Not having a Twitter account, on account of my having a severe case of pleonasm, here are some thoughts that might have been tweets ... if I could have edited myself even more. So, here's some sports, magazine and food observations, ending Mother's Day with an ode to the greatest woman who ever lived.
Was it THREE decades ago that I stood in a cold Varsity Arena in Toronto talking to the wiser-than-his-years coach of the Albany Patroons of the Continental Basketball Association, Phil Jackson? The answer, regrettably is Yes (and more). I was first the announcer for the hometown Toronto Tornadoes and later I covered them for the Toronto Star. Jackson was the former New York Knick, taking his time to coach non-NBA talent and learn the ins and outs of the game before matriculating with the Chicago Bulls and later the Los Angeles Lakers. Even then, he had that bemused look. Enjoy your retirement Phil.
In the only pool I entered this year, beyond the Ed Jovanovski Memorial Stanley Cup Pool that I run each spring, I loaded up with Canucks like everybody else, and Flyers and Capitals. As Keen Eddie was fond of asking, "How's that working out for you?" Ahhh, not so good.
Businesses that are cutting back on the reasons I go visit them, part one: Chapters. Had to get my car fixed last month and the Mississauga Chapters was in the area. So I went to get a pre-NFL draft USA Today Sports Weekly and the latest Time, Newsweek and Maclean's news magazines. Found out the outlet no longer puts newspapers out at all (the riff-raff come in and read them, imagine that!)_and besides, they no longer carry the sports weekly from USA Today. In fact, as an afterthought, I decided to get the current Sports Illustrated. No dice there. And of the three news weeklies, no Newsweek (Jon Meachum has become a favourite of mine over the last couple of years). Since I don't buy printed books any more and I can't get the magazines that have been my only reason for going there in ages, it might be a LOOOOOONNNNG time before I step foot in a Chapters again. (and they're giving away their loyalty cards these days for free. Which still wasn't cheap enough for me to take one.)
Businesses that are cutting back on the reasons I go visit them, part two: Harvey's.The quintessential Canadian fast food joint. Have it YOUR way, they say. But, the chain is starting to pinch pennies. First, I don't eat hamburgers. What I do eat, that sets Harvey's apart from the other chains is hot dogs. On the same trip where I tried to off-set the car repair cost with a treat by going to Chapters for intellectual nourishment, I opted for Harvey's for lunch. Now, it might just be the particular outlet, but I came away with a distinct feeling that I won't be going back to Harvey's anytime soon. Some cost-effective consultant has pointed out to management that you can save 10 percent of the cost of buns by making them 10 percent shorter. Or more. All I know, is that the regular dog I got was hanging out both ends of the bun. That might appeal to some ballpark hots fans, but it doesn't cut it with me. I'm a bun aficionado. Every bite needs both bun and dog. And what's worse, I suspect the bun was made of reconstituted saw dust, or worse, bleached whole wheat. Inedible. If a different location produces the same results in my next visit, I will have to add Harvey's to the boycott list.
Businesses that are cutting back on the reasons I go visit them, part three: Wendy's. That sea salt idea for fries. Question: If sea salt's great, then why hand out extra packets of regular salt to over-salt your fries? Given my increased sensitivity to salt (Thanks to my urologist and the most recent kidney stone attack), I'm watching my sodium intake. I don't really like sea salt on anything I've tried it on. Now, fine salt, the stuff you get at the bottom of an almost empty salt container? An unearthly delight. Forbidden, but ohhhhh so tasty.
Finishing off the gastronomic complaints section: Why must EVERYTHING combine two (or more) flavours these days. Until recently, it was virtually impossible to find Jello Cups that contained all flavours I liked. Orange and Lime. Is that so hard a combination to believe in? Noooooo, it was Lime and Cherry in a pack, Orange and Strawberry. Really, really hate anything red when it comes to Jello. Or blue. Soft Drink Crystals are not immune to the same issue. I like Tangerine. I like Orange. Lemon and/or Lime too. Don't need them combined with berries, mangoes, grapefruit or pineapple. And there's more combos than those misbegotten groupings. Try to find orange crystals other than Tang. Try to find grape (and there's no grape tang to be had anywhere). And puh-leaze do NOT mention Kool-Aid. Orange Kool-Aid, a wonder of my youth, has transmuted into something that tastes of burning sandalwood. Is it just possible, I mean JUST possible, that if I want more than one flavour, I'll buy the two different flavours and then do my own combining? Wouldn't that lead to MORE sales for the company as I buy two units rather than the one unit with the already combined flavours (or, as in my case, no units, cuz I can't find the unadulterated components)?
On the other hand, I continue to say hosannas to the inventors of lactose-free milk, Weight Watcher's Thin Slice White Bread and the Kirkland brand of thick-sliced plain potato chips at Costco. I have to make do with one bag rather than two of the chips, but they are a treat. And to be honest, I scarfed down a bag of moderately warm, buttered popcorn the other day. Too salty to be a regular treat, but I'm still dreaming of the bag from Kernels a week later. Have to say, I'm getting use to the sodium-free, sugar-less soda from Compliments, found locally here at No Frills. The Tangerine's tasty and the Lime's decent. The carbonation is adequate, which is a step up from the overly-carbonated Pure Life sparkling waters, flavoured or not. Gentler is much better.
Lastly, just a shout out to my Mom on Mom's Day. You're the best. And keep the best peanut butter cookies in the world coming. I can see the bottom of the container in the most recent month's supply.
Sunday, May 08, 2011
Friday, May 06, 2011
SPORTS: Just Another Guy With Just Another Thought
Any reader here will know how low my opinion of Chris Bosh has dropped. I was ALWAYS in favour of trading the guy cuz I thought he was over-rated. But I thought he was a good guy and a fringy all-star. Third team all-star. But, of course, his actions last summer more or less revealed just how shallow he was behind the clever wit. And his play this year evidenced itself pretty well. The Miami butler is Just Another Guy.
Trade rumours started swirling around Bosh right around the first Miami losing streak of the season, which was, if I recall, right off the bat. It's intensified as more and more, it looks like the Super Pals, James and Wade, have finally figured out how to play with each other. For much of the season, the secret to whatever Heat success was enjoyed, was to play one or the other other with Bosh. Now, the Heat happened not to win too often when ANY of the three was actually out for the whole game. But in-game, the James-Wade mix was ... less successful than it should have been.
That's changed for the play-offs, to the complete and utter dismay of the Celtics, Bulls and who from the West? The Mavs? The Thunder? Whoever. And Bosh has played pretty well. But that hasn't seemed to be the result of a kumbaya of togetherness with the previous Super Friends. Bosh's statements today that he likes to stand alone and isn't bothered by the Super Pals running off their mouths when near mikes, as a duo, is a little window dressing. The departing of Bosh this off-season is almost guaranteed.
But I'm not hear to shout "Schadenfreude!" at the man who claimed he wanted to be The Man before hiring on as the butler. Nope. I've got a question.
An NBA GM picks up the phone and calls another GM and suggests a Bosh for Jose Calderon and Amir Johnson swap. Which GM (Riley or Colangelo) makes that call? And what does the other guy say? And why?
Just another thought to while away the innumerable, insufferable off-days in the NBA play-offs.
Trade rumours started swirling around Bosh right around the first Miami losing streak of the season, which was, if I recall, right off the bat. It's intensified as more and more, it looks like the Super Pals, James and Wade, have finally figured out how to play with each other. For much of the season, the secret to whatever Heat success was enjoyed, was to play one or the other other with Bosh. Now, the Heat happened not to win too often when ANY of the three was actually out for the whole game. But in-game, the James-Wade mix was ... less successful than it should have been.
That's changed for the play-offs, to the complete and utter dismay of the Celtics, Bulls and who from the West? The Mavs? The Thunder? Whoever. And Bosh has played pretty well. But that hasn't seemed to be the result of a kumbaya of togetherness with the previous Super Friends. Bosh's statements today that he likes to stand alone and isn't bothered by the Super Pals running off their mouths when near mikes, as a duo, is a little window dressing. The departing of Bosh this off-season is almost guaranteed.
But I'm not hear to shout "Schadenfreude!" at the man who claimed he wanted to be The Man before hiring on as the butler. Nope. I've got a question.
An NBA GM picks up the phone and calls another GM and suggests a Bosh for Jose Calderon and Amir Johnson swap. Which GM (Riley or Colangelo) makes that call? And what does the other guy say? And why?
Just another thought to while away the innumerable, insufferable off-days in the NBA play-offs.
Wednesday, May 04, 2011
LIFE: Still Depressed
It's been a couple of days and I still find myself thinking ahead to a bleak future. I share some ancestry with CBC pundit Rex Murphy, but I don't share his calm, as he dismissed anti-Stephen Harper zealots on Strombo the other night. He thinks people who think the worst of Harper and what he calls the Secret Agenda are working as fervently on their fiction as is Margaret Atwood. While I respect the heck out of Murphy, I still think he's wrong.
Abortion rights, net neutrality, a two-level medical system and the further attempt to turn Canada into a single-party political state are just some of the things I expect to be yapping about over the next four years. And like everybody else outside the Inner Circle, my yapping will mean diddly squat.
On the latter point, now in majority, expect the Conservatives to make gerrymandering an art. The next election will feature more seats, and not a single extra seat will be created that won't be set up to be a generational seat for the conservatives. The political map will see side-by-side leftist seats joined together to form a single seat and that extra seat will then be replaced (and then some) by the splitting into two of a single conservative seat. Some fancy border-making will be required. But the Conservatives will now have a few years and ALL taxpayers dollars to do exactly that. With no opposition. Despite NOT getting the majority of votes in the election Monday night. Again.
Fact: The majority of Canadians voted for the small L liberal side of the voting slate. That's because Canada is a liberal nation. Not a Liberal nation, but a liberal one. But we have a problem, two alternatives on the liberal side, versus the one united, coalesced conservative alternative. And, here in Ontario especially, the surging NDP candidates took votes away from incumbent Liberals (the reverse happened at least once, too) and Conservatives won a seat, despite getting, in some cases, less votes this time around than in losing two years ago.
Early in the election, news was made when one, maybe two, NDP candidates announced they wanted all their supporters to vote Liberal. The election was too important to allow Conservatives to enjoy their split-vote opportunity and win a seat without anything close to a majority of the votes. Had that act become province-wide, let alone nation-wide, today we would have a minority government led, in all likelyhood by either Jack Layton or Michael Ignatieff. The Harper Menace would be behind us.
There's little doubt that the NDP's success was also its own failure. A little less NDP surging in Ontario would almost assuredly have led to Jack Layton as Prime Minister before the summer was out. Instead, the NDP will be an opposition to a party that brooks no opposition. The impact that the NDP will have as the main opposition for the next four years is ZERO. The Conservatives will yawn through question period, obfuscate most of the time and say "none of your business" more than they should. They demonstrated that when all they held was power. Absolute power? Well, Rex, you are about to find the depths that can be plumbed. Sorry. You are wrong.
When last the conservative side of the aisle was similarly split, one of Canada's grand old political insitutions, the Progressive Conservatives, died to allow the Conservative party to emerge phoenix-like and represent the view of a sizable minority of Canadians. The lessons will now have to be applied to the liberal side. There is NO WAY, the Liberal Party, the so-called natural governing party of this country, will survive. Hat in hat, they MUST now go to the NDP and start the process of uniting the left. Free of the baggage of the old guard, the remaining Liberals must not allow the next election to be one of the right versus a fractured left. If they do, the conservatives might establish a control of the country that could last a generation. Or more.
Justin Trudeau will have to make the long walk with his colleagues to the offices of Layton. Behind the scenes, the melding of the two parties into, let's call them the Liberal Democrats, which sounds better on the tongue than Democratic Liberals, has to be in place this year. And for gawd sakes, no one should suggest Really New Democrat Party. I mean, when does New actually become OLD? Provincial allegiances will have to be re-examined to see if the national parties amalgamation seeps down to the provincial level or whether the current bifurcation continues. I have no idea how that goes. But it's gotta get done.
Otherwise, I REALLY will have to step up my lottery purchases to escape what I fear will be the very epitomy of the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."
I'd rather be bored.
Abortion rights, net neutrality, a two-level medical system and the further attempt to turn Canada into a single-party political state are just some of the things I expect to be yapping about over the next four years. And like everybody else outside the Inner Circle, my yapping will mean diddly squat.
On the latter point, now in majority, expect the Conservatives to make gerrymandering an art. The next election will feature more seats, and not a single extra seat will be created that won't be set up to be a generational seat for the conservatives. The political map will see side-by-side leftist seats joined together to form a single seat and that extra seat will then be replaced (and then some) by the splitting into two of a single conservative seat. Some fancy border-making will be required. But the Conservatives will now have a few years and ALL taxpayers dollars to do exactly that. With no opposition. Despite NOT getting the majority of votes in the election Monday night. Again.
Fact: The majority of Canadians voted for the small L liberal side of the voting slate. That's because Canada is a liberal nation. Not a Liberal nation, but a liberal one. But we have a problem, two alternatives on the liberal side, versus the one united, coalesced conservative alternative. And, here in Ontario especially, the surging NDP candidates took votes away from incumbent Liberals (the reverse happened at least once, too) and Conservatives won a seat, despite getting, in some cases, less votes this time around than in losing two years ago.
Early in the election, news was made when one, maybe two, NDP candidates announced they wanted all their supporters to vote Liberal. The election was too important to allow Conservatives to enjoy their split-vote opportunity and win a seat without anything close to a majority of the votes. Had that act become province-wide, let alone nation-wide, today we would have a minority government led, in all likelyhood by either Jack Layton or Michael Ignatieff. The Harper Menace would be behind us.
There's little doubt that the NDP's success was also its own failure. A little less NDP surging in Ontario would almost assuredly have led to Jack Layton as Prime Minister before the summer was out. Instead, the NDP will be an opposition to a party that brooks no opposition. The impact that the NDP will have as the main opposition for the next four years is ZERO. The Conservatives will yawn through question period, obfuscate most of the time and say "none of your business" more than they should. They demonstrated that when all they held was power. Absolute power? Well, Rex, you are about to find the depths that can be plumbed. Sorry. You are wrong.
When last the conservative side of the aisle was similarly split, one of Canada's grand old political insitutions, the Progressive Conservatives, died to allow the Conservative party to emerge phoenix-like and represent the view of a sizable minority of Canadians. The lessons will now have to be applied to the liberal side. There is NO WAY, the Liberal Party, the so-called natural governing party of this country, will survive. Hat in hat, they MUST now go to the NDP and start the process of uniting the left. Free of the baggage of the old guard, the remaining Liberals must not allow the next election to be one of the right versus a fractured left. If they do, the conservatives might establish a control of the country that could last a generation. Or more.
Justin Trudeau will have to make the long walk with his colleagues to the offices of Layton. Behind the scenes, the melding of the two parties into, let's call them the Liberal Democrats, which sounds better on the tongue than Democratic Liberals, has to be in place this year. And for gawd sakes, no one should suggest Really New Democrat Party. I mean, when does New actually become OLD? Provincial allegiances will have to be re-examined to see if the national parties amalgamation seeps down to the provincial level or whether the current bifurcation continues. I have no idea how that goes. But it's gotta get done.
Otherwise, I REALLY will have to step up my lottery purchases to escape what I fear will be the very epitomy of the ancient Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times."
I'd rather be bored.
Sunday, May 01, 2011
POLITICS: Day Of Change
Come Monday night, Peter Mansbridge will be telling me how I will feel for ohhhh, about the next two years. The most dreadful words he could say, of course, are Conservative Majority. That's when I do what I can to hit the lottery and move out of this country, one that has lost its way in casting its lot with the worst possible man to lead the nation.
Or ... we might have another Conservative-led minority with the same clown in place. But not for too long. While long on hubris, even HE couldn't stick around after failing to win a majority for three elections in a row. Politics, the Game, doesn't permit losers like that to hang around unless they are lovable losers. And nobody, upon nobody, who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool conservative beyond all intelligent analysis finds him lovable. Good at what he does, which isn't good for the country. But competently nasty.
Or ... we could have a surprise orange surge to the actual prime minister's office by Jack Layton. Amongst the three, he's obviously the man most of Canada would want in the chair. He's CANADIAN, not parochially connected to one region above all others (I'm talking to you Prairies and your support for the local lad from hell). He's also a politician and promises the moon and he won't be able to deliver. Do I have to repeat, ad nauseum, the fact that politicians lie? But you definitely get the feeling he will give it a good try, as adverse the current chief politician of Canada. Frankly, the NDP turn here in Ontario was horrible and I'd no more like an NDP majority than a Conservative one. Welllll, that's not completely true. But it would only be slightly better. Still, if you can't like Jack, you're not Canadian. See, I can demonize non-believers just as well as Harper's Junta.
Or ... we could could be in the crosshairs of a short-lived Conservative minority that might almost immediately have to give way to the oft-threatened left-oriented coalition. 'Course, I'm REALLY interested in seeing if Gilles Duceppe can get in bed with Jack Layton, given the thumping the NDP is handing the Bloc Quebecois in La Belle Province. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Duceppe props up Harper for awhile. But only for awhile. Reprehensible is, after all, reprehensible. And Harper will fall. To what kind of coalition?
And before I cogitate on that, let me point out two flaws in the Conservative bleat about coalitions. Are not the Conservatives a coalition of the old Progressive Conservatives (an almost fondly remembered group that espoused conservative views without viewing themselves above the law) and the regionally-oriented wackos, the Canadian Action Party? Plus, it was the Conservatives and the NDP that pulled the "Plurality doesn't mean Majority" non-confidence vote in the minority Liberal government of the time. Harper is so #*($#*$U two-faced I have a tough time figuring out why people think he ever doesn't lie. Plus, the Conservatives have NOT gotten support from the majority of Canadians in any election this century. And for Harper to proclaim that letting the MAJORITY of %$W)(*%WAY)$ Canadians get the government of THEIR (representative's) choice is somehow anti-democratic only serves to show how completely and utterly mentally bankrupt he and his backers are. Now back to the new coalition.
The problem with the boogie-man coalition threat that Harper has been selling for months is that he's right. Most Canadians haven't taken a liking to Michael Ignatieff. And that's despite a pretty good turn on The Rick Mercer Report. He's smarter than most people in the room, and Canadians (and Americans it seems) have a tough time with that. He's pleasant, but not neighbourly. His dunkirking of Stephane Dion and exiling (until this past week) of the little guy from Shawinigan, Jean Chretien, doesn't help. He took the shots from Harper's swiftboaters for too long and let those rabid right-wingers define him to the Canadian public. He's never strongly enough defended himself or attacked the integrity (it is supposed to exist) of the man who's been okaying these attack ads even before elections were called (law, what law?). It's time to trot out a Trudeau and get started on The Liberals: The Next Generation. The reds need a new team with modern sensibilities, fewer flaws and a willingness to get in and get dirty with the folks who have imported dirty American political tactics wholesale.
Which brings us back to why the left coalition CAN and WILL work this time around. Jack Layton will be in the hot seat. And with a little tempering from their Liberal partners and, a bit too much, in all probability, kowtowing towards Quebec, the left minority will lead until the Conservatives and whoever is leading them in the years ahead, can con Duceppe into pulling the plug. Two years? At a guess. I can dream about longer. But I don't trust Duceppe, the flow of history or Layton's health for much longer than that.
