I need my attention diverted like I need massive dental surgery. It MIGHT be a good idea, but I kind of doubt it. So, it was with some annoyance this week that I got a notice when opening gmail.com that I was now the proud possessor of a new-fangled Buzz account.
[moments of crude language and rude noises follow]
I spent some minutes trying to extricate myself from this gift. Turned anything and everything private I could find and then went on about my business. Although I did take another minute or two to explore my vocabulary list of words my mother would wash my mouth with soap for uttering.
Today, I read in several places of the solution to my 'problem.' Appearing now at the bottom of your gmail page, you should see a link to TURN OFF BUZZ, conveniently located just above the link to the privacy policy that somehow allowed Google to trample ALL over my privacy this week. Click on that and your immediate concerns with Buzz are gone.
Obviously, Buzz has gone over like a lead balloon. It's been scorned and scorched by just about the whole internet community. The first words out of Google HQ is that there will be a separate spin-off of Buzz, it's Facebook/Twitter conglomerated anti-venom. But most people want the spin-off to be complete, allowing interested folk to link BACK to gmail, but not to use gmail as the linchpin of the new service. This is so very Microsoft of Google, don't you think? Just announcing the product and shoving it down my throat doesn't make me a very happy Googler.
Eventually, the 'do no evil' mantra will lead to Buzz, buzzing off. After all, shouldn't Google be spending more time fending off Chinese government hackers rather than OPENING UP my privacy to any random hacker, regardless of national affiliation?
Bah, humbug.
Saturday, February 13, 2010
Saturday, February 06, 2010
LIFE: An Obituary
Brendan Burke died in a car accident last night. The world isn't quite as good as it was 24 hours ago. My sympathies and sorrows to the Burke family. Let's hope the mental midgets out there don't try to associate his tragically early death with ...
Just promise if you hear anybody say such crap that you'll punch them in the face. Hard.
Boy this is a lousy way to start a day.
Just promise if you hear anybody say such crap that you'll punch them in the face. Hard.
Boy this is a lousy way to start a day.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
COMPUTERS: The iPad ... Meh!
Okay, after two nap-breaking phone calls and two emails, I'd best get this out of the way. There is no need for the iPad that I can think of. At least in my life.
In fact, Paul Thurrot savaged the product in his blog. Thurrot's a Windows guy but he certainly has more than his share of respect and support for Apple's various platforms. His Windows Weekly show on twit.tv can often be confused with an apple-centric show like macbreak weekly. And, if you look around, you'll see he's not in the minority on this point of view about the iPad. Technologically, it's just an oversized iPod Touch.
I don't own a mobile phone nor any 3G device that serves as a music/video player. Basically, I don't roam much, so I don't need one. And if I DO find myself somewhere outside the cave, my trusty Sony Clie PDA still does everything I need. I can read books on it (happily and even without leaving the house) and I have all kinds of databases that I access regularly ... shopping lists, company passwords, etc. So even if they gave me the high end iPad (which will hit $1200CDN when you add the accessories and service contracts ... before tax), I wouldn't use it. It offers me nothing I don't have here at the Castle of Confusion. And the low-end price-point version can be replaced by a 70 buck video player and a decent smart phone. That'll be about half the price of the entry-level iPad.
That said, and everybody agrees, the things will sell like hot cakes to the Apple Sheep. There's a cachet to having the latest niftiest bright shiny toy. And I'm okay with that.
There will be some benefits that will then accrue to me and mine. First, when v2 of the iPad comes out and corrects the lack of flash video, the lack of a camera, the idiotic non-16x9 ration display, the plan to make just about all the software an extra added cost and the current lack of software especially developed FOR the larger-than-iPod Touch screen (Doubling (really quadrupling) the smaller device's graphics will get old ... and complained about real quick), that's when the device will merit notice for buying. You can't have a v2 until after the first version has come out. Evolution needs time.
Also, the iPad's ability to be an eBook reader introduces more competition into THAT particular field. I was most interested in the iPad in the week's leading up to yesterday as a potential eReader for my mother. It's her turn for a decent birthday present this year and the family has ofted talked about getting her one. I was hoping that a colour-screened iPad would be just the right fit. Although I expected it would cost the better part of a grand to get one. Mom has an iPod Touch now, but finds the screen too small to read on. So, I had my dreams. I think at 1.5 pounds, it's a little heavy for her. So the iPad is out as a solution and we go back to deciding between a Sony product or the international Kindle. BUT, the best part is that pricing on those products will have to drop, albeit not dramatically, because of the new gorilla in the room.
A penny saved...
In fact, Paul Thurrot savaged the product in his blog. Thurrot's a Windows guy but he certainly has more than his share of respect and support for Apple's various platforms. His Windows Weekly show on twit.tv can often be confused with an apple-centric show like macbreak weekly. And, if you look around, you'll see he's not in the minority on this point of view about the iPad. Technologically, it's just an oversized iPod Touch.
I don't own a mobile phone nor any 3G device that serves as a music/video player. Basically, I don't roam much, so I don't need one. And if I DO find myself somewhere outside the cave, my trusty Sony Clie PDA still does everything I need. I can read books on it (happily and even without leaving the house) and I have all kinds of databases that I access regularly ... shopping lists, company passwords, etc. So even if they gave me the high end iPad (which will hit $1200CDN when you add the accessories and service contracts ... before tax), I wouldn't use it. It offers me nothing I don't have here at the Castle of Confusion. And the low-end price-point version can be replaced by a 70 buck video player and a decent smart phone. That'll be about half the price of the entry-level iPad.
That said, and everybody agrees, the things will sell like hot cakes to the Apple Sheep. There's a cachet to having the latest niftiest bright shiny toy. And I'm okay with that.
There will be some benefits that will then accrue to me and mine. First, when v2 of the iPad comes out and corrects the lack of flash video, the lack of a camera, the idiotic non-16x9 ration display, the plan to make just about all the software an extra added cost and the current lack of software especially developed FOR the larger-than-iPod Touch screen (Doubling (really quadrupling) the smaller device's graphics will get old ... and complained about real quick), that's when the device will merit notice for buying. You can't have a v2 until after the first version has come out. Evolution needs time.
Also, the iPad's ability to be an eBook reader introduces more competition into THAT particular field. I was most interested in the iPad in the week's leading up to yesterday as a potential eReader for my mother. It's her turn for a decent birthday present this year and the family has ofted talked about getting her one. I was hoping that a colour-screened iPad would be just the right fit. Although I expected it would cost the better part of a grand to get one. Mom has an iPod Touch now, but finds the screen too small to read on. So, I had my dreams. I think at 1.5 pounds, it's a little heavy for her. So the iPad is out as a solution and we go back to deciding between a Sony product or the international Kindle. BUT, the best part is that pricing on those products will have to drop, albeit not dramatically, because of the new gorilla in the room.
A penny saved...
Tuesday, January 19, 2010
SOFTWARE: Printliminator and Nuke Anything Enhanced
I've been called cheap. Penurious. Tight with a penny. Miserly. Compliments all.
Paper costs money and effort to trash. Really, it's the latter that gets to me, but the paper and laser printer toner also is something that adds up over the amount that I print. So, I go to SOME lengths to limit just how much printing I do. With Firefox, two of the greatest aids are Printliminator and Nuke Anything Enhanced.
I use Printliminator a LOT. It allows me to click on parts of the web page I am looking at and make them go away (not permanently, you can refresh/reload the page and you get everything back). I use the ALT key to delete everything BUT what the current red selection box shows. And then I can print quickly from a handy button right there. AND there's an Undo button for those moments when I move the mouse just a hair and it selects something other than what I wanted targeted JUST as I click the delete button.
