by Matt | Apr 28, 2009 | Aggravation, Personal
I had decided to purchase the MLB.com “Gameday Audio Premium”. It’s $20 for the season. It includes the audio from all the radio stations, home and away, for all the games. It also includes the “Gameday” page with live box-scores, stats, pitch locations, etc. That was, until I read all this. On the website it lists the following:
- LISTEN to Every 2009 Regular Season and Postseason Game LIVE
- All Home & Select Away Feeds
That’s directly from the website. Notice the lack of “*” after those statements. Now read the fine print:
Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All live games on MLB.TV are subject to local blackouts. Such live games will be blacked out in each applicable Club’s home television territory (except for certain home television territories for which MLB.com may offer in-market subscription services). If a game is blacked out in an area, it is not available for live game viewing. Each game will be available 45 minutes after the conclusion of the game as an archived game (archived games are blackout free).
In addition, note:
- These blackout restrictions apply regardless of whether a Club is home or away and regardless of whether or not a game is televised in a Club’s home television territory..
- All live Toronto Blue Jays games are blacked out throughout the entire country of Canada.
- Additional teams may also be subject to blackout in parts of Canada based on their region.
- All live games will be blacked out in the U.S. territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands during the MLB regular season.
Regular Season Weekend U.S. National Live Blackout: Due to Major League Baseball exclusivities, live games occurring each Saturday with a scheduled start time after 1:10 PM ET or before 7:05 PM ET and each Sunday with a scheduled start time after 5:00 PM ET, will be blacked out in the United States (including the territories of Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands). Live Audio of such games is available as part of any MLB.TV subscription or as part of the MLB.com Gameday Audio Package. Each game will be available 45 minutes after the conclusion of the game as an archived game (archived games are blackout free).
That makes it sound like the people the shelled out for MLB.TV, the $110 per season bullshit, are STILL subject to blackouts in their areas. It also makes it sound like the GameDay Audio is still available. That sounded ok. The local market games, provided they’re on TV, are blacked out. Ok, I almost get that. Then, as I’m searching for clarification, I came upon this. Directly from the “Audio Help Forum”, someone had asked why their audio stream was unavailable.
“Nationwide blackouts are standard as the national broadcast networks own the rights. We put up the archives of the game 45 minutes after the games are done though.”
Blackouts INCLUDE THE FUCKING AUDIO.
I’m sorry, I just don’t understand. Please, someone at the MLB, help me to wrap my head around this. YOU ARE the governing body of the sport that I love. YOU alone have the power to grant radio and TV broadcast rights under the authority of the commissioner of baseball. You didn’t save any of those rights for yourself??? The MLB isn’t allowed to broadcast it’s own games? Seriously? What in the flying fuck is that about? I get that some teams have their own broadcast rights, but even then, they still have to be approved by YOU.
I simply don’t understand. If it’s a money thing, I don’t understand how this is making them more money. Or how by broadcasting ALL the games they would make less. If it’s an advertising thing and sponsors wouldn’t advertise at the park or on TV if you’re broadcasting the games elsewhere, then wouldn’t the subscription fee for the service cover that cost? If I’m watching on TV, I see visual ads plastered all over the park, I see ads in the TV broadcast, I heard ads in the radio broadcast. What exactly am I missing? Who’s getting screwed that you NEED to blackout a game?
You know what, I’m going to write the office of the commissioner. I have a legitimate question, and I’ve love a legitimate answer. I doubt I’ll get one, but it couldn’t hurt to ask.
by Matt | Mar 19, 2009 | Aggravation
In the spring my thoughts turn to one thing and that’s the start of the baseball season. The winter is over and I thankfully don’t have to put up with NFL schedules, NBA nonsense and the fucking over-hyped pain-in-the-ass NCAA tournament. No, I don’t have a bracket and no, I don’t want to see yours.
So, with longing and anticipation I look forward to the start of the baseball season. Unfortunately every year, with the start of the season, brings the realization that I can’t actually WATCH any of the games I want to. I live vicariously through text-messages to my cell phone with per-inning updates and then read the sports news sites early each morning or listen to Mike & Mike as they catch me up on what happened around the league.
You see, the problem is the MLB. More accurately, the MLB’s bullshit TV licensing program. The MLB and the teams negotiate with TV stations to air the games. The network the games are on are local to the area the teams are in. Those networks then contract together and offer things like the “MLB Season Ticket” or “MLB Extra Innings” to exclusive providers like Comcast. Comcast offers those packages to consumers for outrageous costs.