Please Mr. Mansbridge, make the Day of Change a good one for Canada.
Or ... we might have another Conservative-led minority with the same clown in place. But not for too long. While long on hubris, even HE couldn't stick around after failing to win a majority for three elections in a row. Politics, the Game, doesn't permit losers like that to hang around unless they are lovable losers. And nobody, upon nobody, who isn't a dyed-in-the-wool conservative beyond all intelligent analysis finds him lovable. Good at what he does, which isn't good for the country. But competently nasty.
Or ... we could have a surprise orange surge to the actual prime minister's office by Jack Layton. Amongst the three, he's obviously the man most of Canada would want in the chair. He's CANADIAN, not parochially connected to one region above all others (I'm talking to you Prairies and your support for the local lad from hell). He's also a politician and promises the moon and he won't be able to deliver. Do I have to repeat, ad nauseum, the fact that politicians lie? But you definitely get the feeling he will give it a good try, as adverse the current chief politician of Canada. Frankly, the NDP turn here in Ontario was horrible and I'd no more like an NDP majority than a Conservative one. Welllll, that's not completely true. But it would only be slightly better. Still, if you can't like Jack, you're not Canadian. See, I can demonize non-believers just as well as Harper's Junta.
Or ... we could could be in the crosshairs of a short-lived Conservative minority that might almost immediately have to give way to the oft-threatened left-oriented coalition. 'Course, I'm REALLY interested in seeing if Gilles Duceppe can get in bed with Jack Layton, given the thumping the NDP is handing the Bloc Quebecois in La Belle Province. Wouldn't surprise me at all if Duceppe props up Harper for awhile. But only for awhile. Reprehensible is, after all, reprehensible. And Harper will fall. To what kind of coalition?
And before I cogitate on that, let me point out two flaws in the Conservative bleat about coalitions. Are not the Conservatives a coalition of the old Progressive Conservatives (an almost fondly remembered group that espoused conservative views without viewing themselves above the law) and the regionally-oriented wackos, the Canadian Action Party? Plus, it was the Conservatives and the NDP that pulled the "Plurality doesn't mean Majority" non-confidence vote in the minority Liberal government of the time. Harper is so #*($#*$U two-faced I have a tough time figuring out why people think he ever doesn't lie. Plus, the Conservatives have NOT gotten support from the majority of Canadians in any election this century. And for Harper to proclaim that letting the MAJORITY of %$W)(*%WAY)$ Canadians get the government of THEIR (representative's) choice is somehow anti-democratic only serves to show how completely and utterly mentally bankrupt he and his backers are. Now back to the new coalition.
The problem with the boogie-man coalition threat that Harper has been selling for months is that he's right. Most Canadians haven't taken a liking to Michael Ignatieff. And that's despite a pretty good turn on The Rick Mercer Report. He's smarter than most people in the room, and Canadians (and Americans it seems) have a tough time with that. He's pleasant, but not neighbourly. His dunkirking of Stephane Dion and exiling (until this past week) of the little guy from Shawinigan, Jean Chretien, doesn't help. He took the shots from Harper's swiftboaters for too long and let those rabid right-wingers define him to the Canadian public. He's never strongly enough defended himself or attacked the integrity (it is supposed to exist) of the man who's been okaying these attack ads even before elections were called (law, what law?). It's time to trot out a Trudeau and get started on The Liberals: The Next Generation. The reds need a new team with modern sensibilities, fewer flaws and a willingness to get in and get dirty with the folks who have imported dirty American political tactics wholesale.
Which brings us back to why the left coalition CAN and WILL work this time around. Jack Layton will be in the hot seat. And with a little tempering from their Liberal partners and, a bit too much, in all probability, kowtowing towards Quebec, the left minority will lead until the Conservatives and whoever is leading them in the years ahead, can con Duceppe into pulling the plug. Two years? At a guess. I can dream about longer. But I don't trust Duceppe, the flow of history or Layton's health for much longer than that.
Please Mr. Mansbridge, make the Day of Change a good one for Canada.
Thursday, April 28, 2011
LIFE: And A Season Ends
My Christmas tree came down tonight. Christmas concluded for me when the folks finally made it up to Brampton last week to drop off PJ's and Peanut Butter Cookies, plus get their Christmas swag. That closed Christmas. And tonight, Angela and Megan took down the tree ... which, for some reason, they kept referring to as The Easter Tree.
They'll be putting the tree back up in about seven and a half months.
They'll be putting the tree back up in about seven and a half months.
Wednesday, April 27, 2011
SOFTWARE: HTTPS-Everywhere, 'Cept Google Search
I haven't checked this out on Quincy, which runs Win7 and Firefox 4.0, but I have to admit to being a bit angry about a recent downgrade upgrade from The Electronic Frontier Foundation for the MUST-HAVE security add-on HTTPS-Everywhere. At least, I had to do some finagling to stop version 0.9.5 of the add-on for my Firefox 3.6x version running on Popeye, the WinXP machine from making my life miserable.
Seems this latest upgrade makes searching for images through Google Image Search an impossibility. I'd get a message saying no-can do in geek speak to any term I put in. I could put in "Montreal Canadiens" or I could put in some search term I REALLY should never be allowed to search for. Something that would shake your belief in me as a civilized man. Something like "Conservative Majority." EGADS!!!!!! Go Jack go! But I digress.
At any rate, I solved the problem by going into the options and deselecting Google Search from the list of stuff HTTPS-Everywhere forces into the SECURE version of HTTP. Seems Google is lagging in the area and the previous method v0.9.4 and earlier of the add-on now no longer works. In fact, it gets in the way in a major way.
Why don't I uninstall the whole thing altogether?
What, am I CRAZY!?!
The fact is, that I wouldn't run a full-time browser without NoScript, AdBlock and HTTPS-Everywhere. It's not safe out there on the Internet. Bluntly, every site SHOULD be running under HTTPS security rather than wide open with HTTP only. HTTPS-Everywhere was mainly developed to combat the problem of man in the middle attacks. There's where a felonious fink manages to insert a probe of some sort between the beginning and end points of an electronic communication. If the data isn't encrypted, the fink can read things like passwords. And the internet runs on passwords. Encryption throws a monkey wrench into that kind of attack. And every little bit of defence helps.
It took longer to figure out this situation than I would have liked. But at least I was able to 'fix' the problem. I hope a REAL upgrade (v0.9.9 is in the pipeline) will let me turn on the security feature for Google Searches again. After all, I want to be able to be secure when I search for things like... The Royal Wedding.
Can't believe I admitted that in public.
Seems this latest upgrade makes searching for images through Google Image Search an impossibility. I'd get a message saying no-can do in geek speak to any term I put in. I could put in "Montreal Canadiens" or I could put in some search term I REALLY should never be allowed to search for. Something that would shake your belief in me as a civilized man. Something like "Conservative Majority." EGADS!!!!!! Go Jack go! But I digress.
At any rate, I solved the problem by going into the options and deselecting Google Search from the list of stuff HTTPS-Everywhere forces into the SECURE version of HTTP. Seems Google is lagging in the area and the previous method v0.9.4 and earlier of the add-on now no longer works. In fact, it gets in the way in a major way.
Why don't I uninstall the whole thing altogether?
What, am I CRAZY!?!
The fact is, that I wouldn't run a full-time browser without NoScript, AdBlock and HTTPS-Everywhere. It's not safe out there on the Internet. Bluntly, every site SHOULD be running under HTTPS security rather than wide open with HTTP only. HTTPS-Everywhere was mainly developed to combat the problem of man in the middle attacks. There's where a felonious fink manages to insert a probe of some sort between the beginning and end points of an electronic communication. If the data isn't encrypted, the fink can read things like passwords. And the internet runs on passwords. Encryption throws a monkey wrench into that kind of attack. And every little bit of defence helps.
It took longer to figure out this situation than I would have liked. But at least I was able to 'fix' the problem. I hope a REAL upgrade (v0.9.9 is in the pipeline) will let me turn on the security feature for Google Searches again. After all, I want to be able to be secure when I search for things like... The Royal Wedding.
Can't believe I admitted that in public.
Thursday, April 14, 2011
SPORTS: A Good One Retires
Carlos Delgado officially retired yesterday and talk of his Hall of Fame chances commenced immediately. I think it's a stretch to say he's border-line to become a member of baseball's hallowed hall. But it's not inconceivable that he will be enshrined. He's one of my absolute favourite human beings on this planet and even the crusty old baseball writer's cabal would admit that. In fact, it might only be the writers who wouldn't vote him in. Everybody else who's ever met him would vote yes, in all probability.
One of my fondest times with my niece was at a signing Delgado did at the local comic book emporium. Delgado was late and tensions were a little high, but once things got going, that smile and Delgado's genuine warmth for fans shone brightly. I was, more or less, conducting the show and my niece was my little helper. She and Delgado got along famously. He treated her like his own kid (which, at the time, was a future project). He made a fan for life. ME and her.
Delgado's probably is not getting into the Hall of Fame. The Princes of Non-Bias will look at his numbers and won't see HOF written all over them. They'll consider voting for him, because, well, he was a great guy and I never, ever suspected him of using women's fertility drugs at any point (how's Manny being Manuela going to work out for Ramirez, you think?). But the lack of World Series rings, the lack of MVP votes along the way and numbers, more ordinary than not, will result in exclusion from the Hall. Other than with a ticket in hand.
But I WILL tell you where I think he's got more than a snowball's chance in Puerto Rico of getting needed votes. It wouldn't shock me at all if he goes into political office in Puerto Rico and turns out to be good, really good, at the job. Now, generally, I have a callous dislike for politicians. In general, I think most lie. A lot. You have to, to get elected. Then, once in power, politicians cling to that power in ways that I find unseemly. And yes, being woken up by a Conservative campaigner this morning certainly has re-inforced my anti-politician feelings. But I think Delgado could be that politician that rises above it all. He doesn't need the power or the money or the ability to dole out favours being elected would bring him. He's genuinely interested in the welfare of his fellow Puerto Ricans and has been working hard to improve their lot in life for years.
Carlos Delgado, President of Puerto Rico? Not far-fetched. Carlos Delgado, Hall of Famer? Yeah, pretty well far-fetched. But I know which vote Delgado would end up preferring.
One of my fondest times with my niece was at a signing Delgado did at the local comic book emporium. Delgado was late and tensions were a little high, but once things got going, that smile and Delgado's genuine warmth for fans shone brightly. I was, more or less, conducting the show and my niece was my little helper. She and Delgado got along famously. He treated her like his own kid (which, at the time, was a future project). He made a fan for life. ME and her.
Delgado's probably is not getting into the Hall of Fame. The Princes of Non-Bias will look at his numbers and won't see HOF written all over them. They'll consider voting for him, because, well, he was a great guy and I never, ever suspected him of using women's fertility drugs at any point (how's Manny being Manuela going to work out for Ramirez, you think?). But the lack of World Series rings, the lack of MVP votes along the way and numbers, more ordinary than not, will result in exclusion from the Hall. Other than with a ticket in hand.
But I WILL tell you where I think he's got more than a snowball's chance in Puerto Rico of getting needed votes. It wouldn't shock me at all if he goes into political office in Puerto Rico and turns out to be good, really good, at the job. Now, generally, I have a callous dislike for politicians. In general, I think most lie. A lot. You have to, to get elected. Then, once in power, politicians cling to that power in ways that I find unseemly. And yes, being woken up by a Conservative campaigner this morning certainly has re-inforced my anti-politician feelings. But I think Delgado could be that politician that rises above it all. He doesn't need the power or the money or the ability to dole out favours being elected would bring him. He's genuinely interested in the welfare of his fellow Puerto Ricans and has been working hard to improve their lot in life for years.
Carlos Delgado, President of Puerto Rico? Not far-fetched. Carlos Delgado, Hall of Famer? Yeah, pretty well far-fetched. But I know which vote Delgado would end up preferring.
Thursday, April 07, 2011
SOFTWARE: I (DON'T) Want Candy
I've been going through my Freeware Installer Disk, doing some updating, some pruning and some documenting. I really believe that it's quite possible to run a full and rich Windows computer using just freeware and open source software. Being a power user, I've got more than a few paid applications, but I'm not the normal profile. Not even close to one.
One of the programs I decided to prune away was AVG, the once darling of the freeware anti-virus programs. I used it. I recommended it and I probably installed on close to 100 computers. But once AVG started to add functionality and become a suite of defensive products, rather than JUST an anti-virus, I looked elsewhere and found alternatives: Avast, then Avira and then back to Avast. (There were a couple of paid terms with Norton and Comodo in that rotation too). I don't think I've installed AVG on anybody's computer in three years, maybe more. Last week, Patrick had to deal with a friend of mine's computer that was seriously bungled up and it was running AVG. Through all of this time, I always included the latest version of AVG on the FID because, as they say, variety means potentially stumbling on the solution. Yesterday, in reviewing the Security section of FID, I deleted AVG. It was time for it to go.
And not a moment too soon. It seems AVG, sometime in the recent past, has opted to join the OpenCandy movement. I found this out via today's post at Gizmo's Freeware. This is a well-done, curated freeware site that I check daily. And it opened my eyes up to the growing menace that OpenCandy represents. In a calm, fact-filled article, the whole concept of OpenCandy is put through an analysis. The conclusion at Gizmo is that OpenCandy, by itself, will not result in an application being barred from recommendation. But its presence will be noted and the note itself will be a warning bell. And if OpenCandy is, in any way, stealthed into the product install, then Gizmo will, in fact, bar it.
NOTE: Avira is also mentioned. I still include Avira on the FID because the reason I switched back from Avira to Avast is Avira's over-protective approach to anything resembling a virus. EXACTLY what I want when I'm unsure of my current AV choice and want a second opinion. Erring on the side of caution in second opinions is a good idea.
I've seen OpenCandy during my most recent updates of some products I use. It's a bit of a showstopper and I read the screens of software it suggests I might want to install fairly carefully. Thus far, I've been able to answer no successfully with one exception, a certain PDF reader application that I have to revisit again before dumping it. I don't rage against the authors of the software because it helps pay them for their time in creating software I and others find useful. Heck, I'm in the programming game and none of what I do is free to the end user. I wish there were alternatives to adware and the kind of semi-adware OpenCandy is. I'm leaning more and more towards Open Source applications, rather than Freeware/Adware these days because of it.
But all in all, OpenCandy won't stop me from using/installing software that includes it. I just won't ever, ever say yes to OpenCandy knowingly.
One of the programs I decided to prune away was AVG, the once darling of the freeware anti-virus programs. I used it. I recommended it and I probably installed on close to 100 computers. But once AVG started to add functionality and become a suite of defensive products, rather than JUST an anti-virus, I looked elsewhere and found alternatives: Avast, then Avira and then back to Avast. (There were a couple of paid terms with Norton and Comodo in that rotation too). I don't think I've installed AVG on anybody's computer in three years, maybe more. Last week, Patrick had to deal with a friend of mine's computer that was seriously bungled up and it was running AVG. Through all of this time, I always included the latest version of AVG on the FID because, as they say, variety means potentially stumbling on the solution. Yesterday, in reviewing the Security section of FID, I deleted AVG. It was time for it to go.
And not a moment too soon. It seems AVG, sometime in the recent past, has opted to join the OpenCandy movement. I found this out via today's post at Gizmo's Freeware. This is a well-done, curated freeware site that I check daily. And it opened my eyes up to the growing menace that OpenCandy represents. In a calm, fact-filled article, the whole concept of OpenCandy is put through an analysis. The conclusion at Gizmo is that OpenCandy, by itself, will not result in an application being barred from recommendation. But its presence will be noted and the note itself will be a warning bell. And if OpenCandy is, in any way, stealthed into the product install, then Gizmo will, in fact, bar it.
NOTE: Avira is also mentioned. I still include Avira on the FID because the reason I switched back from Avira to Avast is Avira's over-protective approach to anything resembling a virus. EXACTLY what I want when I'm unsure of my current AV choice and want a second opinion. Erring on the side of caution in second opinions is a good idea.
I've seen OpenCandy during my most recent updates of some products I use. It's a bit of a showstopper and I read the screens of software it suggests I might want to install fairly carefully. Thus far, I've been able to answer no successfully with one exception, a certain PDF reader application that I have to revisit again before dumping it. I don't rage against the authors of the software because it helps pay them for their time in creating software I and others find useful. Heck, I'm in the programming game and none of what I do is free to the end user. I wish there were alternatives to adware and the kind of semi-adware OpenCandy is. I'm leaning more and more towards Open Source applications, rather than Freeware/Adware these days because of it.
But all in all, OpenCandy won't stop me from using/installing software that includes it. I just won't ever, ever say yes to OpenCandy knowingly.
Sunday, March 27, 2011
SPORTS: Come Fall, What May The Raptors Look Like?
Well, the easiest answer is ... like too many of us, unemployed. Certainly a work stoppage does threaten the NBA. Which might or might not be a bad thing for the Toronto Raptors.
The new landscape come fall (or whenever) might turn Toronto's pending salary landfall into a bonanza. The Raps will be under the cap and have some pieces that might combine with just the right incoming talent to become a middle of the Eastern Conference pack team. Or it could be the start of another long year in T.O.
Mitch Lawrence in the New York Daily news opined that the Raptors could very well be open to dealing Andrea Bargnani this off-season, would replace head coach Jay Triano with Mike D'Antoni if given the opportunity and will eventually build around DeMar DeRozan and rookie Ed Davis. Well, to all of that, I say 'Yuck!'
I'm pretty disappointed in Bargnani. He's shown the offence I knew he had. He's 15th in the league in scoring, basically replacing Chris Bosh as the scorer on a losing team that gets numbers, not all of which are important to the central task of winning. I've never been ticked off at his rebounding numbers. He plays outside and when you are 25 feet away from the basket offensively, you're going to struggle to get offensive rebounds. I'd like his defensive rebounding to be stronger, but it's not egregiously bad. But the guy who spent his first season doing a half-decent job of trying to defend small forwards (back in the day of the experimental O'Neal-Bosh-Bargnani front line), doesn't give much of an effort on D these days. Aside from the odd charge, which involves standing still, Bargnani has regressed and doesn't seem inclined to give effort. Well, enough effort. And he's lost me as a supporter because of it. You can't teach effort and effort is a talent because not everybody does it, as Jack Armstrong frequently points out. I would have thought 10M bucks might prompt that effort, but I've been wrong before.
IF the Raptors were to trade Bargnani, and got good return for him, I could live with the move. The fact is, Bargnani might be the perfect sixth man, instant offence and all. He's a nightmare matchup for the opposition defence on most nights. Up against second stringers, he'd be a seven-foot tall Microwave. But Bargnani really struggled in the sixth man role as a young player, and given his lack of progression defensively, it's quite possible he couldn't adapt to the role. At least in Toronto. So, let some other team have the opportunity to get the potential out of the Son of the Adriatic.