Go to the web-site and follow the very simple instruction. Note that I didn't say instructions. It's THAT simple!
Now, Printliminator is good for getting rid of broad swatches of the page you are looking at. If you just want to delete a little something here, a little text there, then it's good to have the Nuke Anything Enhanced add-in loaded. Using the mouse, highlight text or simply point at an 'object' you want removed and right click. NAE will have available Remove This Object or Remove This Selection (and Remove Everything Else) available to you in the context menu. It's handy and if you are going to just do a little delete, this is the way to do it. Printliminator has to be loaded and that takes a second or two some nights. If you know what I mean.
In either case, stop printing out that extra page with the useless bottom footer of the web-page and the big menu on the left (or the right, GRRRRR!). Just chop out the text that you want to save and print to paper. Or, even better, a PDF file.
Your accountant will thank you. Oh, and however is responsible for hauling the recyclables to the curb.
Paper costs money and effort to trash. Really, it's the latter that gets to me, but the paper and laser printer toner also is something that adds up over the amount that I print. So, I go to SOME lengths to limit just how much printing I do. With Firefox, two of the greatest aids are Printliminator and Nuke Anything Enhanced.
I use Printliminator a LOT. It allows me to click on parts of the web page I am looking at and make them go away (not permanently, you can refresh/reload the page and you get everything back). I use the ALT key to delete everything BUT what the current red selection box shows. And then I can print quickly from a handy button right there. AND there's an Undo button for those moments when I move the mouse just a hair and it selects something other than what I wanted targeted JUST as I click the delete button.
Go to the web-site and follow the very simple instruction. Note that I didn't say instructions. It's THAT simple!
Now, Printliminator is good for getting rid of broad swatches of the page you are looking at. If you just want to delete a little something here, a little text there, then it's good to have the Nuke Anything Enhanced add-in loaded. Using the mouse, highlight text or simply point at an 'object' you want removed and right click. NAE will have available Remove This Object or Remove This Selection (and Remove Everything Else) available to you in the context menu. It's handy and if you are going to just do a little delete, this is the way to do it. Printliminator has to be loaded and that takes a second or two some nights. If you know what I mean.
In either case, stop printing out that extra page with the useless bottom footer of the web-page and the big menu on the left (or the right, GRRRRR!). Just chop out the text that you want to save and print to paper. Or, even better, a PDF file.
Your accountant will thank you. Oh, and however is responsible for hauling the recyclables to the curb.
Monday, January 18, 2010
TV: Jay Leno Vs. The Rest
I am a Jay Leno fan. I was a fan of Bob Hope, Johnny Carson and George Carlin. I still am a fan of Bill Maher, Jerry Seinfeld and, although he's largely gone from the public conscious these days, David Brenner. I enjoy Steven Wright, Lee Mack and I think Lewis Black is consistently funny, although not as funny as the funniest man alive, Billy Connolly. Those are my comedic sensibilities.
Not David Letterman. Not Conan O'Brien.
My comedy is verbal. Set-ups, punch-lines and jokes. I'm not big on sight gags and I think stupid (fill in the blank) tricks are ... stupid. And stupidity isn't funny. Now, I know YouTube has made a business (according to Mark Cuban, a bad business) out of videos of stupidity. And America's Funniest Videos have been going on forever, although fading now that people can get their acting-silly videos on YouTube anytime.
My theory about the popularity of Letterman and then O'Brien in the collegiate crowd is that a great number of collegians watching TV around the midnight hour are either drunk or buzzed or both. In that state, verbal comedy is wasted. But dropping watermelons off roofs? Sticking people in velcro suits against walls of velcro? Big-breasted women with metal bikinis running grinders against their, er, outstanding assets? Hilarious. In the sober light of the following day, Hunh?
Look, Leno is not perfect. At the best of times, Leno would fawn over the worst artistic excesses of actors and actresses out stumping for horrible work. He fell in love with his own brand of stupidity, showing American youth as completely clueless (although NOBODY could be as clueless as some of his putative university-educated Jaywalk All-Stars. Always thought some were bad thespians). But he did a monologue every night, two, three, five times longer than Letterman and twice as long as Conan. When he was yakking with somebody he shared interests with, he'd light up with joy at doing a job he really, really loved. He did great with kids and octogenarians. He was interested in his guests even when they didn't love cars or weren't long-time vets of the comedy circuit. Or at least he faked it.
Letterman wasn't. He wasn't interested enough in learning about what the guest was on to promote. Ever. Sure, there WERE guests he was interested in. And those made for good TV. But he knew he wasn't really much of a comic and he didn't let that stop him in any way. He created a show about other people doing comedic schtick. He was like a general manager of a successful sports franchise. He managed rather than performed. And if he gave the college crowd enough easy-for-besotten-brains pratfalls, he could be successful. And he was. But he has always been guest-driven watching. If the guest was somebody you wanted to watch, you did. Otherwise, why bother? He wasn't interested in the vast majority, why should you?
Conan took the Letterman model and ran with it. Unlike Letterman who had a decent stage act before coming to Late Night TV, Conan was a writer of cartoons. He thought visually and almost all of his comedic is visually-driven. Not all of stuff follows directly on the schtick model Letterman perfected. He was willing to go with clever lines ... providing they were given with some semblance of a visual cue. Cut to Conan for a shudder of the body and attempt to shake that great red shank of straw he calls hair. THEN the joke. In some ways, Conan tries to drive the middle lane between Letterman and Leno. That's cutting it awfully close and, in the final analysis, the fact that's Conan's not a comedian by training, is why he comes across as silly more often than funny. And silly is just a more polite way of saying stupid. And you know how I feel about that.
In a way, it's too bad Conan fails at being actually funny. He's the best interviewer of the three, although he has a limited range of who he can interview. Oddball celebrities outside the normal entertainment media spectrum are like black holes to Conan, whereas Leno loves them. And makes them entertaining interviews.
Leno's pre-news show was disappointing. First, he tried to break the Yogi-ism. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. He SHOULD have done the Tonight Show at ten, rather than trying to do a nightly Saturday Night Live. His name was on the show, he shouldn't have surrendered huge chunks of it to people not named Jay Leno. The "Earn Your Plug" segment was simply Stupid Actor Tricks and we ALL know how much I think of anything that starts, "Stupid..." And the car-race segment was the single worst use of TV time in history. Wasn't bad. Just wasn't... anything. A moving test pattern. Plus, there seemed to be a nasty edge to Leno that I didn't see before. Nothing overt, just a feeling. The interviews were more kvetching than interesting, bland when not kvetching. The only thing after the monologue and certain Tonight Show-retained bits that was successful was the ten@ten thing. It was awkward, but funny for being awkward, what with the delay in communicating, even if the quizzee was within spitting distance of the studio. I'd bet a lot of the responses were scripted, but some weren't and there were legitimate laughs each night.
I'm not displeased at all that Leno's headed back to familiar territory. I haven't been watching Conan except on nights where I want to see a specific guest. I'll record Leno schedule unseen, knowing I'll get a good half-hour, if not more. I think the various media people and the assembled Late Night community that has had the long knives out for Leno are wrong. Besides having agendas aplenty and most of the critics being former drunken university followers of Letterman, the Leno jihad is nauseating.
Mark Evanier has a very interesting essay on the whole thing at his blog today. He sums it up pretty well. I would have sent you there at the beginning of this, but there would have been a good chance you might not have come back. It's that good.
Not David Letterman. Not Conan O'Brien.