Even Dish Network, one of the original providers of entire out-of-market baseball season broadcasts, has announced that they were unable to reach a deal with the MLB because of the MLB’s demands, so this year even Dish customers are out of luck. FTA:
“DISH Network will not be carrying MLB Extra Innings, the out of market baseball package, and MLB Network this season. The demands made by MLB were not in the best interest of our customers.”
There is, currently, NO legal way to watch an out-of-market baseball game, other than paying $100 per season, directly to the MLB, to watch games on the MLB website.
There is a sports package offered from AT&T Uverse that includes all the major ESPN and Fox Sports Net stations, across all regions, but after talking with a representative on the phone, it turns out that any baseball game broadcast on those stations would be blacked out (except regular ESPN of course).
So, AT&T doesn’t have the games, the Satellite providers don’t have the games, and the Comcast package… it’s $169 AND it DOES NOT include NESN (the New England Sports Network) which 99.9% of all Red Sox games are on.
There is literally no way to watch baseball on my TV. None. I can technically watch the games streaming over the internet, on my laptop, but I have to pay $100 to do it. I can’t even put in to words how much that is complete and total bullshit.
Absolutely. Fucking. Wrong.
The MLB and their money-grubbing, ass-pirating executives should be ashamed of themselves. I should be able to watch any game, in any region, in any medium I wish. I shouldn’t be forced to pay $100 to watch it on my screen on my laptop, that’s horse shit. That’s not even TV. TV people! I can’t watch a baseball game on FUCKING TV. There is something so seriously wrong with this country and with this sport when after a long day at work I can’t come home, have a beer and watch a fucking Red Sox game.
And I’m lucky. I’m a fan of one of the two biggest teams in the country. So big that every time the Red Sox and the Yankees play they sell the special rights to the broadcast to someone like ESPN, which is awesome for me, I get to watch my team 3 maybe 4 times a season. If you’re a fan of a smaller market team, you will almost NEVER see you teams on regular cable or, heaven forbid, broadcast TV.
That’s pathetic. Truly fucking pathetic. And it gets me all worked up every time I think about it.
I am seriously, SERIOUSLY considering a SlingBox Solo. The only obvious downsides to that is that it’s $179, about the same price as Comcast’s package and that I’d again have to watch TV on my web browser. The upside is that I could mail it to my parents house, have them hook it up, tune it to NESN on a spare TV and just leave it. I would get everything on the network, including Bruins and Celtics games, and I could change it later, have them send it back to me, all sorts of stuff AND the money wouldn’t be going to the MLB.
I would really love to find some sort of work around for all this, but I don’t think it exists. And watching TV on my laptop IS better than nothing, but just barely. The alternative is finding some sort of baseball torrent, which means I’d have to wait until the game was over, encoded, uploaded and seeded before I could download it. That could take hours or more likely days.
Anyone have any other ideas how I can watch a Red Sox game this year? If you do I’ve love to hear them.
by Matt | Feb 11, 2009 | Aggravation, Personal, Tech, Web, Work
I know a few of you are more than familiar with the concept, but it’s aggravation is all the more real when it’s happening to you. I’m working, right this moment, on what I would consider to be my 16th design for a website. Version #1 was nearly perfect. It had all the right elements, elegant use of white space and a nice user interface. Version #2 included a few minor changes from co-workers in my department, all with quality input. By version #5, we were “showing” the design to groups outside the department. That was 4 months ago. Since then, every week, we have a “tag-up” meeting between 2 directors of different departments, the designers (me and my people), the IT guys, the programmers and backend developers and a VP.
So far we’ve been able to establish that we: like buttons, would like the afore mentioned buttons to do things, and that the logo needs to be bigger. Beyond that, all concepts of good design have left the conversation. We actually had a meeting a little while back about what the search function should LOOK like when it displays results. A full blown, hour and a half long meeting, only to establish that, yes, we should have results in some sort of list.
I know many of you sympathize with me, and reading the article on Smashing Magazine today, I know I’m not alone.
What I can say though, is that this project is facing at least 8 of the 10 “harsh truths” of corporate web design. Especially #’s 4 and 6. Holy shit are we knee-deep in 4 and 6.
“The harsh truth is that if you build a website for everyone, it will appeal to no one.”