On the other hand, if the Raptors are going to build around Davis and DeRozan, I say keep Bargnani. I don't have a lot of hope for either of the two kids either. Let's deal with DeRozan first. The high-flying athletic shooting guard suffers from a few deficiencies. He's no better on D than Bargnani, he has no handle whatsoever and I might be a better three-point shooter than he is right now. He's got the Richard Hamilton shot down fairly pat, a consistent 17 footer that has become deadly. He has that 360 spinarama that teams have now come to expect and by bumping him out another five feet has reduced its effectiveness. Still, a pretty move. And he alley-oops with the best in the league. But my REAL problem with the kid is his reaction to not getting calls. He's become Jamario Moon and early Matt Bonner, always going running over to Triano (or at least in the general direction), seeming to plead "Daddy, he HITTTTT MMMEEEEEE!" Yes, he's getting the raw end of the ref's whistle too much, and he's not crossing the line vis a vis the refs. But you can see his willingness to blame something gone wrong ON the refs. There's hope for him and a LOT of people like his progression from caught in the headlights deer to young stag this year, having developed that 17-footer. But I hate that he skates on the poor defence.
Now, Ed Davis. I hated, truly despised, this draft pick last summer. He was EXACTLY the wrong guy for the team, despite being higher rated. Patrick Patterson, who didn't exactly bloom in Houston, but who I believe would have in Toronto, was my pick. And I stand by that selection order even now. And that's despite acknowledging that Davis has a long NBA career ahead of him. I will bet dollars, not always hard-earned, but dollars nonetheless, that Davis ends up developing into a 6-10/6-11 Reggie Evans. And, as any Toronto fan will tell you, that's plenty high praise. Davis has a nose for the ball, soft hands and can do Evans one better by being a shot blocker. Unfortunately, like Evans, he's nightmarish on the foul line and, while I've seen him take and make 15-footers, his shooting range and arm length are one and the same. Still, rebounding, especially on the Raptors, has been a position of need for so long, it's hard to really hate on the kid for doing that one thing oh-so-well. And he'll get better at it, which is a bit scary as he packs on some pounds and gets some of that experience that makes Evans a marvel. Plus, there's a chance Davis can improve his shooting. I mean, Amir Johnson has had a shooting renaissance this year and is actually one of the better free throw guys on the team.
But there's the rub. Toronto already had an Ed Davis. His name is Amir. And, like Bargnani, he's got a long-term contract. Plus, Reggie was going to be back. He won't be back next year because Davis is essentially a younger, cheaper him. Which will sadden the heart of all Raptor fans. Now, imagine if Patterson had been selected (or better yet, let somebody move up to grab Davis and then trade part of that something to Houston to get Patterson one draft pick later). Reggie would have reason to return (about 5M reasons). And Patterson would have fit into the Raptors pretty well. A decent shooting small forward with rebounding tendancies. He's lost amongst a plethora of guys that fit that description in Texas. What Houston needed was Davis. What Toronto needed was Patterson.
I no more want to build around Davis and DeRozan than I want extensive dental surgery. These guys COULD be pieces on a good team. But the foundation? Nah, I don't think so.
As for D'Antoni, I think I've come around to the conclusion that Triano is a good coach. A good assistant coach. I'm very, very troubled with the lack of a public putdown of Julian Wright. At the very least, when he refused to go into the game against Golden State, he should have been publicly told to get off the bench and hit the showers (although why, given his total lack of playing time). As likable as Wright and Triano are, as good a man as Triano is, I think you have to have a bit of a bully's willingness to be the boss. And I don't think Triano's got that. Plus I hate the Raptor offence and have for about 16 years. I know Triano does a great job of running plays coming out of timeouts. But where the heck are the picks, double-picks and rotation during much of the game otherwise. Pick and Roll bores me to tears. My favourite play in the whole world is an uncontested gimme layup at the bucket. Love that even more than an alley-oop. Cuz it means the flow of the offence created a basket. We see stagnate offensive sets waaaaaaay too often in T.O. I do think it's time for a change. And, while D'Antoni has coaching warts too, why not give it a try?
The draft will be the first step in determining the new Raptor outlook. Depending on the vagaries of the dropping balls, the Raptors could draft anywhere from first to seventh. The top pick will be Kyrie Irving out of Duke. If he comes to Toronto, Jose Calderon will almost certainly have to exit stage right. Ideally, the Spaniard would stick around as mentor, but his trade value and Jerryd Bayless's lack of same and potential would make Calederon the packer. Still, I'd worry about Bayless once the future path to starting would be snatched away from him. He's been as advertised, a young Jarret Jack. Tantalizing, but bull-headed and I question his ability ultimately to be a floor general. Calederon would be worth his weight in gold in Miami and I wouldn't rule him out as a key contributor to next year's Anaheim Royals either. But Irving would have to be the Toronto starter from day one.
On the other hand, the Raptors could end up with Kemba Walker. More or less the same story as with Irving, although Bayless would get more playing time paired with Walker and as his backup.
Moving on, what if Derrick Williams becomes a Raptor. Better than Walker, less good than Irving. But plenty good nonetheless. Williams becomes the athletic, decent-shooting wing they've been looking for, for a long time. He and Linus Kleiza would be an effective tandem. It would leave James Johnson a bit in limbo, but that would only occur after Kleiza comes back. At that point, either he or Kleiza would have to be traded. And hopefully, he would have found enough of a shooting stroke to bring back something good. Williams' defence is still an unknown at this point. But there's nothing else about his game that brings me fear.
Who else on the draft board interests me? Enes Kanter, the would-be Kentucky Wildcat? No. Not without dealing Bargnani first and probably not even then. Canada's Tristan Thompson? Not even close. Should stay at Texas, although the rumour is he's jumping in with both feet, having reputedly hired an agent. A BIG mistake. Perry Jones out of Baylor? Didn't see enough, but when you hear mercurial applied to a college kid, let somebody else take him. Terrence Jones of Kentucky? Too raw. I DO like the Carolina kids, John Henson and Harrison Barnes. My gut tells me Barnes is better long-term, but that Henson is a quicker helper. There's a bunch of Euros, led by Jan Vesely. But I think a big, good shooting Euro with suspect defensive talents is exactly NOT what Toronto needs moving forward.
To my way of thinking, the Raptors end up with one of the point guards, who will start ahead of Bayless this fall. DeRozan, Bargnani and Davis will all be back, as will Amir and James Johnson. Kleiza comes back mid-season. That's eight guys. Project Solomon Alabi, currently lost in the wilds of Erie PA makes it nine. And I think Joey Dorsey finds a Raptor contract available to him too. The rest will be new guys. Calderon, Evans and Sonny Weems will be elsewhere in the NBA. Wright and Alexis Ajinca will be in Europe. I don't know about Leandro Barbosa. I think he opts out, but the new CBA will play a big part in that decision. I'd like to see him back.
Now, given Bryan Colangelo's ability to divest Toronto of that dog of a player Hedo what's his name last year, maybe there's a franchise-transforming trade out there. How 'bout stiffing the Golden State Warriors for Stephen Curry and oft-injured one-dimensional Andris Biedrins for Bargnani and Calderon? It'd be an interesting move. You'd have three big men who could all rebound and score between 10 and 15 points a game, but that would mean getting consistent scoring from the wings. Plus some defence, because Curry's no improvement on Calderon there. But that's what free agent money's for. Unfortunately, Don Nelson doesn't run the Warriors any more. So THAT's not going to happen.
Generally speaking, I'd deal off DeRozan while the dealing's good. I think he's already reached his top level. In my opinion, the kid guard draftee, the two Johnsons and Davis would be the only sure-fire Raptors come fall. And, to be honest, I'm a bigger Alabi fan that just about anybody in the world not directly related to him. I'd keep Calderon around too, but there isn't much worth trading on this team and he's amongst the better pieces. Reggie could come back. And I've already said I'd like to see Barbosa in Raptor red and black. Everybody else could (and should) go.
The draft will bring its own intrigues and then we will have to settle in to await the results of the new CBA. Depending on what lies within the new agreement, the Raptors could be in major rebuilding mode next fall, back into lower playoff spot contention or a surprisingly solid fourth-place team. My bet? Well, the first, obviously. But time will tell.
The new landscape come fall (or whenever) might turn Toronto's pending salary landfall into a bonanza. The Raps will be under the cap and have some pieces that might combine with just the right incoming talent to become a middle of the Eastern Conference pack team. Or it could be the start of another long year in T.O.
Mitch Lawrence in the New York Daily news opined that the Raptors could very well be open to dealing Andrea Bargnani this off-season, would replace head coach Jay Triano with Mike D'Antoni if given the opportunity and will eventually build around DeMar DeRozan and rookie Ed Davis. Well, to all of that, I say 'Yuck!'
I'm pretty disappointed in Bargnani. He's shown the offence I knew he had. He's 15th in the league in scoring, basically replacing Chris Bosh as the scorer on a losing team that gets numbers, not all of which are important to the central task of winning. I've never been ticked off at his rebounding numbers. He plays outside and when you are 25 feet away from the basket offensively, you're going to struggle to get offensive rebounds. I'd like his defensive rebounding to be stronger, but it's not egregiously bad. But the guy who spent his first season doing a half-decent job of trying to defend small forwards (back in the day of the experimental O'Neal-Bosh-Bargnani front line), doesn't give much of an effort on D these days. Aside from the odd charge, which involves standing still, Bargnani has regressed and doesn't seem inclined to give effort. Well, enough effort. And he's lost me as a supporter because of it. You can't teach effort and effort is a talent because not everybody does it, as Jack Armstrong frequently points out. I would have thought 10M bucks might prompt that effort, but I've been wrong before.
IF the Raptors were to trade Bargnani, and got good return for him, I could live with the move. The fact is, Bargnani might be the perfect sixth man, instant offence and all. He's a nightmare matchup for the opposition defence on most nights. Up against second stringers, he'd be a seven-foot tall Microwave. But Bargnani really struggled in the sixth man role as a young player, and given his lack of progression defensively, it's quite possible he couldn't adapt to the role. At least in Toronto. So, let some other team have the opportunity to get the potential out of the Son of the Adriatic.
On the other hand, if the Raptors are going to build around Davis and DeRozan, I say keep Bargnani. I don't have a lot of hope for either of the two kids either. Let's deal with DeRozan first. The high-flying athletic shooting guard suffers from a few deficiencies. He's no better on D than Bargnani, he has no handle whatsoever and I might be a better three-point shooter than he is right now. He's got the Richard Hamilton shot down fairly pat, a consistent 17 footer that has become deadly. He has that 360 spinarama that teams have now come to expect and by bumping him out another five feet has reduced its effectiveness. Still, a pretty move. And he alley-oops with the best in the league. But my REAL problem with the kid is his reaction to not getting calls. He's become Jamario Moon and early Matt Bonner, always going running over to Triano (or at least in the general direction), seeming to plead "Daddy, he HITTTTT MMMEEEEEE!" Yes, he's getting the raw end of the ref's whistle too much, and he's not crossing the line vis a vis the refs. But you can see his willingness to blame something gone wrong ON the refs. There's hope for him and a LOT of people like his progression from caught in the headlights deer to young stag this year, having developed that 17-footer. But I hate that he skates on the poor defence.
Now, Ed Davis. I hated, truly despised, this draft pick last summer. He was EXACTLY the wrong guy for the team, despite being higher rated. Patrick Patterson, who didn't exactly bloom in Houston, but who I believe would have in Toronto, was my pick. And I stand by that selection order even now. And that's despite acknowledging that Davis has a long NBA career ahead of him. I will bet dollars, not always hard-earned, but dollars nonetheless, that Davis ends up developing into a 6-10/6-11 Reggie Evans. And, as any Toronto fan will tell you, that's plenty high praise. Davis has a nose for the ball, soft hands and can do Evans one better by being a shot blocker. Unfortunately, like Evans, he's nightmarish on the foul line and, while I've seen him take and make 15-footers, his shooting range and arm length are one and the same. Still, rebounding, especially on the Raptors, has been a position of need for so long, it's hard to really hate on the kid for doing that one thing oh-so-well. And he'll get better at it, which is a bit scary as he packs on some pounds and gets some of that experience that makes Evans a marvel. Plus, there's a chance Davis can improve his shooting. I mean, Amir Johnson has had a shooting renaissance this year and is actually one of the better free throw guys on the team.
But there's the rub. Toronto already had an Ed Davis. His name is Amir. And, like Bargnani, he's got a long-term contract. Plus, Reggie was going to be back. He won't be back next year because Davis is essentially a younger, cheaper him. Which will sadden the heart of all Raptor fans. Now, imagine if Patterson had been selected (or better yet, let somebody move up to grab Davis and then trade part of that something to Houston to get Patterson one draft pick later). Reggie would have reason to return (about 5M reasons). And Patterson would have fit into the Raptors pretty well. A decent shooting small forward with rebounding tendancies. He's lost amongst a plethora of guys that fit that description in Texas. What Houston needed was Davis. What Toronto needed was Patterson.
I no more want to build around Davis and DeRozan than I want extensive dental surgery. These guys COULD be pieces on a good team. But the foundation? Nah, I don't think so.
As for D'Antoni, I think I've come around to the conclusion that Triano is a good coach. A good assistant coach. I'm very, very troubled with the lack of a public putdown of Julian Wright. At the very least, when he refused to go into the game against Golden State, he should have been publicly told to get off the bench and hit the showers (although why, given his total lack of playing time). As likable as Wright and Triano are, as good a man as Triano is, I think you have to have a bit of a bully's willingness to be the boss. And I don't think Triano's got that. Plus I hate the Raptor offence and have for about 16 years. I know Triano does a great job of running plays coming out of timeouts. But where the heck are the picks, double-picks and rotation during much of the game otherwise. Pick and Roll bores me to tears. My favourite play in the whole world is an uncontested gimme layup at the bucket. Love that even more than an alley-oop. Cuz it means the flow of the offence created a basket. We see stagnate offensive sets waaaaaaay too often in T.O. I do think it's time for a change. And, while D'Antoni has coaching warts too, why not give it a try?
The draft will be the first step in determining the new Raptor outlook. Depending on the vagaries of the dropping balls, the Raptors could draft anywhere from first to seventh. The top pick will be Kyrie Irving out of Duke. If he comes to Toronto, Jose Calderon will almost certainly have to exit stage right. Ideally, the Spaniard would stick around as mentor, but his trade value and Jerryd Bayless's lack of same and potential would make Calederon the packer. Still, I'd worry about Bayless once the future path to starting would be snatched away from him. He's been as advertised, a young Jarret Jack. Tantalizing, but bull-headed and I question his ability ultimately to be a floor general. Calederon would be worth his weight in gold in Miami and I wouldn't rule him out as a key contributor to next year's Anaheim Royals either. But Irving would have to be the Toronto starter from day one.
On the other hand, the Raptors could end up with Kemba Walker. More or less the same story as with Irving, although Bayless would get more playing time paired with Walker and as his backup.
Moving on, what if Derrick Williams becomes a Raptor. Better than Walker, less good than Irving. But plenty good nonetheless. Williams becomes the athletic, decent-shooting wing they've been looking for, for a long time. He and Linus Kleiza would be an effective tandem. It would leave James Johnson a bit in limbo, but that would only occur after Kleiza comes back. At that point, either he or Kleiza would have to be traded. And hopefully, he would have found enough of a shooting stroke to bring back something good. Williams' defence is still an unknown at this point. But there's nothing else about his game that brings me fear.
Who else on the draft board interests me? Enes Kanter, the would-be Kentucky Wildcat? No. Not without dealing Bargnani first and probably not even then. Canada's Tristan Thompson? Not even close. Should stay at Texas, although the rumour is he's jumping in with both feet, having reputedly hired an agent. A BIG mistake. Perry Jones out of Baylor? Didn't see enough, but when you hear mercurial applied to a college kid, let somebody else take him. Terrence Jones of Kentucky? Too raw. I DO like the Carolina kids, John Henson and Harrison Barnes. My gut tells me Barnes is better long-term, but that Henson is a quicker helper. There's a bunch of Euros, led by Jan Vesely. But I think a big, good shooting Euro with suspect defensive talents is exactly NOT what Toronto needs moving forward.
To my way of thinking, the Raptors end up with one of the point guards, who will start ahead of Bayless this fall. DeRozan, Bargnani and Davis will all be back, as will Amir and James Johnson. Kleiza comes back mid-season. That's eight guys. Project Solomon Alabi, currently lost in the wilds of Erie PA makes it nine. And I think Joey Dorsey finds a Raptor contract available to him too. The rest will be new guys. Calderon, Evans and Sonny Weems will be elsewhere in the NBA. Wright and Alexis Ajinca will be in Europe. I don't know about Leandro Barbosa. I think he opts out, but the new CBA will play a big part in that decision. I'd like to see him back.
Now, given Bryan Colangelo's ability to divest Toronto of that dog of a player Hedo what's his name last year, maybe there's a franchise-transforming trade out there. How 'bout stiffing the Golden State Warriors for Stephen Curry and oft-injured one-dimensional Andris Biedrins for Bargnani and Calderon? It'd be an interesting move. You'd have three big men who could all rebound and score between 10 and 15 points a game, but that would mean getting consistent scoring from the wings. Plus some defence, because Curry's no improvement on Calderon there. But that's what free agent money's for. Unfortunately, Don Nelson doesn't run the Warriors any more. So THAT's not going to happen.
Generally speaking, I'd deal off DeRozan while the dealing's good. I think he's already reached his top level. In my opinion, the kid guard draftee, the two Johnsons and Davis would be the only sure-fire Raptors come fall. And, to be honest, I'm a bigger Alabi fan that just about anybody in the world not directly related to him. I'd keep Calderon around too, but there isn't much worth trading on this team and he's amongst the better pieces. Reggie could come back. And I've already said I'd like to see Barbosa in Raptor red and black. Everybody else could (and should) go.
The draft will bring its own intrigues and then we will have to settle in to await the results of the new CBA. Depending on what lies within the new agreement, the Raptors could be in major rebuilding mode next fall, back into lower playoff spot contention or a surprisingly solid fourth-place team. My bet? Well, the first, obviously. But time will tell.
Thursday, March 24, 2011
INTERNET: And Strike Another From The List
I visit a lot of sites daily. Right now the total is 130. Add in links on those pages, the total goes to maybe 175. Google Reader checks another 80 or so sites, multiple times a day. While I scan over the Google Reader headlines, I click on maybe another 80 a day in total (George Strombolopoulos accounts for a good half-dozen a day himself). So, rounding off, maybe I look at 250 sites a day.
Every one of those sites is planning an upgrade some time in the future. And the number of upgraded or redesigned sites I like better than what was there before? ZERO. Some sites have gone from useful to incredibly unuseful bad memories no longer on my daily visit list (My YEARLY visit list is up to 21 right now). There is a monthly and a weekly list too. Just to see if common sense prevailed and the website returned to the earlier useful design. It's never happened. Some people can't admit their mistakes. Me? Well, I can, it's just that I don't make any.
Some sites DO roll back parts of re-designs. Oddly enough some very famous ones. Ones that I don't visit. So my perfect record of imperfect redesigns remains pristinely at 100 per cent.
Latest to fall from grace is Rotoworld. And I have to tell you, this one hurts. I've depended less and less on the site as my interest in Roto Sports has declined. I'm going to win the OOPS hockey league this year, but that was a draft and no trade league this season. Soooo, no need for regular information acquisition. The Ed Jovanovski Memorial Stanley Cup Pool and the Chris Bosh (Just Another Guy) Memorial NBA Playoff Pool are each draft and hope things. I'm probably not even going to have a BBL Baseball league this summer. So, I hang on to Rotoworld more out of curiosity than need. But no more. It's been stricken from the daily rolls.