My comedy is verbal. Set-ups, punch-lines and jokes. I'm not big on sight gags and I think stupid (fill in the blank) tricks are ... stupid. And stupidity isn't funny. Now, I know YouTube has made a business (according to Mark Cuban, a bad business) out of videos of stupidity. And America's Funniest Videos have been going on forever, although fading now that people can get their acting-silly videos on YouTube anytime.
My theory about the popularity of Letterman and then O'Brien in the collegiate crowd is that a great number of collegians watching TV around the midnight hour are either drunk or buzzed or both. In that state, verbal comedy is wasted. But dropping watermelons off roofs? Sticking people in velcro suits against walls of velcro? Big-breasted women with metal bikinis running grinders against their, er, outstanding assets? Hilarious. In the sober light of the following day, Hunh?
Look, Leno is not perfect. At the best of times, Leno would fawn over the worst artistic excesses of actors and actresses out stumping for horrible work. He fell in love with his own brand of stupidity, showing American youth as completely clueless (although NOBODY could be as clueless as some of his putative university-educated Jaywalk All-Stars. Always thought some were bad thespians). But he did a monologue every night, two, three, five times longer than Letterman and twice as long as Conan. When he was yakking with somebody he shared interests with, he'd light up with joy at doing a job he really, really loved. He did great with kids and octogenarians. He was interested in his guests even when they didn't love cars or weren't long-time vets of the comedy circuit. Or at least he faked it.
Letterman wasn't. He wasn't interested enough in learning about what the guest was on to promote. Ever. Sure, there WERE guests he was interested in. And those made for good TV. But he knew he wasn't really much of a comic and he didn't let that stop him in any way. He created a show about other people doing comedic schtick. He was like a general manager of a successful sports franchise. He managed rather than performed. And if he gave the college crowd enough easy-for-besotten-brains pratfalls, he could be successful. And he was. But he has always been guest-driven watching. If the guest was somebody you wanted to watch, you did. Otherwise, why bother? He wasn't interested in the vast majority, why should you?
Conan took the Letterman model and ran with it. Unlike Letterman who had a decent stage act before coming to Late Night TV, Conan was a writer of cartoons. He thought visually and almost all of his comedic is visually-driven. Not all of stuff follows directly on the schtick model Letterman perfected. He was willing to go with clever lines ... providing they were given with some semblance of a visual cue. Cut to Conan for a shudder of the body and attempt to shake that great red shank of straw he calls hair. THEN the joke. In some ways, Conan tries to drive the middle lane between Letterman and Leno. That's cutting it awfully close and, in the final analysis, the fact that's Conan's not a comedian by training, is why he comes across as silly more often than funny. And silly is just a more polite way of saying stupid. And you know how I feel about that.
In a way, it's too bad Conan fails at being actually funny. He's the best interviewer of the three, although he has a limited range of who he can interview. Oddball celebrities outside the normal entertainment media spectrum are like black holes to Conan, whereas Leno loves them. And makes them entertaining interviews.
Leno's pre-news show was disappointing. First, he tried to break the Yogi-ism. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. He SHOULD have done the Tonight Show at ten, rather than trying to do a nightly Saturday Night Live. His name was on the show, he shouldn't have surrendered huge chunks of it to people not named Jay Leno. The "Earn Your Plug" segment was simply Stupid Actor Tricks and we ALL know how much I think of anything that starts, "Stupid..." And the car-race segment was the single worst use of TV time in history. Wasn't bad. Just wasn't... anything. A moving test pattern. Plus, there seemed to be a nasty edge to Leno that I didn't see before. Nothing overt, just a feeling. The interviews were more kvetching than interesting, bland when not kvetching. The only thing after the monologue and certain Tonight Show-retained bits that was successful was the ten@ten thing. It was awkward, but funny for being awkward, what with the delay in communicating, even if the quizzee was within spitting distance of the studio. I'd bet a lot of the responses were scripted, but some weren't and there were legitimate laughs each night.
I'm not displeased at all that Leno's headed back to familiar territory. I haven't been watching Conan except on nights where I want to see a specific guest. I'll record Leno schedule unseen, knowing I'll get a good half-hour, if not more. I think the various media people and the assembled Late Night community that has had the long knives out for Leno are wrong. Besides having agendas aplenty and most of the critics being former drunken university followers of Letterman, the Leno jihad is nauseating.
Mark Evanier has a very interesting essay on the whole thing at his blog today. He sums it up pretty well. I would have sent you there at the beginning of this, but there would have been a good chance you might not have come back. It's that good.
Thursday, January 14, 2010
SPORTS: Feschuck On the Turk
Usually, Dave Feschuk and Hedo Turkoglu irritate me. Feschuk because he's seems to be the unhappiest sports reporter I've ever read. And no, I've never talked to the man in person, ever. All I know is through his writing, which is forever gloomy. And Turkoglu, as we all now, is the underperforming Toronto Raptor small forward with the big contract.
I could write lots about Turkoglu, but Feschuk has used his gloomy force for good, detailing almost EXACTLY what I dislike about Turkoglu's approach to business here north of the border. Since he says it so well at the Toronto Star sports site, why bother repeating it? Worth a read.
About the only thing I would add is that I bet the Raptors' management would love it, if those pizza ads with the laconic Turk stretched out on a coach scarfing down pizza and pop could get pulled. It can't help that Hedo's shown mindlessly saying 'Yes, coach' as whatever Jay Triano is saying to him goes in one ear and out the other. Not a good image. And one that's too close to the truth for comfort.
Or so I've been told.
I could write lots about Turkoglu, but Feschuk has used his gloomy force for good, detailing almost EXACTLY what I dislike about Turkoglu's approach to business here north of the border. Since he says it so well at the Toronto Star sports site, why bother repeating it? Worth a read.
About the only thing I would add is that I bet the Raptors' management would love it, if those pizza ads with the laconic Turk stretched out on a coach scarfing down pizza and pop could get pulled. It can't help that Hedo's shown mindlessly saying 'Yes, coach' as whatever Jay Triano is saying to him goes in one ear and out the other. Not a good image. And one that's too close to the truth for comfort.
Or so I've been told.
INTERNET: Tracking My Random Postings
Okay, so I don't exactly post on schedule. Today's Thursday and yesterday was Wednesday and I 'could' post my promised Wednesday Fall TV review. But I'm busy, tired and cranky (what else is new?). On the other hand, I DO know one or two of you check in here semi-regularly and I'm doing you a disservice. So how about some service instead?
Copy the url link from the box above (the one that says http://mugfordmugshots.blogspot.com or just copy what you just read) and then go to www.changedetection.com. When you get there, you will have to set up an account for this first-time use. Easy as pie, just follow the instructions. Paste in the mugshots url into the field for it and then put in your email address. You will eventually have to verify that you want this service and you'll have to put in a password to log back in for further changes. Pick daily (I wish!), weekly (more realistic) or monthly (come on, I'm not THAT bad!). Based on what you pick, you'll get an email telling you it's worthwhile to come a-visitin' here at this blog. You might also want to set it up to ignore small changes. I tend to explode verbally, so small changes will be rare. BUT if I get spammed by a blog comment blogger, you won't get signaled if it only means a change from 0 comments to 1 comment.
This is a WHOLE lot easier than RSS Feeds. I've got 15 sites monitored now and have taken them off the daily list. I'll get one nice little email at my gmail account when any of them change and will only go see them if there's something new to go see. That cuts down my daily load list from 147 to 132.
And you can cut down fruitless, frustrating visits here when I've nothing to say in print.