“Where some website managers want their website to appeal to everybody, others want it to appeal to themselves and their colleagues…. Too many designs are rejected because the boss doesn’t like green.”
by Matt | Jan 30, 2009 | Aggravation, Personal
I’ve got to say something real quick. I don’t know if it’s the New England cynicism that I’ve somehow escaped by not living there for the past few years, or maybe people are just having a bad week or what, but what the hell is with all the Jason Veritek hate? Especially from that rag, the Boston Herald. Nearly ever article has a slant and every comment is nasty. What the hell? Did I miss something? Yeah, he’s getting older, but he’s won you assholes two World Series trophies, played in MORE games than Carlton Fisk, beat up A.Rod and has been the single most loyal player to the Red Sox franchise in the past 30 years. Seriously? You want him to go? Who’s going to catch for you then? The rookie, Josh Bard? Really?
Listen, I realize he’d having a hard time at the plate. I realize his 2nd-base throw-out percentage is getting lower, but you know what, he’s NEVER let us down back there. He caught Shilling’s bloody sock night. He caught Beckett, Pedro, Shilling AND Dice-K in the World Series. That is not an easy thing to do. His number will be retired right along side Fisk and Williams and Yaz. And, when he finally does retire, I’d say it’s a pretty good bet that he’ll be the new catching coach shortly there-after.
Maybe I’m over estimating the “intangibles” as some sports reporters would put it. Maybe what he offers is only mediocre catching and a little leadership. Let me put it to you this way: I would rather have 20 Jason Veriteks in my club house, and come in 3 in the AL East, than a bunch of fucking ass-clown All Stars and win another banner. I’m serious. Sometimes loyalty and character are worth more than batting percentages.
I have more respect for that man as a player than any other player in the major leagues. Name me ONE other player that’s played for only one team for more than 5 years, let alone 12. He is THE Red Sox franchise player of this generation. He’s my captain, he’s your captain, now fucking deal with it.
I’m looking forward to this season. A lot. Complete with Tek behind the plate, where he should be.
That is all.
by Matt | Jan 22, 2009 | Aggravation, Personal
As I mentioned before, I’m in need of a root canal. More specifically, it’s going to happen today, in just a few hours. I’ve never had a root canal before and I’m more than a bit nervous about it. When googled and thusly described by the appropriate Wiki page, which in retrospect seems like a bad idea now, it seems like some sort of medieval torture. They drill down, into your roots, take a tiny needle sized file and REMOVE your nerve, then fill it with some sort of goo. The article was more than likely written by the ADA or a dentist because it mentions on various occasions how this is completely painless since normally, the root is already dead.
Shenanigans.
Nothing, and I mean nothing, about anything that profession pretends to do for you has ever been or ever will be “painless”. Dentists say going to the dentist is painless for two reasons. A: to make you feel like a complete pussy (and therefor less likely to complain) when it actually does start to hurt and B: so that people who apparently blacked the entire experience out, can say to all their friends that “it really wasn’t that bad” and feel all macho about not remembering it.
Have I mentioned how much I dislike dentists.
Oh, and I’m a bleeder.
I can’t wait. Actually, yes, yes I can wait.
by Matt | Jan 9, 2009 | Aggravation
I have a few quick words of advice for our friends at the United States Postal Service. Specifically “please stop sucking”. I’ve got a package, from Amazon, floating around in the mail-room ether, because the USPS can’t seem to provide any tracking information like any of the other shipping companies. It’s really not that hard. Everything has a number and a bar-code. SCAN IT. Scan it when it arrives, when it leaves, when it goes on a truck, when it’s lonely and depressed and most importantly, when it gets delivered. Scan it on happy days, on sad days, on sunny days and on crappy Tuesdays in November when it’s raining and no one wants to go outside. Scan the fucking package like it was you job and you were fucking pleased to do it.
I don’t understand, even as a government agency, how you plan to provide good service and continue operating when you “update the tracking information every evening at 6pm”. Really? Is that really what your going to go? Because a whole lot of shit can happen between “Arrived in Houston” at 6pm on Thursday and 6pm the next day when it’s supposed to be delivered. Has my package been delivered? Is it stuck on a load dock somewhere? Has it gone missing? Is it still on time? I don’t know… because it’s not yet 6pm and I’m not fucking Sherlock Holmes. By the time they get around to “updating” their tracking information, I’ll be home already, and what fucking good does that do me?
Really, why do you even deliver packages USPS? What’s the point? UPS has got large packages covered, which they seem to enjoy mangling, Fedex has the “it needs to be there yesterday” market covered, and you, you have Christmas cards and Elvis stamps. Just stick to what you’re good at. Just deliver my Netflix and my birthday card from my grandmother and stop trying to be the “preferred” shipper of anything. Thank you.
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