It used to be that I could directly go to Rotoworld's American League Player News. With their new redesign, not so much. Nope, actually. You have to click on a drop down menu to American League and then click on a go button. And getting there is a lot of fun. If you're at the TOP of the page, you know, the place my mouse cursor is MOST OF THE TIME, getting to the drop down menu means passing over the site menu, which AUTOMATICALLY EXPANDS, OBSCURING THE TARGET DROP-DOWN MENU. Which means mousing down half the page and then coming back up to the drop-down menu. Blechh!!! (Actually, I use stronger language than Blechh!!!, but I've promised myself and my blood pressure that I would stop my recent descent into perpetual cursing).
And it gets worse. The site auto-refreshes as soon as I click on its tab. Remember, I load all my sports sites at once through middle clicking on a folder of such bookmarks. Gawd, it's annoying to arrive at the just loaded site and then watch it reload. THEN, I discovered another little fly in the ointment. I left the site on my screen and did something else somewhere else. I returned to my computer and noticed the data had refreshed and, once again, I was looking at the data from ALL major league baseball teams, not just the American League player news. Honestly, as much as I like Lyle Overbay, I have NO INTEREST whatsoever in Pittsburgh Pirate player notes. None. Zero. Zilch.
So, for the second time, I write Customer Support. The first time, was right after the re-design when I told them I really, really needed a direct to American League link capability. They said, "Noted." No action, just noted. Sooooo, it was with less than a little hope that I wrote to their support team about this refresh idiocy even AFTER using their go button thing. Mentioned I was using Firefox 3.6.15 (And NO, I'm not switching to FF4 yet. See earlier posts). Oh, and that I was talking about auto-refresh.
The reply? Linda wrote me saying she couldn't reproduce the issue. Clicking the refresh button in her Firefox 4.0 didn't cause the reload to over-ride the American League choice. The ticket is now closed.
Notice anything vaguely STUPID about that response? Different version of Firefox. Actively clicking the reload button rather than waiting for the unwanted automatic refresh. That's what passes for customer support now from Rotoworld. I HAD moved the links to the baseball and hockey pages from the daily folders to the weekly folder. And truth be told, other sites were already giving me better information. But I've decided to just delete the links completely. Not move them to weekly permanently, not even to the monthly check-in and not even to the ultimate garbage can for the guy who keeps EVERY LINK EVER. Rotoworld doesn't even deserve a spot on the yearly list.
Maybe I CAN beat this packrat compulsion. Maybe the first step is a site that's been redesigned into less usefulness with a support team who can't read and cares less than nought about legitmate user bug info. Maybe Rotoworld is doing me a favour by being the straw that broke the back of my resolve to continue hoping once great sites will return to their former glory.
Think I should thank Linda for that little wake-me-up? Nah, I don't think so either.
Every one of those sites is planning an upgrade some time in the future. And the number of upgraded or redesigned sites I like better than what was there before? ZERO. Some sites have gone from useful to incredibly unuseful bad memories no longer on my daily visit list (My YEARLY visit list is up to 21 right now). There is a monthly and a weekly list too. Just to see if common sense prevailed and the website returned to the earlier useful design. It's never happened. Some people can't admit their mistakes. Me? Well, I can, it's just that I don't make any.
Some sites DO roll back parts of re-designs. Oddly enough some very famous ones. Ones that I don't visit. So my perfect record of imperfect redesigns remains pristinely at 100 per cent.
Latest to fall from grace is Rotoworld. And I have to tell you, this one hurts. I've depended less and less on the site as my interest in Roto Sports has declined. I'm going to win the OOPS hockey league this year, but that was a draft and no trade league this season. Soooo, no need for regular information acquisition. The Ed Jovanovski Memorial Stanley Cup Pool and the Chris Bosh (Just Another Guy) Memorial NBA Playoff Pool are each draft and hope things. I'm probably not even going to have a BBL Baseball league this summer. So, I hang on to Rotoworld more out of curiosity than need. But no more. It's been stricken from the daily rolls.
It used to be that I could directly go to Rotoworld's American League Player News. With their new redesign, not so much. Nope, actually. You have to click on a drop down menu to American League and then click on a go button. And getting there is a lot of fun. If you're at the TOP of the page, you know, the place my mouse cursor is MOST OF THE TIME, getting to the drop down menu means passing over the site menu, which AUTOMATICALLY EXPANDS, OBSCURING THE TARGET DROP-DOWN MENU. Which means mousing down half the page and then coming back up to the drop-down menu. Blechh!!! (Actually, I use stronger language than Blechh!!!, but I've promised myself and my blood pressure that I would stop my recent descent into perpetual cursing).
And it gets worse. The site auto-refreshes as soon as I click on its tab. Remember, I load all my sports sites at once through middle clicking on a folder of such bookmarks. Gawd, it's annoying to arrive at the just loaded site and then watch it reload. THEN, I discovered another little fly in the ointment. I left the site on my screen and did something else somewhere else. I returned to my computer and noticed the data had refreshed and, once again, I was looking at the data from ALL major league baseball teams, not just the American League player news. Honestly, as much as I like Lyle Overbay, I have NO INTEREST whatsoever in Pittsburgh Pirate player notes. None. Zero. Zilch.
So, for the second time, I write Customer Support. The first time, was right after the re-design when I told them I really, really needed a direct to American League link capability. They said, "Noted." No action, just noted. Sooooo, it was with less than a little hope that I wrote to their support team about this refresh idiocy even AFTER using their go button thing. Mentioned I was using Firefox 3.6.15 (And NO, I'm not switching to FF4 yet. See earlier posts). Oh, and that I was talking about auto-refresh.
The reply? Linda wrote me saying she couldn't reproduce the issue. Clicking the refresh button in her Firefox 4.0 didn't cause the reload to over-ride the American League choice. The ticket is now closed.
Notice anything vaguely STUPID about that response? Different version of Firefox. Actively clicking the reload button rather than waiting for the unwanted automatic refresh. That's what passes for customer support now from Rotoworld. I HAD moved the links to the baseball and hockey pages from the daily folders to the weekly folder. And truth be told, other sites were already giving me better information. But I've decided to just delete the links completely. Not move them to weekly permanently, not even to the monthly check-in and not even to the ultimate garbage can for the guy who keeps EVERY LINK EVER. Rotoworld doesn't even deserve a spot on the yearly list.
Maybe I CAN beat this packrat compulsion. Maybe the first step is a site that's been redesigned into less usefulness with a support team who can't read and cares less than nought about legitmate user bug info. Maybe Rotoworld is doing me a favour by being the straw that broke the back of my resolve to continue hoping once great sites will return to their former glory.
Think I should thank Linda for that little wake-me-up? Nah, I don't think so either.
Monday, March 21, 2011
LIFE: And I THOUGHT I Hated Bell!!
I got rid of Bell Canada last week, the culmination of about a month of maneuvering to get that carbuncle off my back-side. I despise Ma Bell to the point that the unremitting villianess of the book I am writing is called Belle Rogers. (That Rogers is the last name is no coincidence, but in the battle between the ultimately unlikeable and the astounding awful, I've chosen to keep Rogers rather than the phone company).
Now, before I go on about this changeover, the why's, wherefore's and good-riddance's, let me point you to the current John C. Dvorak column at PCMag.com. I point out that AT&T is not Ma Bell, just kissin' cousins with a virtual identical record of customer abuse. But, boy, does John write a first-rate rant. I could stop here and just say, "What he said." Basically it all applies. But where's the fun in that.
Bell used to be a company with a face. That face was Hugh Fisher, the father of a high school chum. Mr. Fisher, I was too young and too courteous to ever call him something else, was a phone repairer at the Bell store at the Bramalea City Centre. I'd drop in to pay my bill, look over what was new in phones and chat. He always had time for me. I'm sure he caught heck from his (younger) supervisor for wasting time with me, but he didn't care. He loved talking about sports. He was a director of the Bramalea Blues Junior B hockey team and he and his wife attended just about all of Mark's hockey and basketball teams. A little less loud than Mark's mother, but he could work up a sweat excoriating officials as well as the next fan.
He retired and Bell became a faceless entity almost at the same time. First, the store wouldn't take my money any more. Just cheques (I was cheap, I wanted to save the cost of the cheque and the stamp. And I WAS in the vicinity ... frequently). Then, even the store facade went away. Bell was something you mailed cheques to and occasionally sent around repairmen when their legendary five nines of service up-time met the proverbial 0.001 per cent. Oh, and the company found political license to add just about any phony charge they could think of. I finally asked about one oddly-named charge and discovered I had been paying five bucks a month for a phone rental, for a phone I'd returned to Bell more than a decade earlier. Closer to two decades actually.
Caught stealing money from me thanks to my stupidity, they returned $65, 13 months of pilfering. Citing statue of limitations or some such folderal, I decided to keep the money and be happy they weren't in my pocket for the five bucks monthly anymore. Now, once you've been caught with your hand in my pants pocket, I should be excused for looking at every bill you send me with a discerning eye. Which I did, for about a decade. Then, I got sloppy. It's easy to just pay the bill if it's in the ball park. So, I stopped even looking at the bill. I sent the cheque or just used the trusty credit card to make the accounts receivable department go away.
Course, Bell hated me just as much as I hated it. I wouldn't pay the blackmailer's fee to upgrade from pulse dialing to tone dialing when tone dialing came in (I did mention I was old, right?). Didn't do it when the price got cut in half, nor when it was offered for free. I turned down an offer of $25 bucks to make the transition and told them what it would cost them: $500. They turned me down. I was OK with that. Fact is, I would have had to spend a day re-arranging things in my bedroom and office to get AT the jacks. AND I was plenty okay with not having all the digital features. I always answer the phone when I'm at home and don't when I'm not ... although I've virtually always had an answering machine. I don't need Caller ID, as a result. Don't need call waiting, because I agree with my friend Irwin. It's rude. It's always a case of telling one party that I value the other party over them. Nope, I was happy for a long time with my old dial phone system. And yes, that included an old black rotary dial telephone that worked even during the great blackout of 2005.
But, last September, I stopped making any long-distance calls through my phone. I used Google Voice in GMail to do those. And when Bell got around to demanding their money last month, I paid by credit card and said I wanted to change my plan to the most basic plan possible. I THEN discovered two things. I was paying almost 50 bucks a month and that I had been paying 13 of those dollars for up to two hours of national long distance calling per month. And I'd been doing it since last spring. The bright light you saw in the sky that Monday night was me erupting. I'd certainly never okayed THAT chaarge. I don't phone people all that much and when I DO talk to Mom and Dad, it's usually on their nickel (Free for them) or via Google Voice. Same with my brother Wayne. Everybody else I talk is a local phone call. So, I got the plan that I had been on for about 38 years changed. Basic would cost me $27 a month and I'd have to pay through the nose for any long distance. I got the confirmation email within 24 hours. I also told them that I'd shop that price around and wouldn't get back to them if I found a better price elsewhere. They didn't deserve that courtesy. I also noticed I was now going to get charged 65 cents a month for using my pulse line, the penny-thieving so-and-so's. They also didn't offer to refund the money from the unauthorized added long-distance plan I'd been placed on.
Over the next couple of days, I DID check out alternatives with Rogers and with Vonage for VOIP-based solutions. There were enough doubts that I didn't go any further. Besides, Patrick (who I swear HAS Bell stock, given his refusal to badmouth the company's dependability), talked me down from the anger mountain. I'd won and was going to start saving money immediately.
On the Friday (if you are counting, that's four days after I paid off my Bell bill and three days after I'd been emailed confirmation of my new plan), I got a bill. For more than 54 dollars.
On the Saturday, I was told by the hapless clerk at the end of the line that she'd checked, re-checked and then checked again. My bill was 54 bucks and some change. I bellowed at her for about a minute longer, then slammed down the phone. A half-hour later, I was a Vonage customer.
It's taken most of the three weeks or so since this all went down to get effectively moved over to Vonage, using the same number. And for Bell to become nothing but a bad memory and a listing on my banned list of phone numbers my phone system will let through (Yes, I went out and pre-spent my savings on a new set of Panasonic phones that have blacklist capability).
The last day of Bell service was supposed to be a Friday. Naturally, something behind the scenes happened, which I will bet will cost me money in my final separation from this magpie company. Service was eventually severed on the Monday three days later, very early in the morning. It was supposed to continue to midnight, but this is Bell we are talking about. I wasn't surprised or even upset. I had some growing pains in the Vonage move, but I'm happy to report that mostly the transition is working and I have all the capabilities and THEN some. I'll blog about the whole Vonage thing some other day.
But Bell had one more kick at my can. Before buying the new phones (and don't think this wasn't the full impetus of that move), I got a call from somebody reputed to be from Bell's head offices. I'm a little suspect, and it isn't because of his foreign accent. He didn't seem to know WHICH service provider I had switched to. So, I suspect I wasn't talking to anybody with any power, but another $#(*%&W)$#*U# Bell salesman, who are universally reviled for their ability to time their unwanted phone calls for the most inopportune time. He told me I was his customer (NOT ANYMORE) and that Bell would love to do what it would take to keep me as a customer. I yelled my litany of complaints at him. His response? "You've had your say, it's my time to talk."
Well, THAT was one way of waving good bye to the red bull. He then compounded his error by informing me I was in violation of my contract with Bell. STOP. Read that sentence again. Try to wrap your head around it. I was apparently legally required to give Bell 30 days notice of my intent to get out from their money-grubbing hands in my pockets. I can't be completely sure, but I've had nightmares my anger explosion at that might have caused the earthquake in Japan. I was so mad, some of my fingertips turned blue. My arms tingled. "Charge me for the $$%(*%*$ month and don't ever call here again. I'll pay whatever bill you send me you cretin. And just so you get it, if Vonage doesn't work out, I'll try Rogers. If that doesn't workout, I'll pay somebody for cell telephones. And if it costs me a thousand bucks a month, I'll never send Bell one bleepin' red cent again for as long as I live."
Bang went the phone. Two days later I had the Panasonic beauties that allow me to wipe out all my memories of Bell. How's that for a rant? Compared with John's? Yeah, I thought so.
Now, before I go on about this changeover, the why's, wherefore's and good-riddance's, let me point you to the current John C. Dvorak column at PCMag.com. I point out that AT&T is not Ma Bell, just kissin' cousins with a virtual identical record of customer abuse. But, boy, does John write a first-rate rant. I could stop here and just say, "What he said." Basically it all applies. But where's the fun in that.
Bell used to be a company with a face. That face was Hugh Fisher, the father of a high school chum. Mr. Fisher, I was too young and too courteous to ever call him something else, was a phone repairer at the Bell store at the Bramalea City Centre. I'd drop in to pay my bill, look over what was new in phones and chat. He always had time for me. I'm sure he caught heck from his (younger) supervisor for wasting time with me, but he didn't care. He loved talking about sports. He was a director of the Bramalea Blues Junior B hockey team and he and his wife attended just about all of Mark's hockey and basketball teams. A little less loud than Mark's mother, but he could work up a sweat excoriating officials as well as the next fan.
He retired and Bell became a faceless entity almost at the same time. First, the store wouldn't take my money any more. Just cheques (I was cheap, I wanted to save the cost of the cheque and the stamp. And I WAS in the vicinity ... frequently). Then, even the store facade went away. Bell was something you mailed cheques to and occasionally sent around repairmen when their legendary five nines of service up-time met the proverbial 0.001 per cent. Oh, and the company found political license to add just about any phony charge they could think of. I finally asked about one oddly-named charge and discovered I had been paying five bucks a month for a phone rental, for a phone I'd returned to Bell more than a decade earlier. Closer to two decades actually.
Caught stealing money from me thanks to my stupidity, they returned $65, 13 months of pilfering. Citing statue of limitations or some such folderal, I decided to keep the money and be happy they weren't in my pocket for the five bucks monthly anymore. Now, once you've been caught with your hand in my pants pocket, I should be excused for looking at every bill you send me with a discerning eye. Which I did, for about a decade. Then, I got sloppy. It's easy to just pay the bill if it's in the ball park. So, I stopped even looking at the bill. I sent the cheque or just used the trusty credit card to make the accounts receivable department go away.
Course, Bell hated me just as much as I hated it. I wouldn't pay the blackmailer's fee to upgrade from pulse dialing to tone dialing when tone dialing came in (I did mention I was old, right?). Didn't do it when the price got cut in half, nor when it was offered for free. I turned down an offer of $25 bucks to make the transition and told them what it would cost them: $500. They turned me down. I was OK with that. Fact is, I would have had to spend a day re-arranging things in my bedroom and office to get AT the jacks. AND I was plenty okay with not having all the digital features. I always answer the phone when I'm at home and don't when I'm not ... although I've virtually always had an answering machine. I don't need Caller ID, as a result. Don't need call waiting, because I agree with my friend Irwin. It's rude. It's always a case of telling one party that I value the other party over them. Nope, I was happy for a long time with my old dial phone system. And yes, that included an old black rotary dial telephone that worked even during the great blackout of 2005.
But, last September, I stopped making any long-distance calls through my phone. I used Google Voice in GMail to do those. And when Bell got around to demanding their money last month, I paid by credit card and said I wanted to change my plan to the most basic plan possible. I THEN discovered two things. I was paying almost 50 bucks a month and that I had been paying 13 of those dollars for up to two hours of national long distance calling per month. And I'd been doing it since last spring. The bright light you saw in the sky that Monday night was me erupting. I'd certainly never okayed THAT chaarge. I don't phone people all that much and when I DO talk to Mom and Dad, it's usually on their nickel (Free for them) or via Google Voice. Same with my brother Wayne. Everybody else I talk is a local phone call. So, I got the plan that I had been on for about 38 years changed. Basic would cost me $27 a month and I'd have to pay through the nose for any long distance. I got the confirmation email within 24 hours. I also told them that I'd shop that price around and wouldn't get back to them if I found a better price elsewhere. They didn't deserve that courtesy. I also noticed I was now going to get charged 65 cents a month for using my pulse line, the penny-thieving so-and-so's. They also didn't offer to refund the money from the unauthorized added long-distance plan I'd been placed on.
Over the next couple of days, I DID check out alternatives with Rogers and with Vonage for VOIP-based solutions. There were enough doubts that I didn't go any further. Besides, Patrick (who I swear HAS Bell stock, given his refusal to badmouth the company's dependability), talked me down from the anger mountain. I'd won and was going to start saving money immediately.
On the Friday (if you are counting, that's four days after I paid off my Bell bill and three days after I'd been emailed confirmation of my new plan), I got a bill. For more than 54 dollars.
On the Saturday, I was told by the hapless clerk at the end of the line that she'd checked, re-checked and then checked again. My bill was 54 bucks and some change. I bellowed at her for about a minute longer, then slammed down the phone. A half-hour later, I was a Vonage customer.
It's taken most of the three weeks or so since this all went down to get effectively moved over to Vonage, using the same number. And for Bell to become nothing but a bad memory and a listing on my banned list of phone numbers my phone system will let through (Yes, I went out and pre-spent my savings on a new set of Panasonic phones that have blacklist capability).