Copy the url link from the box above (the one that says http://mugfordmugshots.blogspot.com or just copy what you just read) and then go to www.changedetection.com. When you get there, you will have to set up an account for this first-time use. Easy as pie, just follow the instructions. Paste in the mugshots url into the field for it and then put in your email address. You will eventually have to verify that you want this service and you'll have to put in a password to log back in for further changes. Pick daily (I wish!), weekly (more realistic) or monthly (come on, I'm not THAT bad!). Based on what you pick, you'll get an email telling you it's worthwhile to come a-visitin' here at this blog. You might also want to set it up to ignore small changes. I tend to explode verbally, so small changes will be rare. BUT if I get spammed by a blog comment blogger, you won't get signaled if it only means a change from 0 comments to 1 comment.
This is a WHOLE lot easier than RSS Feeds. I've got 15 sites monitored now and have taken them off the daily list. I'll get one nice little email at my gmail account when any of them change and will only go see them if there's something new to go see. That cuts down my daily load list from 147 to 132.
And you can cut down fruitless, frustrating visits here when I've nothing to say in print.
Wednesday, January 13, 2010
SPORTS: Speaking of Kicking the Dog
In my post yesterday, I talked about kicking the dog, which is really a heinous thing to do. So, it comes as no surprise that I'm not working up a great big excoriation over Mark McGwire. Why bother? He's never getting into the Hall of Fame, no matter how much scheming Tony LaRussa and his 'support' group do.
First, let me say that pre-retirement Mark McGwire was an outstanding citizen off the field. A nice man with an understanding of civic responsibility. It's THAT aspect of him that has anybody with any moderate knowledge of baseball considering putting his name on the ballot. What keeps him off the ballot are the facts, the ones agreed to even before be bared his ever-lovin' steroid-fed soul.
He hit home runs (see Maris, Roger for what that's worth in Hall of Fame freebies). He had a year early in his career where he won a Gold Glove in a bad year for first basemen. After that, he ranged from adequate to really not adequate at all. His life time average of .263 included three years of walking the Mendoza Line pretty well. In fact, LaRussa once kept him out of a season finale for fear he would end up below .200 for the season. His on-base percentage was below .400, despite being a feared hitter worthy of intentional walking for much of the last decade of his career. He wasn't much on the basepaths, as attested to by his once every three years triple rate and less than a stolen base a year rate. Basically, he was a more successful Dave Kingman. But he had that magical year.
McGwire shouldn't be enshrined for that year anymore than Maris has been (and you can add Paul Henderson to the lot of good players with one starring moment, as passed over would-be hall-of-famers). He was a good player who hit prodigious taters. We all 'suspected' he was juiced, so our sense of awe and wonder has been cooled over the years. We know now that our suspicions were right.
Despite all of that desultory stats-repeating, the fact is that McGwire would be in the Hall today if he'd been a better man. Fact is, he might very well have equaled his feats juice-free. Even he understands today that his overly-muscular build, fueled by steroids, probably led to more injuries than he might otherwise have endured. Ironic, given his defense that he used steroids to get OVER injuries. A LOT of people think he had that capability. And even after the career was kaputsky, he could have solidified his reputation on that day in Washington when he had the chance to come clean. He could have blown the whole steroid era to pieces by telling the truth. He could have become the anti-steroid crusader that kids could believe in. He carried all of the baggage of Jose Canseco without the slime that stopped too many people from believing Canseco, the patient zero of the insidious infection that was steroid use in major league baseball.
So, Monday's self-serving statement does nothing to revise the facts. Mark McGwire was a deeply flawed man and baseball player. And Cooperstown will always be a place he can only visit.
First, let me say that pre-retirement Mark McGwire was an outstanding citizen off the field. A nice man with an understanding of civic responsibility. It's THAT aspect of him that has anybody with any moderate knowledge of baseball considering putting his name on the ballot. What keeps him off the ballot are the facts, the ones agreed to even before be bared his ever-lovin' steroid-fed soul.
He hit home runs (see Maris, Roger for what that's worth in Hall of Fame freebies). He had a year early in his career where he won a Gold Glove in a bad year for first basemen. After that, he ranged from adequate to really not adequate at all. His life time average of .263 included three years of walking the Mendoza Line pretty well. In fact, LaRussa once kept him out of a season finale for fear he would end up below .200 for the season. His on-base percentage was below .400, despite being a feared hitter worthy of intentional walking for much of the last decade of his career. He wasn't much on the basepaths, as attested to by his once every three years triple rate and less than a stolen base a year rate. Basically, he was a more successful Dave Kingman. But he had that magical year.
McGwire shouldn't be enshrined for that year anymore than Maris has been (and you can add Paul Henderson to the lot of good players with one starring moment, as passed over would-be hall-of-famers). He was a good player who hit prodigious taters. We all 'suspected' he was juiced, so our sense of awe and wonder has been cooled over the years. We know now that our suspicions were right.
Despite all of that desultory stats-repeating, the fact is that McGwire would be in the Hall today if he'd been a better man. Fact is, he might very well have equaled his feats juice-free. Even he understands today that his overly-muscular build, fueled by steroids, probably led to more injuries than he might otherwise have endured. Ironic, given his defense that he used steroids to get OVER injuries. A LOT of people think he had that capability. And even after the career was kaputsky, he could have solidified his reputation on that day in Washington when he had the chance to come clean. He could have blown the whole steroid era to pieces by telling the truth. He could have become the anti-steroid crusader that kids could believe in. He carried all of the baggage of Jose Canseco without the slime that stopped too many people from believing Canseco, the patient zero of the insidious infection that was steroid use in major league baseball.
So, Monday's self-serving statement does nothing to revise the facts. Mark McGwire was a deeply flawed man and baseball player. And Cooperstown will always be a place he can only visit.
Tuesday, January 12, 2010
TV: The Tuesday Review for Fall 2009
Ever have that day where you feel like kicking the dog. That's been my day today. I love dogs and I love my job ... but every now and then, stupid people and stupid software get to me. So, here's me taking a break to continue my series of Fall TV mini-reviews. For the full preamble, check back to the Saturday review.
Okay, Tuesday is actually a good day to take your dog for a walk. If it wasn't for CBS and their NCIS-heavy sked, you might not turn on TV OR recorder at all!
NCIS, the original (actually a spin-off for you late joiners), continues to be rather above-average, It was the best hour on TV two seasons ago and wasn't bad last year. The puzzles this year have been good and the show will contend for a top-ten spot again. It IS actually, the most watched hour on TV now, I believe. At least until American Idol gets really going, not that I watch those early humiliation episodes of that show.
The spin-off's spin-off, NCIS: Los Angeles, isn't really following in the footsteps of its forebearer all that well. Linda Hunt's reasonably entertaining as the West coast Gibbs allegory. She's in full Billy Kwan/Yoda mode that's become her character part for the ages. She gives good, if rare, grin, as they say. Chris O'Donnell has the Tony equivalent part as the one-named Callan. Just doesn't quite have the same entertainment value. And neither does the usually good LL Cool J. And nobody else has enough quirk in their characters to make them memorable. Think of the NCIS cast and you get a group that is nothing BUT quirk. It's enough to make you think NCIS: LA might have been adopted. I record it because I watch NCIS and the night finale, The Good Wife.
