time to get signed up.  After about two weeks in, I wanted to offer some initial thoughts on the service and hopefully set the expectations for those who may be considering the service.

First off, the speed is pretty exceptional, especially for DSL.  Running a speed test at peak times, we’ve had a pretty steady downstream of 14.7Mb/S, with nearly 4Mb/s upload.  I’ve definitely experienced the fast steeds on my downloading and streaming.  The uploading has been especially exceptional.  We uploaded a bunch of pictures to print in what seemed like a fraction of the time that we were used to it taking.  The service has been very reliable as far as uptime is concerned.  I’ve been pretty happy with the actual fiber.

The modem/router on the other hand.  leaves a lot to be desired.  Previously we were using the M1000 DSL connected to a D-Link router that we’ve been very happy with.  The M1000 is incompatible with the Fiber technology, so we were forced to upgrade our modem to the ActionTech Q1000, which doubles as a router.  This router has pretty much driven me to pull my hair out.  Aside from connecting our computers to the Internet, we use an Xbox connected to Live, as well as have some Remote Desktop ports open into my desktop computer.  However, I had the hardest time making the latter two activities work.  I first tried to use the router in a bridge mode, so that I could use my current router, but that left me with notable latency and issues with port forwarding.  After some considerable work with the router, I was able to solve my port-forwarding issues (which required some application settings to be configured), but was still having the worst time getting the Xbox connected to XboxLive.  I finally solved that problem, after a crazy firm-ware upgrade (which at first bricked my router).  Right now things are working correctly for the most part, but I really wish Qwest would offer a stand-alone modem, especially with the third issue.

.The cost of upgrade/installation.  We got our first bill from the changes, and Qwest charged me a whopping $122 for “service addition & changes”.  Obviously the modem/router cost was included in this charge, but this is still a pretty baffling fee for a self-installation.  Part of the reason was that this was such a shock was because the chat agent that placed the order for me didn’t inform of these charges.  In fairness, I didn’t ask for the total of the new charges, but I think that anything over $100 should warrant a notification when you place the order.  If you’re considering upgrading to the Fiber, be ready for this charge.  This also reinforces my wish of having a stand-alone modem device that would have likely been cheaper.

I think if you’re salivating for faster internet service and live in an area where this Fiber is available, it’s a great solution.  However if you have the slightest hesitation, this modem/router may keep you on the slower side of the fence.