The last day of Bell service was supposed to be a Friday. Naturally, something behind the scenes happened, which I will bet will cost me money in my final separation from this magpie company. Service was eventually severed on the Monday three days later, very early in the morning. It was supposed to continue to midnight, but this is Bell we are talking about. I wasn't surprised or even upset. I had some growing pains in the Vonage move, but I'm happy to report that mostly the transition is working and I have all the capabilities and THEN some. I'll blog about the whole Vonage thing some other day.
But Bell had one more kick at my can. Before buying the new phones (and don't think this wasn't the full impetus of that move), I got a call from somebody reputed to be from Bell's head offices. I'm a little suspect, and it isn't because of his foreign accent. He didn't seem to know WHICH service provider I had switched to. So, I suspect I wasn't talking to anybody with any power, but another $#(*%&W)$#*U# Bell salesman, who are universally reviled for their ability to time their unwanted phone calls for the most inopportune time. He told me I was his customer (NOT ANYMORE) and that Bell would love to do what it would take to keep me as a customer. I yelled my litany of complaints at him. His response? "You've had your say, it's my time to talk."
Well, THAT was one way of waving good bye to the red bull. He then compounded his error by informing me I was in violation of my contract with Bell. STOP. Read that sentence again. Try to wrap your head around it. I was apparently legally required to give Bell 30 days notice of my intent to get out from their money-grubbing hands in my pockets. I can't be completely sure, but I've had nightmares my anger explosion at that might have caused the earthquake in Japan. I was so mad, some of my fingertips turned blue. My arms tingled. "Charge me for the $$%(*%*$ month and don't ever call here again. I'll pay whatever bill you send me you cretin. And just so you get it, if Vonage doesn't work out, I'll try Rogers. If that doesn't workout, I'll pay somebody for cell telephones. And if it costs me a thousand bucks a month, I'll never send Bell one bleepin' red cent again for as long as I live."
Bang went the phone. Two days later I had the Panasonic beauties that allow me to wipe out all my memories of Bell. How's that for a rant? Compared with John's? Yeah, I thought so.
Tuesday, March 15, 2011
SPORTS: It's A Regular Repeat March Madness
Stop me if you've heard this before ... Duke will win the NCAA Men's Basketball Championship early in April. And they'll beat my perennial final four pick Kansas in the final. And Ohio State, a past champion, and the good-this-century Pittsburgh Panthers will also be in Houston for the Final Four. All four teams enter the tournament as number one seeds, which was a curse ... until last year. So round by round we go, with the defending champions being the last one with a seat in this game of dosey do.
All season long, we've heard a familiar refrain from these last year ... parity. No undefeated teams, no once-beaten teams. One of the twice-beaten teams, San Diego State, plays midnight (Eastern time) games and nobody, but nobody watched them play. Except for in their two losses. To the only other good team in Mountain West. So, how good are Kawhi Leonard and title-winning Steve Fisher's Aztecs? Don't know. All I've got are reports that the mini-Dwight Howard is a beast. And either that the 'myth' of SDSU will be exposed or, in fact, we are headed for a meeting of the twice-beatens in the semis.
My gut tells me that if things go really kerplooey, Ohio State will stumble before Houston. I am a Kendall Marshall believer in North Carolina (and yeah, it doesn't hurt to have John Henson and Harrison Barnes), so I think Ohio State can be tripped up right there by the baby Tarheels. Or, maybe last year's designated stumblee, Kentucky, returns the favour this year, with the even younger Wildcats getting a measure of revenge for being ousted short of the Final Four a year ago. Good teams and a seven-man rotation for the top-ranked Buckeyes HAS to have Ohio State fans fretting. As some analyst pointed out, all it takes is one whistle-happy ref to land the oh-so-thin front court of Ohio State, led by player of the year contender Jarred Sullinger on the bench for important minutes.
Duke gets my nod because they have most of the factors I'm looking at this year (depending on others' research, I've been stuck working more than I would like for this time of the year). The only thing missing is proximity since they got sent out West. But other than a third-rounder against Texas' Toronto Boys, it's not like the other team's are going to have home area advantage. The Blue Devils can shoot and defend. Rebounding's a bit soft, but this seems to be the time of the year that the Plumlees get serious about being as good as they can be. And ultimately, I honestly believe that Kyrie Irving will be on the court when needed. Won't be for a lot of minutes, but I think he'll be there to add that little oomph Duke needs to defend.
Kansas is Kansas. 'Nuff said. I pick 'em every year. They win often enough to get me the odd computer or T-Shirt prize. It's built into my genes. So I like them to win the Pittsburgh-Kansas game, which, ironically enough, will NOT be held in Pittsburg, Kansas. I'd actually like them to win the whole thing, but I think the Duke guards are better than whatever group Bill Self decides to go with for the Jayhawks. So Rock, Chalk Jayhawk comes up one win short.
Winning pools is all about picking the surprise Sweet 16 team and getting about two thirds of the upsets in the first two rounds correct. Read another stat that MOST pools are won by somebody picking between 49 and 53 of the 63 games correctly. That's a LOT of misguesses still to succeed. Too many people pick too many upsets, and then watch as their disregarded favourite wins a round or two or even three more than they thought, propigating their one bad idea into a full-blown, knock me out of competition, disaster.
So, assuming the selection committee knows a thing or three about basketball, here's my list of upsets. It's not as long as it will be, but I hope the ones I miss lose on the first weekend, limiting my exposure. I like Gonzaga over St. John's for two reasons. Gonzaga's been dismissed most of the year while over-acheiving St. John's recently lost D.J. Kennedy, who will be missed. A third general reason? I think people see so much of the Big East which enjoyed a fine non-conference sked, that the polls skew eastward. And freshmen grow up fast these days. Those kiddies who blew up in front of the largely experienced Big East teams in December, are ready for payback. Soooo, I think MOST Big East teams will underperform their seeds (except Pittsburgh, of course). And here's a kicker, I think Gonzaga then goes on to knock out everybody's second favourite team, Brigham Young, in the second round. You can't take Brandon Davies out of the BYU line-up and have the same team. Sure, Jimmer Fredette will go out in a blaze of glory, whenever he goes out, but I like Gonzaga in this game a lot.
BRIEF SEGUE BEFORE RETURNING to our regularly-scheduled prognostications. In high school, my best friend (and frequent bridge partner) was the son of a high ranking church official. He was also a very good basketball player and earned a scholarship to attend a religious Division II school down in the deep south. Now, my pal was your prototypical rebellious son of a reverand (who I actually quite liked and got along with, despite my agnosticism). He didn't last his whole first year. He got thrown out for having a case of beer AND two (not one, TWO) copies of Playboy in his room. Religious schools take things most of you or I would fob off as unimportant VERY seriously. I feel for Davies. But having other friends who attended that school on athletic scholarship, EVERYBODY knows the rules. It's just too bad that it will limit BYU's run in this year's event. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO OUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED BLOG.
The same poor under-rated western team serves as a rationale for picking Utah State over Kansas State. KS is riding the back of Jacob Pullen and I like US to smother the scoring machine. Last year's wunderkinds, Butler, will get more respect and worse results this year. Look for the Bulldogs to go down in an 8-9 matchup with Old Dominion. Later in the tournament, I like #2 seeds Notre Dame and Florida to meet their Waterloo's short of the Sweet 16. I REALLY like Purdue as a surprise team, which means curtains for the Fightin' Irish. I have all the respect in the world for Michigan State coach Tom Izzo when it comes to the NCAA's. You'd be a fool not to. If he beats UCLA, then Florida will follow. On the other hand, my western bias yells UCLA over Florida too, if they overcome The Izzo Factor. I THINK it will be UCLA doing the deed, but how do you go against Izzo and sleep at night?
There are two REALLY interesting first rounders featuring centres of attraction and one game that will be a chore not to snore through. I very much give Morehead State a chance against Louisville, given Kenneth Faried, an NBA draftee this summer. It's about a one in four shot, but it's there. And Texas could stumble against Oakland, which is a really good team, if the Longhorns look past the Detroit school to a match against potential top draft pick Derrick Williams and his Arizona Wildcats. It's not like Texas HASN'T had concentration problems. And we've been hearing (and occasionally seeing) Oakland centre Keith Benson for most of the last three years. Make the upset a one in five chance. And the basketball purist might look forward to the Wisconsin-Belmont game a lot. But Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, he of the defensive bent, won't. Belmont's good for being an NCAA runt. Disciplined AND March Madness-tested. Coming off that horrendous loss to Penn State in the Big Ten playoffs (NEITHER team topped 40 points!!!), Ryan has to wonder where his offence disappeared to. And will it come back? I believe so, and think Wisconsin is a Sweet 16 team with a decent hope of going further. But the opener will stress the Badgers out. A LOT! Oh, and those Nittany Lions of Penn State are just a little less than a 50-50 shot against Temple.
The tournament starts tonight and then kicks into high gear two days hence. It is simply the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas and Birthdays NOT excepted. Four days of glorious noon-to-midnight roundball (well, almost til midnight on Sunday).
Go Duke Go!!
All season long, we've heard a familiar refrain from these last year ... parity. No undefeated teams, no once-beaten teams. One of the twice-beaten teams, San Diego State, plays midnight (Eastern time) games and nobody, but nobody watched them play. Except for in their two losses. To the only other good team in Mountain West. So, how good are Kawhi Leonard and title-winning Steve Fisher's Aztecs? Don't know. All I've got are reports that the mini-Dwight Howard is a beast. And either that the 'myth' of SDSU will be exposed or, in fact, we are headed for a meeting of the twice-beatens in the semis.
My gut tells me that if things go really kerplooey, Ohio State will stumble before Houston. I am a Kendall Marshall believer in North Carolina (and yeah, it doesn't hurt to have John Henson and Harrison Barnes), so I think Ohio State can be tripped up right there by the baby Tarheels. Or, maybe last year's designated stumblee, Kentucky, returns the favour this year, with the even younger Wildcats getting a measure of revenge for being ousted short of the Final Four a year ago. Good teams and a seven-man rotation for the top-ranked Buckeyes HAS to have Ohio State fans fretting. As some analyst pointed out, all it takes is one whistle-happy ref to land the oh-so-thin front court of Ohio State, led by player of the year contender Jarred Sullinger on the bench for important minutes.
Duke gets my nod because they have most of the factors I'm looking at this year (depending on others' research, I've been stuck working more than I would like for this time of the year). The only thing missing is proximity since they got sent out West. But other than a third-rounder against Texas' Toronto Boys, it's not like the other team's are going to have home area advantage. The Blue Devils can shoot and defend. Rebounding's a bit soft, but this seems to be the time of the year that the Plumlees get serious about being as good as they can be. And ultimately, I honestly believe that Kyrie Irving will be on the court when needed. Won't be for a lot of minutes, but I think he'll be there to add that little oomph Duke needs to defend.
Kansas is Kansas. 'Nuff said. I pick 'em every year. They win often enough to get me the odd computer or T-Shirt prize. It's built into my genes. So I like them to win the Pittsburgh-Kansas game, which, ironically enough, will NOT be held in Pittsburg, Kansas. I'd actually like them to win the whole thing, but I think the Duke guards are better than whatever group Bill Self decides to go with for the Jayhawks. So Rock, Chalk Jayhawk comes up one win short.
Winning pools is all about picking the surprise Sweet 16 team and getting about two thirds of the upsets in the first two rounds correct. Read another stat that MOST pools are won by somebody picking between 49 and 53 of the 63 games correctly. That's a LOT of misguesses still to succeed. Too many people pick too many upsets, and then watch as their disregarded favourite wins a round or two or even three more than they thought, propigating their one bad idea into a full-blown, knock me out of competition, disaster.
So, assuming the selection committee knows a thing or three about basketball, here's my list of upsets. It's not as long as it will be, but I hope the ones I miss lose on the first weekend, limiting my exposure. I like Gonzaga over St. John's for two reasons. Gonzaga's been dismissed most of the year while over-acheiving St. John's recently lost D.J. Kennedy, who will be missed. A third general reason? I think people see so much of the Big East which enjoyed a fine non-conference sked, that the polls skew eastward. And freshmen grow up fast these days. Those kiddies who blew up in front of the largely experienced Big East teams in December, are ready for payback. Soooo, I think MOST Big East teams will underperform their seeds (except Pittsburgh, of course). And here's a kicker, I think Gonzaga then goes on to knock out everybody's second favourite team, Brigham Young, in the second round. You can't take Brandon Davies out of the BYU line-up and have the same team. Sure, Jimmer Fredette will go out in a blaze of glory, whenever he goes out, but I like Gonzaga in this game a lot.
BRIEF SEGUE BEFORE RETURNING to our regularly-scheduled prognostications. In high school, my best friend (and frequent bridge partner) was the son of a high ranking church official. He was also a very good basketball player and earned a scholarship to attend a religious Division II school down in the deep south. Now, my pal was your prototypical rebellious son of a reverand (who I actually quite liked and got along with, despite my agnosticism). He didn't last his whole first year. He got thrown out for having a case of beer AND two (not one, TWO) copies of Playboy in his room. Religious schools take things most of you or I would fob off as unimportant VERY seriously. I feel for Davies. But having other friends who attended that school on athletic scholarship, EVERYBODY knows the rules. It's just too bad that it will limit BYU's run in this year's event. WE NOW RETURN YOU TO OUR REGULARLY-SCHEDULED BLOG.
The same poor under-rated western team serves as a rationale for picking Utah State over Kansas State. KS is riding the back of Jacob Pullen and I like US to smother the scoring machine. Last year's wunderkinds, Butler, will get more respect and worse results this year. Look for the Bulldogs to go down in an 8-9 matchup with Old Dominion. Later in the tournament, I like #2 seeds Notre Dame and Florida to meet their Waterloo's short of the Sweet 16. I REALLY like Purdue as a surprise team, which means curtains for the Fightin' Irish. I have all the respect in the world for Michigan State coach Tom Izzo when it comes to the NCAA's. You'd be a fool not to. If he beats UCLA, then Florida will follow. On the other hand, my western bias yells UCLA over Florida too, if they overcome The Izzo Factor. I THINK it will be UCLA doing the deed, but how do you go against Izzo and sleep at night?
There are two REALLY interesting first rounders featuring centres of attraction and one game that will be a chore not to snore through. I very much give Morehead State a chance against Louisville, given Kenneth Faried, an NBA draftee this summer. It's about a one in four shot, but it's there. And Texas could stumble against Oakland, which is a really good team, if the Longhorns look past the Detroit school to a match against potential top draft pick Derrick Williams and his Arizona Wildcats. It's not like Texas HASN'T had concentration problems. And we've been hearing (and occasionally seeing) Oakland centre Keith Benson for most of the last three years. Make the upset a one in five chance. And the basketball purist might look forward to the Wisconsin-Belmont game a lot. But Wisconsin coach Bo Ryan, he of the defensive bent, won't. Belmont's good for being an NCAA runt. Disciplined AND March Madness-tested. Coming off that horrendous loss to Penn State in the Big Ten playoffs (NEITHER team topped 40 points!!!), Ryan has to wonder where his offence disappeared to. And will it come back? I believe so, and think Wisconsin is a Sweet 16 team with a decent hope of going further. But the opener will stress the Badgers out. A LOT! Oh, and those Nittany Lions of Penn State are just a little less than a 50-50 shot against Temple.
The tournament starts tonight and then kicks into high gear two days hence. It is simply the most wonderful time of the year, Christmas and Birthdays NOT excepted. Four days of glorious noon-to-midnight roundball (well, almost til midnight on Sunday).
Go Duke Go!!
Monday, March 14, 2011
SPORTS: Safety SHOULD Be The By-Word
Last week, the Toronto Star's website ran a story about a new soft helmet to be worn by baseball pitchers. It was modeled by a young lad who fractured his skull when a pitch he threw came back at him courtesy of a line drive off a metal bat. This helmet is a prototype and will be available sooner or later, although sooner equates to about two, maybe three years.
Sooner than sooner would be better still.
I never fractured my skull, but I came perilously close to skulling my brother Wayne. I was swinging away during a game of batter up when, unbeknownst to me, Wayne came up to me to say something. I swung at the ball, missed and hit Wayne on the follow-through. To this day, he doesn't remember a thing about the incident. Bat/ball-skull meetings rarely work out well. The kid in the Star story survived. So did Wayne. Occasionally, things don't work out that well.
Pitching in these days of metal bats is far more of a heroic job than it once was. Metal bats send out line drives faster than the pitches coming in. They are like metal trampolines. Steps have been taken to slow them down and again, sooner than sooner would be better.
Back in my softball coaching days, I was coaching the Bramalea peewee reps and we were having a practice at Earnscliffe School Park. I was throwing batting practice, sans a net (a device unheard of in those days for softball teams) and no helmet. Just my thick head with its shaggy haircut inside the normal dilapidated cap. I was throwing fairly hard and pitching from between the peewee rubber and second base to give the kids a bit of pace. We had an important tournament coming up and we expected to see some of the best fastballers in the province.
Robert Jansen was at the plate. Now Robert might have been peewee-aged, but he was already bigger than me by two inches and probably outweighed me by 10-15 pounds. He was a big moon-faced kid with one of the most pleasant personalities of anybody I ever coached. Not a mean bone in his body. And certainly he had no bone to pick with me. I windmilled in a fastball down the middle and he swung as hard as he could.
From there, everything went into slow motion. I saw the ball clearly and reached to catch it. Unfortunately for me, while everything was going in slow motion, so was my body. The glove wouldn't giddy up and get up in front of me to snare the ball. In fact, I barely saw the glove enter my field of vision when the ball arrived and hit me square on the heart (yes cynics, I do have a heart). The ball bounced off my chest and went straight up in the air. I reached for the ball with both arms and managed to make a big circle the ball dropped through and hit the ground. At that point, I hit the ground too and blacked out.
I threw batting practice from BEHIND second base, after that.
With talk of concussions aplenty, I do remind all that hockey and all sports engender some danger. Steps SHOULD be taken to minimize things that LEAD to bodily injury unreasonably. But that said, some people are going to get hurt, often in innocous ways. But where there IS a chance to use equipment to make playing sports safer, it should not be a question of IF to implement. But of how soon.
Sooner than sooner would be better still.
I never fractured my skull, but I came perilously close to skulling my brother Wayne. I was swinging away during a game of batter up when, unbeknownst to me, Wayne came up to me to say something. I swung at the ball, missed and hit Wayne on the follow-through. To this day, he doesn't remember a thing about the incident. Bat/ball-skull meetings rarely work out well. The kid in the Star story survived. So did Wayne. Occasionally, things don't work out that well.
Pitching in these days of metal bats is far more of a heroic job than it once was. Metal bats send out line drives faster than the pitches coming in. They are like metal trampolines. Steps have been taken to slow them down and again, sooner than sooner would be better.
Back in my softball coaching days, I was coaching the Bramalea peewee reps and we were having a practice at Earnscliffe School Park. I was throwing batting practice, sans a net (a device unheard of in those days for softball teams) and no helmet. Just my thick head with its shaggy haircut inside the normal dilapidated cap. I was throwing fairly hard and pitching from between the peewee rubber and second base to give the kids a bit of pace. We had an important tournament coming up and we expected to see some of the best fastballers in the province.