I was quite prepared to not like The Good Wife. Julianna Margulies has always struck me as ... harsh. She's undeniably beautiful, but her face seems permanently frozen in frown-mode. She smiles occasionally, but that smile seems so rarely reaching the eyes, that you never believe it. At least in her TV characters. This show's no different. But there seems to be a reason for the stern facade. She's fighting upstream against a tide trying to take her down to the levels of her dirty pol husband, played with usual greatness by Chris Noth (and yes, I know I originally typed Mike Noth. One of these days I will get that one-time scourge of the sports reporting scene out of my memory bank). The kids are good and the hectoring mother-in-law (Mary Beth Peil) is outstanding. Which brings me to the workplace characters. I like pretty well all of them, especially investigator Kalinda, played by Archie Panjabi as one tough broad. Christine Baranski's an even tougher head of the firm. Interesting group of power women. Josh Charles and smarmy (as usual) Matt Czuchry try to hold the testosterone fort and succeed to a degree. So, while I rarely come down on the side of a Margulies show, this is the happy exception.
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has been a Tuesday staple, but I think it's being shipped off to Wednesdays here in Canada. I like that Christopher Meloni is playing less crazed this year. It's still a show to record, because some episodes are about subject matter that I find too distasteful to watch, no matter how tasteful they make it. In losing SVU for the night, at least the evening is getting White Collar from Friday nights (to be discussed in the review series finale). Good trade. NBC's night concludes with Leno, as do the rest of the weeknights. That was discussed in the Monday review and no need to repeat it here.
ABC's night-capper is a surprise. Not appoint TV or anything, bu the forgotten works most weeks. Christian Slater hasn't had much luck on TV and the fact that the audience hasn't found this show is yet another indicator he'll be available again come pilot season, but he does good work here. The guest star is always dead, but the crowd trying to give the corpse an identity and some dignity all seem earnest and individualistic. All the shows come awfully close to being one-and-done's, so jumping in at any point is doable. But there have been slowly-evolving back-stories for the regulars that make the whole season worthwhile watching.
Speaking of back-story, the season's over for such stalwarts as CBC's Being Erica and the cable show Sons of Anarchy. I rather like biker drama Sons of Anarchy better this year than the angsty and frothy Being Erica. I KNEW a second season of Being Erica was going to be really, really difficult to maintain at the levels of the first season. But the producers seemed to think creating a romantical triangle and minimizing the screen time for Michael Riley's Dr. Tom was a good idea. They were wrong. I just never warmed to Sebastian Pigott's Kai at all. Ah well.
Science Fiction had good and average coverage of Tuesday's. BBC's Paradox was brilliant, if short, at five episodes. Looking forward to a second series. On the other hand, ABC's V seemed long and plodding at four episodes. Still, Morena Baccarin makes up for a LOT of not-good when it comes to doling out watching time. It'll be back in March to finish off the mini-series. The last pre-break episode gave me hope that investing a further four hours will be worthwhile.
Lastly, I normally download TWiT (This Week in Technology) on Tuesday's. This is the current platform to watch Leo LaPorte, who's been Mr. Computer to a lot of people for a looooooong time. The 90-minute (or so) show usually has entertaining guests. Wish the video feed didn't take so long to appear for downloading, but I'm used to the schedule now.
Okay, Tuesday is actually a good day to take your dog for a walk. If it wasn't for CBS and their NCIS-heavy sked, you might not turn on TV OR recorder at all!
NCIS, the original (actually a spin-off for you late joiners), continues to be rather above-average, It was the best hour on TV two seasons ago and wasn't bad last year. The puzzles this year have been good and the show will contend for a top-ten spot again. It IS actually, the most watched hour on TV now, I believe. At least until American Idol gets really going, not that I watch those early humiliation episodes of that show.
The spin-off's spin-off, NCIS: Los Angeles, isn't really following in the footsteps of its forebearer all that well. Linda Hunt's reasonably entertaining as the West coast Gibbs allegory. She's in full Billy Kwan/Yoda mode that's become her character part for the ages. She gives good, if rare, grin, as they say. Chris O'Donnell has the Tony equivalent part as the one-named Callan. Just doesn't quite have the same entertainment value. And neither does the usually good LL Cool J. And nobody else has enough quirk in their characters to make them memorable. Think of the NCIS cast and you get a group that is nothing BUT quirk. It's enough to make you think NCIS: LA might have been adopted. I record it because I watch NCIS and the night finale, The Good Wife.
I was quite prepared to not like The Good Wife. Julianna Margulies has always struck me as ... harsh. She's undeniably beautiful, but her face seems permanently frozen in frown-mode. She smiles occasionally, but that smile seems so rarely reaching the eyes, that you never believe it. At least in her TV characters. This show's no different. But there seems to be a reason for the stern facade. She's fighting upstream against a tide trying to take her down to the levels of her dirty pol husband, played with usual greatness by Chris Noth (and yes, I know I originally typed Mike Noth. One of these days I will get that one-time scourge of the sports reporting scene out of my memory bank). The kids are good and the hectoring mother-in-law (Mary Beth Peil) is outstanding. Which brings me to the workplace characters. I like pretty well all of them, especially investigator Kalinda, played by Archie Panjabi as one tough broad. Christine Baranski's an even tougher head of the firm. Interesting group of power women. Josh Charles and smarmy (as usual) Matt Czuchry try to hold the testosterone fort and succeed to a degree. So, while I rarely come down on the side of a Margulies show, this is the happy exception.
Law and Order: Special Victims Unit has been a Tuesday staple, but I think it's being shipped off to Wednesdays here in Canada. I like that Christopher Meloni is playing less crazed this year. It's still a show to record, because some episodes are about subject matter that I find too distasteful to watch, no matter how tasteful they make it. In losing SVU for the night, at least the evening is getting White Collar from Friday nights (to be discussed in the review series finale). Good trade. NBC's night concludes with Leno, as do the rest of the weeknights. That was discussed in the Monday review and no need to repeat it here.
ABC's night-capper is a surprise. Not appoint TV or anything, bu the forgotten works most weeks. Christian Slater hasn't had much luck on TV and the fact that the audience hasn't found this show is yet another indicator he'll be available again come pilot season, but he does good work here. The guest star is always dead, but the crowd trying to give the corpse an identity and some dignity all seem earnest and individualistic. All the shows come awfully close to being one-and-done's, so jumping in at any point is doable. But there have been slowly-evolving back-stories for the regulars that make the whole season worthwhile watching.
Speaking of back-story, the season's over for such stalwarts as CBC's Being Erica and the cable show Sons of Anarchy. I rather like biker drama Sons of Anarchy better this year than the angsty and frothy Being Erica. I KNEW a second season of Being Erica was going to be really, really difficult to maintain at the levels of the first season. But the producers seemed to think creating a romantical triangle and minimizing the screen time for Michael Riley's Dr. Tom was a good idea. They were wrong. I just never warmed to Sebastian Pigott's Kai at all. Ah well.
Science Fiction had good and average coverage of Tuesday's. BBC's Paradox was brilliant, if short, at five episodes. Looking forward to a second series. On the other hand, ABC's V seemed long and plodding at four episodes. Still, Morena Baccarin makes up for a LOT of not-good when it comes to doling out watching time. It'll be back in March to finish off the mini-series. The last pre-break episode gave me hope that investing a further four hours will be worthwhile.
Lastly, I normally download TWiT (This Week in Technology) on Tuesday's. This is the current platform to watch Leo LaPorte, who's been Mr. Computer to a lot of people for a looooooong time. The 90-minute (or so) show usually has entertaining guests. Wish the video feed didn't take so long to appear for downloading, but I'm used to the schedule now.
Monday, January 11, 2010
SPORTS: Just a Thought About Bosh
Chris Bosh has been one of the top dozen players in the NBA this year, the key player on a middling Toronto Raptor team. When he's completely on, he's the best power forward in the league. And the numbers suggest strongly that he's been on, on quite a few nights.
He's in the top ten in scoring and rebounding. He's improved immensely as an offensive rebounder and isn't too shabby under his own hoop either. He's stronger and takes less guff from the thugs that inhabit other teams' front lines this year.
And he's got walkaway rights at the end of this year. And a LOT of people think he will exercise them. That lot includes just about everybody south of the 49th Parallel. And there are a few of the believers in and about Toronto too. They KNOW that Bosh can maximize his NBA income by staying with the Raptors for a max contract. They KNOW he makes a fair bit of tucker off the court here, although it would be more in some American cities. They KNOW he likes Toronto, a city that didn't jump on him when stories about supposedly being a dead-beat dad surfaced last year. When all the facts were exposed, it turns out Bosh is what we think he is, a very good man, a great athlete and nowhere near being a 21st century Shawn Kemp. And they KNOW Bosh wants to be THE MAN on his NBA team.
All things that point to staying in T.O.
On the other hand, Bosh wants to win, and this collection of Raptors might not have being better than above-average in them. The Hedo Turkoglu experiment has been more REALLY bad than good. You can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of games were the Turk has been a positive difference maker. DeRozan is a kid and he's a year, maybe two from being a positive force. Bargnani has awoken lately, but we've seen these spurts before. Does the tow-headed Italian really get it? It's not hard to picture the three just-mentioned players suddenly playing to their potential and Toronto being a tough out against anybody but Boston (who's just plain tougher than Toronto). Or things can continue to plod along.
And speaking of plodding, let me point out the defensive effort of Bosh, who always escapes notice while the Raptor points, especially Calderon, are accused of being turnstiles. He's undeniably the best defender on the team. But he's frequently NOT. And that's not good from a max-paid Leader. Sure, he comes off his man to participate in the defence with decent regularity. But there's a lot of shots of Bosh watching some other big lay the ball up from waaaaay tooo close. Best standing room only seats in the house. Not that he's the only Raptor guilty of doing it. Nor is he the worst, although Bargnani's commitment to D over the last while is starting to show Bosh up a bit. And Bosh has been awfully casual with the ball and with passes the last little while. Is he tired? Looks like it. Nothing like last year's December swoon after an MVP-like November, but he's in better condition.
There are other things about Bosh that keeps GM Bryan Colangelo awake at nights. Bosh isn't the kind of guy who will take the contract that pays him the extra dime, no matter where that might be. He wants to win and will be willing to give up money to do so. Just when you need your star to be a typical NBA mercenary, he ends up having principles that don't have to start with the principal. It's unlikely he'll go somewhere to play second banana, but the Lakers and whoever ends up with LeBron James or Dwyane Wade DO have inducements. I think those two stay, as will the West Coast Smirk in Los Angeles. But New York might have enough bright lights and pay packages to combine Bosh with Joe Johnson. And, by New York, I mean Brooklyn. As in the Nets. They will have the top pick (John Wall?), more cap space, a RICH Russian owner, and Brook Lopez, Yi Jianglian and Devin Harris. Lopez, Bosh, Yi, Johnson and Harris, with Wall and a group of kids coming off the bench isn't a bad makeup of a team.
Previously, I've said I would deal Bosh in a second, if Golden State would give up Andris Biedrins, Anthony Randolph and another piece. Last year, that piece would have been Jamal Crawford, who had fallen out of favour in the Don Nelson leaky boat. There would have been other bits and pieces involved, to meet trade regs. I still think there might be a trade there, but I suspect Monta Ellis and Biedrins wouldn't work out for either team. Golden State has to move Ellis and possibly Anthony Morrow, too. But they would just have to know Bosh wouldn't re-sign. So the whole trade is moot.
BUT, and you knew there HAD to be a but, I've got an idea. A three-teamer yet. Toronto would hook up with Houston (so near to Bosh's Dallas home, but far enough away not to be a distraction) and Minnesota. Both teams have a surfeit of point guards, which is unfortunate, because it would be nice to divest the team of Marcus Banks, but I can only do so much plotting. Here's the key players and their end addresses:Houston ends up with Chris Bosh.
Houston ends up with Bosh. End of discussion. That's why they make the trade. Heck, they might even throw in money AND some second-round picks to do this deal. Pairing Bosh with a true centre like Yao Ming next year would take a lot of the beating off Bosh's body that he currently suffers. He can't hate that. He's going to be a quickie plane ride away from Mom's cooking. Happiness could very well ensue.
Toronto gets out from under the "will Bosh stay?" cloud. And Jefferson's a beast who does a LOT of what Bosh does and is signed for three more years. IF he can stay healthy. That's the rub. He's an injury risk. But then again, Bosh hasn't been a paragon of health over the last few years either. I think Jefferson's got another level, if playing on a good team. And the reduced scoring capability could be covered by the other four starters. Luis Scola gives them a complete front-court rotation of bigs, moving into the third slot, after Bargnani and Jefferson, ahead of Amir Johnson. He's on an expiring contract. So if the mix doesn't work, then he goes, to be replaced next year by somebody similar. He's also sooooo smart and that isn't something we've seen a lot of in Toronto. Besides I think Reggie Evans could be spun in a package for an upgrade on the wing. Budinger is cut-bait, although I AM intrigued by his capabilities as a passer and as a shooter. He's just too slow for small foward and not big enough to play in the frontcourt.
Which brings us to Minnesota, the team without the star attraction after the three-way. Well, it appears that Jefferson and last year's wunderkind rookie, Kevin Love, can't co-exist afterall. Is it better to try and play Love and/or Jefferson out of position, or to get a young, rising small forward in Ariza to pair with Love. Landry is a lot like Love too. But he's used to being a second banana and won't cause much trouble. Cook is strictly an expiring contract. But then there's that number one pick, ex of the Rockets. Will be somewhere around 22, which isn't a jewel in the making. But gems have come from that point. There are all kinds of big men projects available around them. Wouldn't Greg Monroe of Georgetown look good to the Wolves? In essence, this trade boils down to that draft pick and Ariza, who's got talent, youth and a financially sane long-term contract for Jefferson's big ticket and chemistry problems.
Anyway, just a thought I had. Truth be told, Colangelo is riding the Bosh Express to the end of the line. He'll hope to ink Bosh to a six-year contract and be done with the whisper campaign out of Miami and places south of the Mason-Dixon Line. If he can't keep Bosh, he'll hope for just the kind of trade I've outlined in a sign-and-trade.
But I can dream.
He's in the top ten in scoring and rebounding. He's improved immensely as an offensive rebounder and isn't too shabby under his own hoop either. He's stronger and takes less guff from the thugs that inhabit other teams' front lines this year.
And he's got walkaway rights at the end of this year. And a LOT of people think he will exercise them. That lot includes just about everybody south of the 49th Parallel. And there are a few of the believers in and about Toronto too. They KNOW that Bosh can maximize his NBA income by staying with the Raptors for a max contract. They KNOW he makes a fair bit of tucker off the court here, although it would be more in some American cities. They KNOW he likes Toronto, a city that didn't jump on him when stories about supposedly being a dead-beat dad surfaced last year. When all the facts were exposed, it turns out Bosh is what we think he is, a very good man, a great athlete and nowhere near being a 21st century Shawn Kemp. And they KNOW Bosh wants to be THE MAN on his NBA team.
All things that point to staying in T.O.
On the other hand, Bosh wants to win, and this collection of Raptors might not have being better than above-average in them. The Hedo Turkoglu experiment has been more REALLY bad than good. You can count on the fingers of one hand, the number of games were the Turk has been a positive difference maker. DeRozan is a kid and he's a year, maybe two from being a positive force. Bargnani has awoken lately, but we've seen these spurts before. Does the tow-headed Italian really get it? It's not hard to picture the three just-mentioned players suddenly playing to their potential and Toronto being a tough out against anybody but Boston (who's just plain tougher than Toronto). Or things can continue to plod along.