Robert Jansen was at the plate. Now Robert might have been peewee-aged, but he was already bigger than me by two inches and probably outweighed me by 10-15 pounds. He was a big moon-faced kid with one of the most pleasant personalities of anybody I ever coached. Not a mean bone in his body. And certainly he had no bone to pick with me. I windmilled in a fastball down the middle and he swung as hard as he could.
From there, everything went into slow motion. I saw the ball clearly and reached to catch it. Unfortunately for me, while everything was going in slow motion, so was my body. The glove wouldn't giddy up and get up in front of me to snare the ball. In fact, I barely saw the glove enter my field of vision when the ball arrived and hit me square on the heart (yes cynics, I do have a heart). The ball bounced off my chest and went straight up in the air. I reached for the ball with both arms and managed to make a big circle the ball dropped through and hit the ground. At that point, I hit the ground too and blacked out.
I threw batting practice from BEHIND second base, after that.
With talk of concussions aplenty, I do remind all that hockey and all sports engender some danger. Steps SHOULD be taken to minimize things that LEAD to bodily injury unreasonably. But that said, some people are going to get hurt, often in innocous ways. But where there IS a chance to use equipment to make playing sports safer, it should not be a question of IF to implement. But of how soon.
Tuesday, February 22, 2011
HARDWARE: A Kindle Reader Has The Right To Change His Mind
I remember waaaaay back to the dawn of my eReader age (it was 11 months ago), I pooh-poohed the Kindle due to a lack of page numbers. I looked at the Sony PRS-300 before giving it to Dawna. Seemed IT had page numbers. The Kobo's I gave my Mom and AJ had page numbers (although I thought they were footnote numbers first). Later, after trying the Kobo for about six weeks, I discovered I wasn't enamoured of the occasionally text-obscuring page numbers on the Kobo.
But still, when I finally got my Kindle3, I admit I thought it was a negative. I didn't cotton to locations and percentages read all that much. So imagine my delight when Amazon officially announced the release of version 3.1 of the firmware for the Kindle3 which, amongst other things, finally gave page numbers to Kindle readers. Well, keep imagining, because it doesn't give me cause to do the upgrade at all. I'm perfectly happy with locations and percentages, thank you very much.
The realization I had left page numbers behind was a book I described as a quick read. And, indeed, it was. Well-written, a real page-turner, I read it in one night. And still had time to get in a decent amount of sleep. Only later did I discover that the book was 420 pages long!!! The fact is, that I probably DO read about 10-20 percent faster on my Kindle than with a book in either hand. Page turns, while more numerous, occur at the blink of the eye, rather than requiring me to reach out and physically turn the page. So, while I read paper books at a pretty consistent 50 pages per hour, I guestimate I'm doing 60 equivalent pages on the Kindle. Maybe more.
Amazon's update does more of course. It has more social features (Do I strike you as 'socially-inclined'?) and I don't annotate OR need page numbers for research purposes. A better handling of magazines and newspapers is lost on me because I don't read THOSE on a Kindle. Too small, too non-coloured, etc. So this update doesn't offer me anything to pant over. Realistically, I wouldn't HATE page numbers, but I no longer need them. Besides, I never talk over specific page numbers with anybody anyways. My 'Book Club' mainly consists of Patrick. And he LISTENS to the books. We gab about chapters if we talk specific parts of the books, if at all. Nope, this update is not for me.
Plus, there is the tiny itsy bitsy issue with Amazon's latest update fouling up the jailbreaking process. It won't stop already jailbroken Kindles and their existing add-ons, like the screen saver extension I have on mine. But it stops the current methodology for jailbreaking. Until the miracle workers who write the jailbreaking code create a workaround for the Amazon workaround, I think letting everything sit as is, is the best policy. Later, who knows, maybe I make the upgrade because it truly doesn't offer any negatives and even a slight positive is still a positive.
Until then, I have changed my mind. I don't want page numbers.
But still, when I finally got my Kindle3, I admit I thought it was a negative. I didn't cotton to locations and percentages read all that much. So imagine my delight when Amazon officially announced the release of version 3.1 of the firmware for the Kindle3 which, amongst other things, finally gave page numbers to Kindle readers. Well, keep imagining, because it doesn't give me cause to do the upgrade at all. I'm perfectly happy with locations and percentages, thank you very much.
The realization I had left page numbers behind was a book I described as a quick read. And, indeed, it was. Well-written, a real page-turner, I read it in one night. And still had time to get in a decent amount of sleep. Only later did I discover that the book was 420 pages long!!! The fact is, that I probably DO read about 10-20 percent faster on my Kindle than with a book in either hand. Page turns, while more numerous, occur at the blink of the eye, rather than requiring me to reach out and physically turn the page. So, while I read paper books at a pretty consistent 50 pages per hour, I guestimate I'm doing 60 equivalent pages on the Kindle. Maybe more.
Amazon's update does more of course. It has more social features (Do I strike you as 'socially-inclined'?) and I don't annotate OR need page numbers for research purposes. A better handling of magazines and newspapers is lost on me because I don't read THOSE on a Kindle. Too small, too non-coloured, etc. So this update doesn't offer me anything to pant over. Realistically, I wouldn't HATE page numbers, but I no longer need them. Besides, I never talk over specific page numbers with anybody anyways. My 'Book Club' mainly consists of Patrick. And he LISTENS to the books. We gab about chapters if we talk specific parts of the books, if at all. Nope, this update is not for me.
Plus, there is the tiny itsy bitsy issue with Amazon's latest update fouling up the jailbreaking process. It won't stop already jailbroken Kindles and their existing add-ons, like the screen saver extension I have on mine. But it stops the current methodology for jailbreaking. Until the miracle workers who write the jailbreaking code create a workaround for the Amazon workaround, I think letting everything sit as is, is the best policy. Later, who knows, maybe I make the upgrade because it truly doesn't offer any negatives and even a slight positive is still a positive.
Until then, I have changed my mind. I don't want page numbers.
SPORTS: Karma And The Knicks
Here's hoping Karma has a heap of ill luck awaiting Carmelo Anthony, James Dolan and Isiah Thomas.
Break a leg Carmelo. As I once wrote to Baron Davis, the author of a similarly distasteful exit from a team, REALLY, BREAK A LEG. You're a jerk and a stupid one at that. Do you REALLY think your 'handling' of your selfish trade demand TO the Knicks was better than Chris Bosh's polite (but ultimately dishonest) refusal to re-up with the Toronto Raptors last year. Then I apologize to all stupid people. You aren't even that bright. But we know that. Despite a great offensive game and incredible god-given athletic ability, you laze about on defence to the point where NOBODY outside of family members thinks you are all that special. Carmelo's certainly not amongst the real basketball stars of the NBA. An offensive weapon and a defensive dud. Shame on you. In so many ways. Like I said, break a leg ... and/or a foot ... or whatever prevents you from playing.
Cuz James Dolan and his unofficial aide, Zeke 'The Sneak' Thomas, the killer of pro basketball teams AND leagues, deserves every bit of bad karma that can come their way. They already made the Knicks the laughing stock of the NBA for a few years in order to afford to buy really great players from poorer teams. Amar'e Stoudemire turned out better than expected, but they failed to pair him with anything better than Ray Felton and a rookie named Landry Fields, who were each far better than expected. That was Donnie Walsh's doing. Pretty good compared to his predecessor, who amidst lawsuits, turned a once-great franchise into a joke. That would be Zeke the Sneak. But of course, Dolan, who has a man-crush on Thomas despite all it's cost him, discarded Donnie this past weekend and made the deal. And it's a deal that will add a point or two to the average Knick offensive total ... and probably cost three or four at the defensive end. Net gain? Not!! And I'm not even talking about the inevitable Walsh departure and the seemingly inevitable return of Thomas as GM from his purgatory as a coach of a second-level college basketball team.
As a Raptor fan, I should be thrilled with Dolan's immediate destruction of the Walsh's rebuilt, and still rebuilding, team. The fun of watching Anthony frustrate Stoudemire by taking lots and lots of shots and treating an assist as a disease, will be a regular story on the rumour circuit for the next while. But, like many, I think the NBA needs a Knick team to offset Boston and Miami. And this incarnation of the Knicks is headed for implosion, not competition.
Lastly, there is nothing that can happen to Thomas that hasn't already. Alleged suicide attempt, lost power struggles, embarrassing (or should have been) lawsuits from women he ... made feel uncomfortable, poor results from EVERY team he's ever been involved with, folding a league with a long history that he bought and ran badly, etc. The list goes on and on. As a player, Thomas was a star. As an executive, Thomas has Peter Principled his way to the top an incredible number of times. Outside of a decent job coaching Indiana, he's been an abject failure each time. So, HE's the guy life will have the hardest time catching up to. Karma will have to work overtime to do whatever it has to do to get Thomas his just due, so that we can enjoy a little schadenfreude. Afterall, if what's transpired so far has kept the bad down, what can?
There's some collateral damage to this Tiresome Threesome. Chauncey Billups has to spend the next year and a bit in New York (if he doesn't retire as he once intimated, if he was traded out of Denver). The timing of the end of his contract are going to drive the Deron Williams/Chris Paul to New York rumours into overdrive. Williams is already proclaiming, NO, not me! The first Paul to NY rumour since the trade took about 13 seconds to start making the rounds. Some very productive Knicks this season, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallanari and Felton won't be helping Stoudemire and Fields any more. Even Timofey Mozgov, the KEY (sic) to the deal, will be experiencing a bit of culture shock, moving from the bright lights of NYC to the bright star-lit sky of the mountains. How many of the ex-Knicks are still Nuggets come Friday morning is anybody's guess. A U-Turn back to the tri-state area for Felton and Mozgov is being bruited about. It'll all shake out for the shaken-up teams in the next four days.
After that, the Karma watch is on. Here's hoping schadenfreude makes an appearance.
Break a leg Carmelo. As I once wrote to Baron Davis, the author of a similarly distasteful exit from a team, REALLY, BREAK A LEG. You're a jerk and a stupid one at that. Do you REALLY think your 'handling' of your selfish trade demand TO the Knicks was better than Chris Bosh's polite (but ultimately dishonest) refusal to re-up with the Toronto Raptors last year. Then I apologize to all stupid people. You aren't even that bright. But we know that. Despite a great offensive game and incredible god-given athletic ability, you laze about on defence to the point where NOBODY outside of family members thinks you are all that special. Carmelo's certainly not amongst the real basketball stars of the NBA. An offensive weapon and a defensive dud. Shame on you. In so many ways. Like I said, break a leg ... and/or a foot ... or whatever prevents you from playing.
Cuz James Dolan and his unofficial aide, Zeke 'The Sneak' Thomas, the killer of pro basketball teams AND leagues, deserves every bit of bad karma that can come their way. They already made the Knicks the laughing stock of the NBA for a few years in order to afford to buy really great players from poorer teams. Amar'e Stoudemire turned out better than expected, but they failed to pair him with anything better than Ray Felton and a rookie named Landry Fields, who were each far better than expected. That was Donnie Walsh's doing. Pretty good compared to his predecessor, who amidst lawsuits, turned a once-great franchise into a joke. That would be Zeke the Sneak. But of course, Dolan, who has a man-crush on Thomas despite all it's cost him, discarded Donnie this past weekend and made the deal. And it's a deal that will add a point or two to the average Knick offensive total ... and probably cost three or four at the defensive end. Net gain? Not!! And I'm not even talking about the inevitable Walsh departure and the seemingly inevitable return of Thomas as GM from his purgatory as a coach of a second-level college basketball team.
As a Raptor fan, I should be thrilled with Dolan's immediate destruction of the Walsh's rebuilt, and still rebuilding, team. The fun of watching Anthony frustrate Stoudemire by taking lots and lots of shots and treating an assist as a disease, will be a regular story on the rumour circuit for the next while. But, like many, I think the NBA needs a Knick team to offset Boston and Miami. And this incarnation of the Knicks is headed for implosion, not competition.
Lastly, there is nothing that can happen to Thomas that hasn't already. Alleged suicide attempt, lost power struggles, embarrassing (or should have been) lawsuits from women he ... made feel uncomfortable, poor results from EVERY team he's ever been involved with, folding a league with a long history that he bought and ran badly, etc. The list goes on and on. As a player, Thomas was a star. As an executive, Thomas has Peter Principled his way to the top an incredible number of times. Outside of a decent job coaching Indiana, he's been an abject failure each time. So, HE's the guy life will have the hardest time catching up to. Karma will have to work overtime to do whatever it has to do to get Thomas his just due, so that we can enjoy a little schadenfreude. Afterall, if what's transpired so far has kept the bad down, what can?
There's some collateral damage to this Tiresome Threesome. Chauncey Billups has to spend the next year and a bit in New York (if he doesn't retire as he once intimated, if he was traded out of Denver). The timing of the end of his contract are going to drive the Deron Williams/Chris Paul to New York rumours into overdrive. Williams is already proclaiming, NO, not me! The first Paul to NY rumour since the trade took about 13 seconds to start making the rounds. Some very productive Knicks this season, Wilson Chandler, Danilo Gallanari and Felton won't be helping Stoudemire and Fields any more. Even Timofey Mozgov, the KEY (sic) to the deal, will be experiencing a bit of culture shock, moving from the bright lights of NYC to the bright star-lit sky of the mountains. How many of the ex-Knicks are still Nuggets come Friday morning is anybody's guess. A U-Turn back to the tri-state area for Felton and Mozgov is being bruited about. It'll all shake out for the shaken-up teams in the next four days.
After that, the Karma watch is on. Here's hoping schadenfreude makes an appearance.
Saturday, February 19, 2011
LIFE: PC Politics Sucks
We're headed for an election. It's not declared as of yet, but I got a call out of the blue from the local Conservative Party today wanting to talk. A curt, "I don't talk politics." ended the phone call, although the political operative was cordial in ending the phone call.
I lied.
I'm mad as hell. Now, I don't actually say to anybody, friends, family or the rest of the population of Canada who I vote for. It can be inferred that I vote Liberal, except I don't always. I spoil ballots more often than not. And I have not ever, ever voted Communist or Green. Beyond that, nobody knows but me.
But for the first time ever, I'm willing to be committal about the vote I will be forced to make by that megomaniacal asshole ensconced in our Prime Minister's office. I AIN'T VOTING PC AND WILL BE VOTING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE. No spoiled ballots. SOMEBODY will get my vote. You money-wasting would-be potentate. You Bush-lite political opportunist. You xenophobic hater. You and your party are bad for Canada and it's time somebody else took their turn at the public trough.
They're polling the ranks. They're polling the non rank and file and they are running political ads on TV. It's a bloody election campaign in every way but legal definition. It's not enough that they've taken this country from surplus to more than $55B in deficits in five years and have the cajones to crow about our economic might compared to the United States. The myopic PC's see a Liberal house divided around Ignatieff and an NDP party that doesn't even have the unions solidly behind them right now. Now isn't the time for an election, even if it could be somehow run free of charge. But Harper's vision is of a blue country sea to sea.
A simple phone call was enough to radicalize me, the guy who's never voted AGAINST a candidate in his life. Think about that PC pollsters. If it could trigger THAT kind of reaction in me, maybe the MAJORITY OF THIS COUNTRY who didn't vote for your head clown might feel the same way.
At least I hope so. PC's in the minority ... or maybe gone from the political scene completely.
A guy can dream, can't he?
I lied.
I'm mad as hell. Now, I don't actually say to anybody, friends, family or the rest of the population of Canada who I vote for. It can be inferred that I vote Liberal, except I don't always. I spoil ballots more often than not. And I have not ever, ever voted Communist or Green. Beyond that, nobody knows but me.
But for the first time ever, I'm willing to be committal about the vote I will be forced to make by that megomaniacal asshole ensconced in our Prime Minister's office. I AIN'T VOTING PC AND WILL BE VOTING FOR SOMEBODY ELSE. No spoiled ballots. SOMEBODY will get my vote. You money-wasting would-be potentate. You Bush-lite political opportunist. You xenophobic hater. You and your party are bad for Canada and it's time somebody else took their turn at the public trough.
They're polling the ranks. They're polling the non rank and file and they are running political ads on TV. It's a bloody election campaign in every way but legal definition. It's not enough that they've taken this country from surplus to more than $55B in deficits in five years and have the cajones to crow about our economic might compared to the United States. The myopic PC's see a Liberal house divided around Ignatieff and an NDP party that doesn't even have the unions solidly behind them right now. Now isn't the time for an election, even if it could be somehow run free of charge. But Harper's vision is of a blue country sea to sea.
A simple phone call was enough to radicalize me, the guy who's never voted AGAINST a candidate in his life. Think about that PC pollsters. If it could trigger THAT kind of reaction in me, maybe the MAJORITY OF THIS COUNTRY who didn't vote for your head clown might feel the same way.
At least I hope so. PC's in the minority ... or maybe gone from the political scene completely.
A guy can dream, can't he?
Thursday, February 17, 2011
SPORTS: Jose Leads Way to Pay Window
It looks like a mere 65 million dollars, spread out over 5 years, is enough to make Jose Bautista a Blue Jay for most of the rest of this decade. There's an option for a sixth season at the average stipend of $13M. Which means the then 36 year old Bautista will have banked more $80M in his Blue Jay career. And there might still be some gas in the tank even then. Wouldn't be a shock at all if he then added one more contract on top of that and finished his major league career in the uniform of the locals.
Of course, nothing's been officially signed as of the time of the writing of this post, but the finger to the wind test feels good.
I stumped for a contract in this neighbourhood a while back. I was short by a bit, by about $3M a season, but that was before the Washington Nationals gave Jayson Werth a "Match This, Suckers!" contract and Albert Pujols started the "Contract NOW or I test Free Agency next winter" Movement. But it seems that Alex Anthopoulos has come to the conclusion that a slight over-pay is worth more than a season of Bautista and the two draft picks he'd bring 16 months from now. Obviously, I agree.
Seems strange for Toronto to chortle with glee at getting out from under $81M of the contract owed Vernon Wells one month and then turn around and spend almost the same amount for another player. One with just about the same number of great seasons as Wells--one. But the inevitable comparisons are going to suffer from number overdrive. There is a world of difference between the two men in a place the stat geeks can't quantify. That is in the role of leadership.
Wells was like many stars in Toronto. A quiet, introspective man with a huge heart who led by example. Think Mats Sundin (although he was hampered by a management who saddled him with retreads and never-weres as linemates and figured he didn't deserve any more shifts than the fourth-line centres. IDIOTS) and, dare I say it after his moronic kiss-off to the Toronto fans last night, Chris Bosh. Sure, there were rare occasions when Mats would step out of HIS own shadow and say something to somebody else, and we all have seen the tape of the one time Bosh blew up at Andrea Bargnani in a team huddle. But, for the most part, Sundin and Bosh played hard and just expected the rest to at least try just as hard, if not to accomplish what they could with their superior talent. There must be something in the water here in Toronto, because all of our best players in various sports tend to shrink from the spotlight, Bosh being the one noticeable exception away from the court. And we all know now, he's just another guy.
I'm not sure Bautista will gravitate to the spotlight because he's always been overshadowed by Wells and other longer-term Jays during his two and a bit years with the club. Until September 2009, there really wasn't any reason to trundle along to his stall in the post-game scrum. Since then ...