And speaking of plodding, let me point out the defensive effort of Bosh, who always escapes notice while the Raptor points, especially Calderon, are accused of being turnstiles. He's undeniably the best defender on the team. But he's frequently NOT. And that's not good from a max-paid Leader. Sure, he comes off his man to participate in the defence with decent regularity. But there's a lot of shots of Bosh watching some other big lay the ball up from waaaaay tooo close. Best standing room only seats in the house. Not that he's the only Raptor guilty of doing it. Nor is he the worst, although Bargnani's commitment to D over the last while is starting to show Bosh up a bit. And Bosh has been awfully casual with the ball and with passes the last little while. Is he tired? Looks like it. Nothing like last year's December swoon after an MVP-like November, but he's in better condition.
There are other things about Bosh that keeps GM Bryan Colangelo awake at nights. Bosh isn't the kind of guy who will take the contract that pays him the extra dime, no matter where that might be. He wants to win and will be willing to give up money to do so. Just when you need your star to be a typical NBA mercenary, he ends up having principles that don't have to start with the principal. It's unlikely he'll go somewhere to play second banana, but the Lakers and whoever ends up with LeBron James or Dwyane Wade DO have inducements. I think those two stay, as will the West Coast Smirk in Los Angeles. But New York might have enough bright lights and pay packages to combine Bosh with Joe Johnson. And, by New York, I mean Brooklyn. As in the Nets. They will have the top pick (John Wall?), more cap space, a RICH Russian owner, and Brook Lopez, Yi Jianglian and Devin Harris. Lopez, Bosh, Yi, Johnson and Harris, with Wall and a group of kids coming off the bench isn't a bad makeup of a team.
Previously, I've said I would deal Bosh in a second, if Golden State would give up Andris Biedrins, Anthony Randolph and another piece. Last year, that piece would have been Jamal Crawford, who had fallen out of favour in the Don Nelson leaky boat. There would have been other bits and pieces involved, to meet trade regs. I still think there might be a trade there, but I suspect Monta Ellis and Biedrins wouldn't work out for either team. Golden State has to move Ellis and possibly Anthony Morrow, too. But they would just have to know Bosh wouldn't re-sign. So the whole trade is moot.
BUT, and you knew there HAD to be a but, I've got an idea. A three-teamer yet. Toronto would hook up with Houston (so near to Bosh's Dallas home, but far enough away not to be a distraction) and Minnesota. Both teams have a surfeit of point guards, which is unfortunate, because it would be nice to divest the team of Marcus Banks, but I can only do so much plotting. Here's the key players and their end addresses:Houston ends up with Chris Bosh.
- Toronto ends up with Al Jefferson, Luis Scola and Chase Budinger.
- Minnesota ends up with Trevor Ariza, Carl Landry, Brian Cook and Houston's #1 pick in the 2010 draft.
Houston ends up with Bosh. End of discussion. That's why they make the trade. Heck, they might even throw in money AND some second-round picks to do this deal. Pairing Bosh with a true centre like Yao Ming next year would take a lot of the beating off Bosh's body that he currently suffers. He can't hate that. He's going to be a quickie plane ride away from Mom's cooking. Happiness could very well ensue.
Toronto gets out from under the "will Bosh stay?" cloud. And Jefferson's a beast who does a LOT of what Bosh does and is signed for three more years. IF he can stay healthy. That's the rub. He's an injury risk. But then again, Bosh hasn't been a paragon of health over the last few years either. I think Jefferson's got another level, if playing on a good team. And the reduced scoring capability could be covered by the other four starters. Luis Scola gives them a complete front-court rotation of bigs, moving into the third slot, after Bargnani and Jefferson, ahead of Amir Johnson. He's on an expiring contract. So if the mix doesn't work, then he goes, to be replaced next year by somebody similar. He's also sooooo smart and that isn't something we've seen a lot of in Toronto. Besides I think Reggie Evans could be spun in a package for an upgrade on the wing. Budinger is cut-bait, although I AM intrigued by his capabilities as a passer and as a shooter. He's just too slow for small foward and not big enough to play in the frontcourt.
Which brings us to Minnesota, the team without the star attraction after the three-way. Well, it appears that Jefferson and last year's wunderkind rookie, Kevin Love, can't co-exist afterall. Is it better to try and play Love and/or Jefferson out of position, or to get a young, rising small forward in Ariza to pair with Love. Landry is a lot like Love too. But he's used to being a second banana and won't cause much trouble. Cook is strictly an expiring contract. But then there's that number one pick, ex of the Rockets. Will be somewhere around 22, which isn't a jewel in the making. But gems have come from that point. There are all kinds of big men projects available around them. Wouldn't Greg Monroe of Georgetown look good to the Wolves? In essence, this trade boils down to that draft pick and Ariza, who's got talent, youth and a financially sane long-term contract for Jefferson's big ticket and chemistry problems.
Anyway, just a thought I had. Truth be told, Colangelo is riding the Bosh Express to the end of the line. He'll hope to ink Bosh to a six-year contract and be done with the whisper campaign out of Miami and places south of the Mason-Dixon Line. If he can't keep Bosh, he'll hope for just the kind of trade I've outlined in a sign-and-trade.
But I can dream.
Tuesday, January 05, 2010
TV: The Monday Review for Fall 2009
A week late already. Oh well. Head back to the Saturday entry for the preamble.
CBS is winning everything and Monday nights aren't the exception. In fact, you can argue that CBS Monday night might be the strongest three-hour block from any network, any night. As usual, the boys at The Eye have decided not to be as strong as they could be, hummocking in Accidentally on Purpose between comedic heavyweights How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men, but I still record and watch it, although more out of ennui than real interest. Jenna Elfman is usually comedic gold. And this show would work, if only they got rid of the cast of idiots around her. She plays pregnant (although she got pregnant in real life) with goofy charm. It's just that the baby's father, a younger man taking advantage of a cougar on the prowl, and all of his friends, are just plain stupid. Elfman's office environment is a tad bit better in the brain department, but she also has a dopey sister and a best friend, horribly under-used Ashley Jensen. Jensen's REALLY, REALLY pregnant and can hardly move around without the cameras catching it. Her physical comedic skills are canceled out as a result. Move this comedy anywhere else on the schedule and I'd give it the boot. Here. it is too easy to set the recorder to CBS, 8-11. NOTE: Accidentally IS switching nights. The sound you hear in the background is Bruce the Shark, from Jaws, getting ready.
How I Met Your Mother made the creative decision to break Robin and Barney up, so that the show can return to the old formula, but I wish they'd delayed it a bit longer. On the other hand, getting to the putative title idea is getting on my nerves. Still, the jokes remain ... wait for it ... awesome! Most nights. Not keeping pace with The Big Bang Theory, but most shows aren't either. The creators of that show are also having some wavering moments, giving Howard and Raj too much screen time for fear of burning out the star that is Jim Parsons' Sheldon. But you can never have enough Sheldon. Mathematically impossible. Going in the opposite direction, the decision to keep Leonard and Penny together has worked. The other comedy in the quartet of week starters is the venerable old Two and Half Men, which rarely surprises. It seems to be completely formulaic, but the reactions of Charlie Sheen et al still make me laugh. That Sheen's actual home life seems inspired by his comedy is just the note of tragedy that any comedy needs. As for the night-capper, CSI: Miami, things have changed very little on the junior edition of the CSI franchise. Out went Adam Rodriguez, in came Eddie Cibrian. But really, the most interesting newcomer is the technician Walter, played with smarter-than-you-think charm by Oliver Benson Miller. Looks like a walking mountain looking for a football game, but thinks like a nerd. An interesting, new character.