EVERY story. EVERY thing I've heard. For public consumption and not. All items lead to one very inescapable conclusion. Bautista is the leader of the team. He's very obviously the leader of the growing Latin contingent. But even the non-Latinos seem happy to have him out front and leading them. You could lay a large-sized bet that Aaron Hill is happy. Otherwise, the story might have been the will they/won't they story of the Blue Jays picking up his option(s) before the end of spring training. Oh, that question still exists, but the focus will be on Bautista. And newly-minted first baseman Adam Lind, like Hill, intent on mounting a comeback of sorts while dealing with other issues (his position change), is a guy perfectly happy to be in the background. For the guys who like the limelight elsewhere (exceptions: Travis Snider and Ricky Romero), Bautista is the perfect screen to hide behind.
Which now brings up the question, is leadership worth $13M a year? No, of course not. But it's the kind of thing that is hard to measure. Does Bautista help in getting the maximum out of players like Yunel Escobar and JP Arencibia? For sure in the first case, probably will in the second case. One's a fellow Dominican, the other is from California. Which Richard Griffin points out is a good measure of the man. Bautista seems equally comfortable with people from the Caribbean and the States. He went to school in Florida. He's well-spoken and seems to have all the charitable inclinations of Wells. And that's saying a lot. On a leadership level, it's hard to describe just how perfect Bautista is for the job, one which he wants badly, to boot.
But fans will only see what goes on, on the field. Yep, he's going to be hard for Bautista to hit 54 homers again in 2011. The question is whether he gets the Barry Bonds treatment or not. Without somebody catching a little fire behind him, the opposition pitchers should throw every pitch at least four feet away from him and hope three induce missing swings or go through the black on the outer edge of the plate. He's a virtual lock to get walked 100 times this coming season. Now, if the Blue Jays can find somebody to make the opposition teams pay for giving Bautista almost free passes at the rate of one a game, then it brings humongous homer totals back into play. Bautista will get 30 because major league pitchers will make at least that number of mistakes this year. I think 44, a nice round number Hank Aaron made famous, is my best guess. And if Lind and/or Hill rediscover their Silver Bat skills, than 50, even 60, are in the discussion. Clarence Gaston's gone, but Bautista's hitting guru Dwayne Murphy is back for one more season of counselling. The best part of all of this is how cerebral Bautista is. His consistency month to month last year was evidence he made re-adjustments as pitchers made adjustments to the fact that this was one dangerous dude at the plate.
Defensively, I was actually surprised Bautista didn't get more mention for a Gold Glove in RF. He didn't make many highlight reel catches, but his arm recorded outs ... important outs. And it kept some other runs from scoring because he induced bases-gluing fear in more runners. It'd be great if he could play the position this year and beyond. But until the team gets a bona fide third-sacker (and no, Edwin Encarnacion doesn't qualify unless the word emergency is in play), Bautista will be a third baseman this year. A leader plays where the team needs him to play. And right now, that's 3B. A year from now? Brett Lawrie or somebody who comes to town next winter will be at the hot corner. And then Bautista can go back to scaring the living bejeebers out of opponents in RF.
I have never talked to the man, just to people who have. They liked Wells. They REALLY, REALLY like Bautista. And in these days of schadenfreude, it's a miracle ANYBODY's happy to hear about anybody else cashing the contract lottery. But in this case, one and all approve.
And so do I.
Of course, nothing's been officially signed as of the time of the writing of this post, but the finger to the wind test feels good.
I stumped for a contract in this neighbourhood a while back. I was short by a bit, by about $3M a season, but that was before the Washington Nationals gave Jayson Werth a "Match This, Suckers!" contract and Albert Pujols started the "Contract NOW or I test Free Agency next winter" Movement. But it seems that Alex Anthopoulos has come to the conclusion that a slight over-pay is worth more than a season of Bautista and the two draft picks he'd bring 16 months from now. Obviously, I agree.
Seems strange for Toronto to chortle with glee at getting out from under $81M of the contract owed Vernon Wells one month and then turn around and spend almost the same amount for another player. One with just about the same number of great seasons as Wells--one. But the inevitable comparisons are going to suffer from number overdrive. There is a world of difference between the two men in a place the stat geeks can't quantify. That is in the role of leadership.
Wells was like many stars in Toronto. A quiet, introspective man with a huge heart who led by example. Think Mats Sundin (although he was hampered by a management who saddled him with retreads and never-weres as linemates and figured he didn't deserve any more shifts than the fourth-line centres. IDIOTS) and, dare I say it after his moronic kiss-off to the Toronto fans last night, Chris Bosh. Sure, there were rare occasions when Mats would step out of HIS own shadow and say something to somebody else, and we all have seen the tape of the one time Bosh blew up at Andrea Bargnani in a team huddle. But, for the most part, Sundin and Bosh played hard and just expected the rest to at least try just as hard, if not to accomplish what they could with their superior talent. There must be something in the water here in Toronto, because all of our best players in various sports tend to shrink from the spotlight, Bosh being the one noticeable exception away from the court. And we all know now, he's just another guy.
I'm not sure Bautista will gravitate to the spotlight because he's always been overshadowed by Wells and other longer-term Jays during his two and a bit years with the club. Until September 2009, there really wasn't any reason to trundle along to his stall in the post-game scrum. Since then ...
EVERY story. EVERY thing I've heard. For public consumption and not. All items lead to one very inescapable conclusion. Bautista is the leader of the team. He's very obviously the leader of the growing Latin contingent. But even the non-Latinos seem happy to have him out front and leading them. You could lay a large-sized bet that Aaron Hill is happy. Otherwise, the story might have been the will they/won't they story of the Blue Jays picking up his option(s) before the end of spring training. Oh, that question still exists, but the focus will be on Bautista. And newly-minted first baseman Adam Lind, like Hill, intent on mounting a comeback of sorts while dealing with other issues (his position change), is a guy perfectly happy to be in the background. For the guys who like the limelight elsewhere (exceptions: Travis Snider and Ricky Romero), Bautista is the perfect screen to hide behind.
Which now brings up the question, is leadership worth $13M a year? No, of course not. But it's the kind of thing that is hard to measure. Does Bautista help in getting the maximum out of players like Yunel Escobar and JP Arencibia? For sure in the first case, probably will in the second case. One's a fellow Dominican, the other is from California. Which Richard Griffin points out is a good measure of the man. Bautista seems equally comfortable with people from the Caribbean and the States. He went to school in Florida. He's well-spoken and seems to have all the charitable inclinations of Wells. And that's saying a lot. On a leadership level, it's hard to describe just how perfect Bautista is for the job, one which he wants badly, to boot.
But fans will only see what goes on, on the field. Yep, he's going to be hard for Bautista to hit 54 homers again in 2011. The question is whether he gets the Barry Bonds treatment or not. Without somebody catching a little fire behind him, the opposition pitchers should throw every pitch at least four feet away from him and hope three induce missing swings or go through the black on the outer edge of the plate. He's a virtual lock to get walked 100 times this coming season. Now, if the Blue Jays can find somebody to make the opposition teams pay for giving Bautista almost free passes at the rate of one a game, then it brings humongous homer totals back into play. Bautista will get 30 because major league pitchers will make at least that number of mistakes this year. I think 44, a nice round number Hank Aaron made famous, is my best guess. And if Lind and/or Hill rediscover their Silver Bat skills, than 50, even 60, are in the discussion. Clarence Gaston's gone, but Bautista's hitting guru Dwayne Murphy is back for one more season of counselling. The best part of all of this is how cerebral Bautista is. His consistency month to month last year was evidence he made re-adjustments as pitchers made adjustments to the fact that this was one dangerous dude at the plate.
Defensively, I was actually surprised Bautista didn't get more mention for a Gold Glove in RF. He didn't make many highlight reel catches, but his arm recorded outs ... important outs. And it kept some other runs from scoring because he induced bases-gluing fear in more runners. It'd be great if he could play the position this year and beyond. But until the team gets a bona fide third-sacker (and no, Edwin Encarnacion doesn't qualify unless the word emergency is in play), Bautista will be a third baseman this year. A leader plays where the team needs him to play. And right now, that's 3B. A year from now? Brett Lawrie or somebody who comes to town next winter will be at the hot corner. And then Bautista can go back to scaring the living bejeebers out of opponents in RF.
I have never talked to the man, just to people who have. They liked Wells. They REALLY, REALLY like Bautista. And in these days of schadenfreude, it's a miracle ANYBODY's happy to hear about anybody else cashing the contract lottery. But in this case, one and all approve.
And so do I.
Wednesday, February 16, 2011
SPORTS: Bosh And His Friends Come To Town
Tonight's the night that Chris Bosh comes back to town with the Miami Hated Heat for a 'showdown' with the Toronto Raptors. And he brings with him a bag of mixed feelings, a trait shared by a lot of fans.
He's going to get booed hard. And long. Vince Carter-despising long. And, if I was in attendance, I'd probably give it a good belch of air during the introductions and the first time he touched the ball. Then I'd stop. I'd have vented my anger at the WAY Bosh departed. And really, that's all Toronto fans have to complain about.
The fact is that I believe the birth of this version of the Hated Heat was hatched at the last Olympics and was a done deal, despite remonstrations otherwise by both Bosh and LeBron James, the head villain. I honestly would have preferred a "no comment" then all of the hope-instilling banter Bosh produced all last year as he was headed out the door. "Wanting to be THE Man," was a constant refrain. Then he took the butler's job in Miami. Sorry, but playing clean up guy after James and Dwyane Wade get all of theirs isn't something THE Man aspires to do. And shame on all three of them for thinking they couldn't win without more stars than any team outside of Boston has. It showed a weakness in all of their characters.
And that weakness manifested itself to a greater degree with Bosh than I thought it would. He's run off at the mouth explaining why he left Toronto and the excuses have bordered on the surreal. Lack of ESPN at his condo was one that was cited. The smell of the city was another. Canada was, like another country, afterall. This from an almost university-educated man. Where once I thought of Bosh as a nice guy, thoughtful and possessed of an indomitable will to be the best player in the NBA, if willing to acknowledge it might be a futile quest, I no longer operate under that delusion. He wants to be liked and said things that he thought would result in that. He set himself up for his fall from Toronto's graces.
Bosh is a big athletic young guy who wants to win and jumped at an opportunity that some called a sure bet to result in five titles over the next six years. He gave up his ideals for that assurance and even gave up some money. And he gave up the chance to be a hero to fans here in Toronto or where ever else in the NBA he went to be THE Man. I suspect that he's guilty by association with James, who's turn from hero to heel is largely complete. So even fans outside of Toronto don't respect the butler of the team a heck of a lot either.
Which is too bad. We have too few sporting heroes here and everywhere. That's our loss. And it'll probably mean a Toronto loss tonight too. So, I'll softly boo him a couple of times and cheer when any Raptor outdoes him on the floor of battle. But I won't want somebody to plant him six rows deep when he goes up for a shot. I don't hope he breaks a leg, and that's unusual because of my normal practice for wishing exactly that on the boneheads of the NBA (Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Carmelo Anthony, The West Coast Smirk, The East Coast Smirk, etc.).
After tonight, the energy will all be gone. Chris Bosh will be just one more member of the Hated Heat, a uniform to jeer and hope losses miraculously appear on their ledger. A team that I hope lose to the otherwise detestable Celtics, the Lakers and any other foe they play.
For me, Bosh won't be worth getting worked up for. He's just another guy.
He's going to get booed hard. And long. Vince Carter-despising long. And, if I was in attendance, I'd probably give it a good belch of air during the introductions and the first time he touched the ball. Then I'd stop. I'd have vented my anger at the WAY Bosh departed. And really, that's all Toronto fans have to complain about.
The fact is that I believe the birth of this version of the Hated Heat was hatched at the last Olympics and was a done deal, despite remonstrations otherwise by both Bosh and LeBron James, the head villain. I honestly would have preferred a "no comment" then all of the hope-instilling banter Bosh produced all last year as he was headed out the door. "Wanting to be THE Man," was a constant refrain. Then he took the butler's job in Miami. Sorry, but playing clean up guy after James and Dwyane Wade get all of theirs isn't something THE Man aspires to do. And shame on all three of them for thinking they couldn't win without more stars than any team outside of Boston has. It showed a weakness in all of their characters.
And that weakness manifested itself to a greater degree with Bosh than I thought it would. He's run off at the mouth explaining why he left Toronto and the excuses have bordered on the surreal. Lack of ESPN at his condo was one that was cited. The smell of the city was another. Canada was, like another country, afterall. This from an almost university-educated man. Where once I thought of Bosh as a nice guy, thoughtful and possessed of an indomitable will to be the best player in the NBA, if willing to acknowledge it might be a futile quest, I no longer operate under that delusion. He wants to be liked and said things that he thought would result in that. He set himself up for his fall from Toronto's graces.
Bosh is a big athletic young guy who wants to win and jumped at an opportunity that some called a sure bet to result in five titles over the next six years. He gave up his ideals for that assurance and even gave up some money. And he gave up the chance to be a hero to fans here in Toronto or where ever else in the NBA he went to be THE Man. I suspect that he's guilty by association with James, who's turn from hero to heel is largely complete. So even fans outside of Toronto don't respect the butler of the team a heck of a lot either.
Which is too bad. We have too few sporting heroes here and everywhere. That's our loss. And it'll probably mean a Toronto loss tonight too. So, I'll softly boo him a couple of times and cheer when any Raptor outdoes him on the floor of battle. But I won't want somebody to plant him six rows deep when he goes up for a shot. I don't hope he breaks a leg, and that's unusual because of my normal practice for wishing exactly that on the boneheads of the NBA (Baron Davis, Stephen Jackson, Carmelo Anthony, The West Coast Smirk, The East Coast Smirk, etc.).
After tonight, the energy will all be gone. Chris Bosh will be just one more member of the Hated Heat, a uniform to jeer and hope losses miraculously appear on their ledger. A team that I hope lose to the otherwise detestable Celtics, the Lakers and any other foe they play.
For me, Bosh won't be worth getting worked up for. He's just another guy.
HARDWARE: Patience Might Be Coming To An End
But not because my native lack of patience is rising to the fore. In fact, I WILL wait patiently for a little while longer. But not much longer. Cuz the tablet of my dreams will soon be coming to the Castle of Confusion to join my merry little band of computers.
The tablet wars reached another level with the Mobile World Congress over in Barcelona the past week. I'm starting to think that there is a winner and it's name is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
The folks at CarryPad.com and engadget.com seem to be the go-to guys on tablets these days and I was amused at one review of the 10.1 earlier this week. The things the reviewer loved about the pad, I'm pretty sure I'll love too. Things like light weight, great screen, grippy back surface, pure Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). The things the reviewer was dubious about, are things that'll make me almost as happy. Cheap plasticy back? Did I mention light weight and easy to grip? Plain Honeycomb, making it hard to differentiate between it and the other tablets running plain unadorned Honeycomb? Means less trashing of the crapware that comes with some devices, then doesn't it? No stand like some of the 7in tablets have? Well, I have a stand that will fit it. Less than nine hours of battery life? Other than March Madness, I won't be staring it for anything like that long. And while watching the college hoops extravaganza, I will be tethered to a wall socket. So, not so much of a problem. In fact, I couldn't find a thing in either their pro OR con list that had me debating the merits of the 10.1. IT IS THE TABLET I WANT TO BUY.
Heck, even the well known issues with Samsung not updating their android versions on their phones promptly (or at all) isn't an issue. I want the WiFi version. Plus, I'm betting Google's iron hand on having unadulterated Honeycomb out of the box means updates won't be an issue at all. Actually, I'm pretty happy Google's taking away some of the artsy-fartsy interface issues. I trust Google about as much as anybody in the computer business these days. Which is, not much, but more than most.
Now, having said that, I still don't know when it will be available for me to purchase. March is barely possible, but I'm not holding my breath. Though, I am heartened by the fact that Samsung got the Galaxy Tab 7in tablet out last year, it being the only realistic Apple iPad contender that saw the light over here in 2010. Too small for my needs, but it existed, whereas just about everybody else was producing promises of 'Next Year,' to anybody who wanted a tablet but didn't want Apple's interference in their lives. Like me. And Apple's understandable, but still odious, cash grab of a 30 per cent vig on just about everything under their purview makes my decision to go ABA (Anything But Apple) is a long-term smart decision.
I'm not going to lie about the fact that the Viewsonic Viewpad has a lot of interest because of it's ability to run Windows PLUS Android. Might be a bit heavy for the familiarity. And I've watched the development of the Adam from NotionInk almost from conception. If it's supply wasn't already bought up until Spring, I might already own one. Motorola was first out of the gate with Honeycomb, but that weight might be a killer. Still, in a desert of choices, the water bringer's flaws get overlooked. And everybody raved about the User Experience with the initial Xoom demos.
Right now, if push came to shove, I'd rate the chances of owning any particular tablet like this:
[51%] Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
[18%] NotionInk Adam
[14%] Viewsonic Viewpad 10 Pro
[09%] Motorola Xoom
[08%] Other
[00%] Apple iPad II
The best thing about Patience? Some times it pays off.
The tablet wars reached another level with the Mobile World Congress over in Barcelona the past week. I'm starting to think that there is a winner and it's name is the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1.
The folks at CarryPad.com and engadget.com seem to be the go-to guys on tablets these days and I was amused at one review of the 10.1 earlier this week. The things the reviewer loved about the pad, I'm pretty sure I'll love too. Things like light weight, great screen, grippy back surface, pure Android 3.0 (Honeycomb). The things the reviewer was dubious about, are things that'll make me almost as happy. Cheap plasticy back? Did I mention light weight and easy to grip? Plain Honeycomb, making it hard to differentiate between it and the other tablets running plain unadorned Honeycomb? Means less trashing of the crapware that comes with some devices, then doesn't it? No stand like some of the 7in tablets have? Well, I have a stand that will fit it. Less than nine hours of battery life? Other than March Madness, I won't be staring it for anything like that long. And while watching the college hoops extravaganza, I will be tethered to a wall socket. So, not so much of a problem. In fact, I couldn't find a thing in either their pro OR con list that had me debating the merits of the 10.1. IT IS THE TABLET I WANT TO BUY.
Heck, even the well known issues with Samsung not updating their android versions on their phones promptly (or at all) isn't an issue. I want the WiFi version. Plus, I'm betting Google's iron hand on having unadulterated Honeycomb out of the box means updates won't be an issue at all. Actually, I'm pretty happy Google's taking away some of the artsy-fartsy interface issues. I trust Google about as much as anybody in the computer business these days. Which is, not much, but more than most.
Now, having said that, I still don't know when it will be available for me to purchase. March is barely possible, but I'm not holding my breath. Though, I am heartened by the fact that Samsung got the Galaxy Tab 7in tablet out last year, it being the only realistic Apple iPad contender that saw the light over here in 2010. Too small for my needs, but it existed, whereas just about everybody else was producing promises of 'Next Year,' to anybody who wanted a tablet but didn't want Apple's interference in their lives. Like me. And Apple's understandable, but still odious, cash grab of a 30 per cent vig on just about everything under their purview makes my decision to go ABA (Anything But Apple) is a long-term smart decision.
I'm not going to lie about the fact that the Viewsonic Viewpad has a lot of interest because of it's ability to run Windows PLUS Android. Might be a bit heavy for the familiarity. And I've watched the development of the Adam from NotionInk almost from conception. If it's supply wasn't already bought up until Spring, I might already own one. Motorola was first out of the gate with Honeycomb, but that weight might be a killer. Still, in a desert of choices, the water bringer's flaws get overlooked. And everybody raved about the User Experience with the initial Xoom demos.
Right now, if push came to shove, I'd rate the chances of owning any particular tablet like this:
[51%] Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
[18%] NotionInk Adam
[14%] Viewsonic Viewpad 10 Pro
[09%] Motorola Xoom
[08%] Other
[00%] Apple iPad II
The best thing about Patience? Some times it pays off.
Monday, February 07, 2011
LIFE: And The Election Race Is ON!
Down south of the border, Americans were treated to a variety of good (and some not so good) commercials during last night's Super Bowl. Here in Canada? We got a bunch of propagandist claptrap from the Conservative Party and/or the Government of Canada touting the accomplishments (sic) of head honcho Stevie Harper and the downfalls of liberal head Mike Ignatieff.
Overlooking the fact that most of the anti-Ignatieff commercials were years old, and the outright brazenness of attaching Harper to ANY good news in Canada over the last four years, the mere existence of this crap on the air portends a coming election. SURE we have election laws in this country preventing such advertising outside of the election process window. But that doesn't apply if we aren't actually IN an election at this precise point in time. The same behaviour evidenced itself just before Harper called a surprise election last time ... you know, the one he passed a law against. Schmuck.
So, we have an election this year. Don't know when ... Harper knows. There's no reason for the wasteful expense of an election, unless you are a power-mad dictator wannabe who senses the coffers of the Liberal and NDP parties approximates that of the Green Party. Why NOT try to grab the brass ring of majority power and then do everything short of ... well ... I was about to say illegal means, but I'm not sure Harper understands a boundary exists there ... to blot the Liberals and NDP parties out of existence. There are many ways to dream one's self to sleep at night. Harper's is to think happy thoughts about a one-party country. Schmuck.
I would have thought the CRTC decision to add millions, if not BILLIONS, to the bottom lines of Bell and Rogers (and to a lesser extent, Shaw and Cogeco) at the expense of the vote-casters, might have been Harper's Waterloo. The other parties, including the Parti Quebecois, seemed poised to get together and drive a stake through Harper's government if that decision wasn't over-turned by the minority of government officials who have sold their sold to Harper's Conservative junta. But the finger-to-the-wind test proved decisive and it was all but announced that the CRTC's bought and paid for decision is going to be unbought. Although the reversal is far from a fact, the sixty-day grace period being extended by the CRTC is really a timeout to come up with a reason to reverse the decision, as foolish a decision as has been made in politics in recent memory. You can skim SOME money from all the people with only isolated roars of outrage. Try stealing it all and some people are going to get ornery enough to rally the rest.
Politics is always a test of how much lying we'll take from who. You lie to get elected and then you lie to the people that you are doing things in their best interests. Doesn't matter who's in. Some are just bolder in their screwing of the people.
As always, I pine for minority government because it does give some control over the worst wretched excesses of majority government. Had the Harperites actually been in total control this past week, the CRTC would have been rammed down our throats, Bell's profits uber alles. This is why, come whenever Harper decides he has the greatest political advantage and calls the snap election, we must band together and vote in another minority government. Technically, I'd like the Liberals to be the head of the government because this is a liberal nation, a country where we want to help everybody and exclude none. Problem is, the Libs are just as power-crazy in some ways as the Cons and absolute power corrupts.
The election is coming. The election ads without an election say so.
Overlooking the fact that most of the anti-Ignatieff commercials were years old, and the outright brazenness of attaching Harper to ANY good news in Canada over the last four years, the mere existence of this crap on the air portends a coming election. SURE we have election laws in this country preventing such advertising outside of the election process window. But that doesn't apply if we aren't actually IN an election at this precise point in time. The same behaviour evidenced itself just before Harper called a surprise election last time ... you know, the one he passed a law against. Schmuck.
So, we have an election this year. Don't know when ... Harper knows. There's no reason for the wasteful expense of an election, unless you are a power-mad dictator wannabe who senses the coffers of the Liberal and NDP parties approximates that of the Green Party. Why NOT try to grab the brass ring of majority power and then do everything short of ... well ... I was about to say illegal means, but I'm not sure Harper understands a boundary exists there ... to blot the Liberals and NDP parties out of existence. There are many ways to dream one's self to sleep at night. Harper's is to think happy thoughts about a one-party country. Schmuck.
I would have thought the CRTC decision to add millions, if not BILLIONS, to the bottom lines of Bell and Rogers (and to a lesser extent, Shaw and Cogeco) at the expense of the vote-casters, might have been Harper's Waterloo. The other parties, including the Parti Quebecois, seemed poised to get together and drive a stake through Harper's government if that decision wasn't over-turned by the minority of government officials who have sold their sold to Harper's Conservative junta. But the finger-to-the-wind test proved decisive and it was all but announced that the CRTC's bought and paid for decision is going to be unbought. Although the reversal is far from a fact, the sixty-day grace period being extended by the CRTC is really a timeout to come up with a reason to reverse the decision, as foolish a decision as has been made in politics in recent memory. You can skim SOME money from all the people with only isolated roars of outrage. Try stealing it all and some people are going to get ornery enough to rally the rest.
Politics is always a test of how much lying we'll take from who. You lie to get elected and then you lie to the people that you are doing things in their best interests. Doesn't matter who's in. Some are just bolder in their screwing of the people.
As always, I pine for minority government because it does give some control over the worst wretched excesses of majority government. Had the Harperites actually been in total control this past week, the CRTC would have been rammed down our throats, Bell's profits uber alles. This is why, come whenever Harper decides he has the greatest political advantage and calls the snap election, we must band together and vote in another minority government. Technically, I'd like the Liberals to be the head of the government because this is a liberal nation, a country where we want to help everybody and exclude none. Problem is, the Libs are just as power-crazy in some ways as the Cons and absolute power corrupts.
The election is coming. The election ads without an election say so.
Wednesday, February 02, 2011
HARDWARE: Patience
I don't NEED a tablet computer. Heck, I'll be spending too much time this month setting up Quincy, my new nifty main desktop computer to replace Popeye (who gets the secondary job of doing backups and other housekeeping chores on my network .. replacing Nuklon ... which seems headed to become a media server down beside the big TV in the living room). That replacement process and my ongoing development work for the various clients shouldn't leave much time for a tablet computer. So I don't NEED a tablet computer.
But I want one.
The fact is that my current choices in tablet computers are a 10 inch iPad Classic, a 7 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab and taking a chance on getting something out of the Far East through Customs. And frankly, given how difficult it was just get some cables (and the currently ON HOLD iWin Twin USB drive) past the keepers of the border and into my hands, my desire in that area is pretty slim.
So, why not the iPad? Besides not wanting iTunes on my computer and not wanting Steve Jobs telling me what I can or can't have, I'm really worried about the Apple grab at anything and everything that goes through the various reading apps on the iPad. While GigaOM finds the grab understandable and smart to a degree, I think Apple's desire to get a 30 percent cut from any money passing through it's device is going eventually lead to a fight back from the software vendors. Sony and The New York Times howled earlier this week, possibly prematurely, and there will be others. The magazine app vendors have already been grumbling. Well, CUSTOMERS have been doing the grumbling that caused the vendors to grumble.
The the sword of Damocles that iPad holds to hold these vendors in check is exclusivity. Right now, the iPad is it. Really. So vendors bend to Apple's will. A year from now, the vendors WILL have the other-source resources to tell Apple 'NO!' Will political realities redraw the vendor-Apple relationship at that point? Possibly. Over Steve Jobs' absent body. I'm not willing to take that chance and buy into Apple. And that's made even more practical by the fact that we are at the end of the life-cycle for the iPad Classic. The iPad2 will be out within weeks and will be better and lighter and equipped with two cameras and cheaper. Oops, not the last one. Apple never spares early adopters' wallets. Nope. It won't be cheaper. And even cheaper iPad Classics won't be cheap enough for me for the earlier stated reasons.
Samsung can virtually do no wrong with me. I'm even smiling through having a bum monitor from them. Why? because Samsung's had the best price/performance ratio on hardware for awhile now. They've tried to position themselves as a upscale LG, fighting Sony on the quality front for market share. In a blind test, I'd take the Samsung over most other brands in most categories. But there's something going on in the mobile phone/tablet area that has Samsung stumbling.
First, there are all kinds of issues with Samsung phones relating to versions of Android and slow, if ever, upgrades to newer versions. Then, Samsung says they've sold 2M tabs ... to stores, more or less mumbling that last bit just a bit. Actual sales of the Tab are a fraction of that number. A fraction made smaller by a reported return rate that might be as high as 16 percent. Plus the tab is seven inches, barely bigger than my web-surfing booking-reading extraordinaire Kindle. So, no Tab for me.
This IS the month that will see change in the relatively barren tablet field. I'm watching a number of tablets that I think could provide the impetus to land one in my hands. Hopefully in time for March Madness. With a tablet connected to CBS' website for all of the first four rounds of the tournament, I can pick and choose which game to show on it, while having the other two TV's in the room tuned to CBS and to TheScore respectively. I'm more or less forced currently to watch CBS soundless as it usually focuses on one game, while TheScore does hop around to best effect,. However, Tim Micallef hosts that show and his idiot grin and stolen patter are, well ... let's say ... off-putting. Imagine being able to turn his sound off too? And letting me do my OWN game-hopping. All from the comfort of my bed. Ya, that's the plan!
The Adam by India-based NotionInk is my favourite to emerge from the alternatives and find a way to the Castle of Confusion. I've watched it's progress from a bunch of drawings to an actual shipping device and I like what I see. Unfortunately, the current batch is sold out and so is the next batch. And I'm horribly worried we haven't seen a review by an independent third party yet, like Carrypad. But I really do like just about everything I've seen of the device. It uses Android 2.3.
Motorola's Xoom will be the first out with the Android 3.0, code-named Honeycomb, software platform installed. It's the Android system FOR tablets. And Motorola's a pretty solid hardware company. I'm not enthused about an opening price reputed to run closer to a grand than I would like. But, it has to be a contender, if no reason other than it will sport the best in hardware AND the latest Android at the opening bell.
Asus has been a price-point competitor in the smaller laptop (netbook) field for some time now. And Asus makes the motherboards of all my computers. Knowledge and form expertise makes the eeePad something to consider. If it was shipping today, I think I'd order one, reviews unread. The question is, once the competition really lights up, will Asus get lost amongst all the offerings from big companies?
And you know what they say about learning from your mistakes. I'm hoping Samsung gets it right with their 2.0 gen products. I'm still not interested in the 'small' tab. But the next wave of Samsung's tabs will include a 10 incher. That's certainly something to consider. Along the same vein, Dell's followed up their 5 inch Streak with a 7 inch form factor. Getting out a 10 incher would be worth looking at Dell for a solution.
Carly Fiorina made a real effort to destroy HP (and Compaq and ... just about everything she was involved in over the last decade), but I have to admit more than nostalgia has me hoping the WebOS powered Palm tablet will be a contender. Afterall, WebOS is the descendant of the operating system on my still operational and beloved, Sony Clie PDA. The screen snapshots I've seen tend to look more like a blown-up phone screen. But there's a familiarity there that might carry the day.
Lastly, I DO have to pay attention to what Apple does when it announces the iPad2. First, they might just put together such a great hardware package that I would have to consider bending my anti-Apple bias (I remind you that I have a four-digit serial number Apple II in my house. The bias I have is to control-freak level paranoia). I could run iTunes in a virtual machine. And I could jailbreak the iPad to escape Jobs' clutches. Probably. But the main benefit waiting out the iPad2 would be the price pressure it would put on the other devices. Might be worth a savings of a couple hundred bucks when the machines that are out in this first real wave of Android tablets are facing the tsunami of sales the iPad2 will have.
In a perfect world, I would buy a cheap Far East Wi-Fi knockoff running Android 2.3. I would use it to learn the ins and outs of the Android system. It would be light due to inexpensive plastic housing. Since I don't plan to lug it around a lot and it would spend non-productive time in a charging cradle, I could live with eight hours of battery life. I'm also unlikely to watch any HD stuff on it, other than sports, which would be streaming. So, large memory capability isn't all that necessary. I want to read magazines and comic books, do some light web-browsing mostly centered around looking up things. And, on the rare occasions when I go out and head off somewhere I've never been, I wouldn't hate GPS capability. I would accept Google Maps. I don't need it to be a phone, but the occasional use of Google Voice wouldn't hurt. And the outward camera will be undoubtedly better than any that I have in the house. And I take pictures, on the average, about ONE time a year.
I'd get about a year out of that first tab. Then, by replacement time, I would have a panoply of second gen tabs to pick from, at all price points and multiple capability points.
But first? A tab for March. Please. I've been ever so patient.
But I want one.
The fact is that my current choices in tablet computers are a 10 inch iPad Classic, a 7 inch Samsung Galaxy Tab and taking a chance on getting something out of the Far East through Customs. And frankly, given how difficult it was just get some cables (and the currently ON HOLD iWin Twin USB drive) past the keepers of the border and into my hands, my desire in that area is pretty slim.
So, why not the iPad? Besides not wanting iTunes on my computer and not wanting Steve Jobs telling me what I can or can't have, I'm really worried about the Apple grab at anything and everything that goes through the various reading apps on the iPad. While GigaOM finds the grab understandable and smart to a degree, I think Apple's desire to get a 30 percent cut from any money passing through it's device is going eventually lead to a fight back from the software vendors. Sony and The New York Times howled earlier this week, possibly prematurely, and there will be others. The magazine app vendors have already been grumbling. Well, CUSTOMERS have been doing the grumbling that caused the vendors to grumble.
The the sword of Damocles that iPad holds to hold these vendors in check is exclusivity. Right now, the iPad is it. Really. So vendors bend to Apple's will. A year from now, the vendors WILL have the other-source resources to tell Apple 'NO!' Will political realities redraw the vendor-Apple relationship at that point? Possibly. Over Steve Jobs' absent body. I'm not willing to take that chance and buy into Apple. And that's made even more practical by the fact that we are at the end of the life-cycle for the iPad Classic. The iPad2 will be out within weeks and will be better and lighter and equipped with two cameras and cheaper. Oops, not the last one. Apple never spares early adopters' wallets. Nope. It won't be cheaper. And even cheaper iPad Classics won't be cheap enough for me for the earlier stated reasons.
Samsung can virtually do no wrong with me. I'm even smiling through having a bum monitor from them. Why? because Samsung's had the best price/performance ratio on hardware for awhile now. They've tried to position themselves as a upscale LG, fighting Sony on the quality front for market share. In a blind test, I'd take the Samsung over most other brands in most categories. But there's something going on in the mobile phone/tablet area that has Samsung stumbling.
First, there are all kinds of issues with Samsung phones relating to versions of Android and slow, if ever, upgrades to newer versions. Then, Samsung says they've sold 2M tabs ... to stores, more or less mumbling that last bit just a bit. Actual sales of the Tab are a fraction of that number. A fraction made smaller by a reported return rate that might be as high as 16 percent. Plus the tab is seven inches, barely bigger than my web-surfing booking-reading extraordinaire Kindle. So, no Tab for me.
This IS the month that will see change in the relatively barren tablet field. I'm watching a number of tablets that I think could provide the impetus to land one in my hands. Hopefully in time for March Madness. With a tablet connected to CBS' website for all of the first four rounds of the tournament, I can pick and choose which game to show on it, while having the other two TV's in the room tuned to CBS and to TheScore respectively. I'm more or less forced currently to watch CBS soundless as it usually focuses on one game, while TheScore does hop around to best effect,. However, Tim Micallef hosts that show and his idiot grin and stolen patter are, well ... let's say ... off-putting. Imagine being able to turn his sound off too? And letting me do my OWN game-hopping. All from the comfort of my bed. Ya, that's the plan!
The Adam by India-based NotionInk is my favourite to emerge from the alternatives and find a way to the Castle of Confusion. I've watched it's progress from a bunch of drawings to an actual shipping device and I like what I see. Unfortunately, the current batch is sold out and so is the next batch. And I'm horribly worried we haven't seen a review by an independent third party yet, like Carrypad. But I really do like just about everything I've seen of the device. It uses Android 2.3.
Motorola's Xoom will be the first out with the Android 3.0, code-named Honeycomb, software platform installed. It's the Android system FOR tablets. And Motorola's a pretty solid hardware company. I'm not enthused about an opening price reputed to run closer to a grand than I would like. But, it has to be a contender, if no reason other than it will sport the best in hardware AND the latest Android at the opening bell.
Asus has been a price-point competitor in the smaller laptop (netbook) field for some time now. And Asus makes the motherboards of all my computers. Knowledge and form expertise makes the eeePad something to consider. If it was shipping today, I think I'd order one, reviews unread. The question is, once the competition really lights up, will Asus get lost amongst all the offerings from big companies?
And you know what they say about learning from your mistakes. I'm hoping Samsung gets it right with their 2.0 gen products. I'm still not interested in the 'small' tab. But the next wave of Samsung's tabs will include a 10 incher. That's certainly something to consider. Along the same vein, Dell's followed up their 5 inch Streak with a 7 inch form factor. Getting out a 10 incher would be worth looking at Dell for a solution.
Carly Fiorina made a real effort to destroy HP (and Compaq and ... just about everything she was involved in over the last decade), but I have to admit more than nostalgia has me hoping the WebOS powered Palm tablet will be a contender. Afterall, WebOS is the descendant of the operating system on my still operational and beloved, Sony Clie PDA. The screen snapshots I've seen tend to look more like a blown-up phone screen. But there's a familiarity there that might carry the day.
Lastly, I DO have to pay attention to what Apple does when it announces the iPad2. First, they might just put together such a great hardware package that I would have to consider bending my anti-Apple bias (I remind you that I have a four-digit serial number Apple II in my house. The bias I have is to control-freak level paranoia). I could run iTunes in a virtual machine. And I could jailbreak the iPad to escape Jobs' clutches. Probably. But the main benefit waiting out the iPad2 would be the price pressure it would put on the other devices. Might be worth a savings of a couple hundred bucks when the machines that are out in this first real wave of Android tablets are facing the tsunami of sales the iPad2 will have.
In a perfect world, I would buy a cheap Far East Wi-Fi knockoff running Android 2.3. I would use it to learn the ins and outs of the Android system. It would be light due to inexpensive plastic housing. Since I don't plan to lug it around a lot and it would spend non-productive time in a charging cradle, I could live with eight hours of battery life. I'm also unlikely to watch any HD stuff on it, other than sports, which would be streaming. So, large memory capability isn't all that necessary. I want to read magazines and comic books, do some light web-browsing mostly centered around looking up things. And, on the rare occasions when I go out and head off somewhere I've never been, I wouldn't hate GPS capability. I would accept Google Maps. I don't need it to be a phone, but the occasional use of Google Voice wouldn't hurt. And the outward camera will be undoubtedly better than any that I have in the house. And I take pictures, on the average, about ONE time a year.
I'd get about a year out of that first tab. Then, by replacement time, I would have a panoply of second gen tabs to pick from, at all price points and multiple capability points.
But first? A tab for March. Please. I've been ever so patient.
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