Fox, when they aren't out doing bad things to Josh Whedon, occasionally lets quirky shows grow and flourish. As evidence, I present House and Lie to Me. I don't think all Englishmen, whether paying faux Yank doctors (Hugh Laurie as Gregory House) or punks who've pulled themselves out of the muck (Tim Roth as Doc Cal Lightman) are all basically jerks. But the sheer in-your-face political incorrectness of both make their shows work. I'll be unhappy with the creative decision to drive Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) away from House, but at least the brought back PI Lucas Douglas, as played by Michael Weston. Lie to Me has ditched the cheating husband storyline for co-star Kelli Williamson's character and that's enriched the show immensely.
ABC's anti-Gregory House is Richard Castle and Castle, the show, is getting better as it moves along, despite a saccharine level too high for a diabetic like me. Yes, it's all Moonlighting-ish with sexual tension aplenty between Nathan Fillion's Castle and Stana Katic's hotter-than-hot police detective, but the key to turning this show into something more than a rehash is the smart-as-a-whip Castle kid, played by Molly Quinn and his loopy mother, played with hammy largesse by Susan Sullivan. (I'm old enough to remember Sullivan as a sexy young thing. And she still is). I'll slip an admission here at the end of the paragraph that I also record Gossip Girl, hoping you miss it. I don't understand the popularity of some of the young ladies in the show, but I just love watching Kelly Rutherford perform. It's a remote control on fast-forward kind of show, but I do record it.
Which brings me to NBC and the two most confounding shows on any night (and we still got Canada and cable still to go). Heroes and The Jay Leno Show. What to say? The first season of Heroes was brilliance that actually started to dim about the time Malcolm McDowell came on board. The decision to keep Sylar around was the wrong one, just about eliminating any actual character development. It was just the same old, same old. And the rot hasn't let up. We are in the last season for the show, but I still watch it. Because I have to. Not because I want to. But boy that first half season ... As for Leno, I still record and watch the monologue. There are some canned bits I watch too, Ten@Ten works mostly, with the delay in responses actually part of the comedic charm. Any bet whatsoever that the writers have fed the subjects to the people? Didn't think so. The car race thing might be the worst use of TV time ever. It's not infuriatingly bad, just totally irrelevant. I get more enjoyment out of that new cable channel that just shows a fireplace. The interviews are mostly miss than hits. And the nightly Saturday Night Live rejected ideas segments have generally been lacking in funny. Maybe one in four are worth watching to the end. Methinks Leno is also a little nastier in this incarnation and that doesn't wear well on him. Honestly, I wish he'd swap places with Conan and go back to doing the Tonight Show. I could record him there happily, while continuing to ignore O'Brien, who's talents I have never, ever appreciated. NOTE: And movement is afoot. The days of pre-nightly news Jay Leno is going, going soon to be gone. Whether he takes back the old slot or does a half-hour (my choice) before the midnight hour, Leno's going to be Late-Night Leno again. A qualified Yippee! depending on what NBC fills the five hours with.
Canadian content lets me point out the always funny Little Mosque on the Prairie continues strong through this, it's fourth season. And I'm already on board with the new comedy, 18 to Life, which started last week. Over across the pond, we've seen Life and Trinity come and go. I really liked Life because David Attenborough and gorgeous nature filming is an impossible to screw up combination.
The weblets that came and went during the time period include Greek, Rita Rocks and the final three episodes of The Closer. Greek still entertains me, but I do wonder where we are headed post graduation for everybody but Rusty. Hated the departure of Johanna Braddy who strikes me as this century's Cheryl Tiegs (take a closer look). But am glad the romantic triangle between Cappy and Rusty's big sis Casey and whoever she was trysting with has been resolved. At least I think it's been resolved. Rita Rocks is a traditional sitcom that's sort of the anti-Two and a Half Men. No smarm at all and a good dose of usually funny Nicole Sullivan. As for The Closer, three episodes to wrap stuff up was more a taste than a full meal, but the show continues to be great TV.
What's left? One Tree Hill, getting tired and ready for retirement. But after six seasons, it's hard to stop recording. Secret Life of an American Teenager. Still record it to compare with Degrassi. Makes me proud to be Canadian. And Men of a Certain Age. Not a Ray Romano fan, but Andre Braugher can do no wrong. So, I record and watch and cringe and then enjoy some of the other stuff.
And lastly, but actually firstly, I make sure to record At the Movies in the wee hours of the morn. The Ben-Ben Disaster that was last season has given way to two adults, Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott, talking movies. Each has a writing pedigree, a love of film, and entertaining personalities. A refreshing return to the days when both subbed frequently for Roger Ebert when the show was being co-hosted by Richard Roeper. Pros doing good prose on TV. Who'd a thunk it? Recommended. Again.
CBS is winning everything and Monday nights aren't the exception. In fact, you can argue that CBS Monday night might be the strongest three-hour block from any network, any night. As usual, the boys at The Eye have decided not to be as strong as they could be, hummocking in Accidentally on Purpose between comedic heavyweights How I Met Your Mother and Two and a Half Men, but I still record and watch it, although more out of ennui than real interest. Jenna Elfman is usually comedic gold. And this show would work, if only they got rid of the cast of idiots around her. She plays pregnant (although she got pregnant in real life) with goofy charm. It's just that the baby's father, a younger man taking advantage of a cougar on the prowl, and all of his friends, are just plain stupid. Elfman's office environment is a tad bit better in the brain department, but she also has a dopey sister and a best friend, horribly under-used Ashley Jensen. Jensen's REALLY, REALLY pregnant and can hardly move around without the cameras catching it. Her physical comedic skills are canceled out as a result. Move this comedy anywhere else on the schedule and I'd give it the boot. Here. it is too easy to set the recorder to CBS, 8-11. NOTE: Accidentally IS switching nights. The sound you hear in the background is Bruce the Shark, from Jaws, getting ready.
How I Met Your Mother made the creative decision to break Robin and Barney up, so that the show can return to the old formula, but I wish they'd delayed it a bit longer. On the other hand, getting to the putative title idea is getting on my nerves. Still, the jokes remain ... wait for it ... awesome! Most nights. Not keeping pace with The Big Bang Theory, but most shows aren't either. The creators of that show are also having some wavering moments, giving Howard and Raj too much screen time for fear of burning out the star that is Jim Parsons' Sheldon. But you can never have enough Sheldon. Mathematically impossible. Going in the opposite direction, the decision to keep Leonard and Penny together has worked. The other comedy in the quartet of week starters is the venerable old Two and Half Men, which rarely surprises. It seems to be completely formulaic, but the reactions of Charlie Sheen et al still make me laugh. That Sheen's actual home life seems inspired by his comedy is just the note of tragedy that any comedy needs. As for the night-capper, CSI: Miami, things have changed very little on the junior edition of the CSI franchise. Out went Adam Rodriguez, in came Eddie Cibrian. But really, the most interesting newcomer is the technician Walter, played with smarter-than-you-think charm by Oliver Benson Miller. Looks like a walking mountain looking for a football game, but thinks like a nerd. An interesting, new character.
Fox, when they aren't out doing bad things to Josh Whedon, occasionally lets quirky shows grow and flourish. As evidence, I present House and Lie to Me. I don't think all Englishmen, whether paying faux Yank doctors (Hugh Laurie as Gregory House) or punks who've pulled themselves out of the muck (Tim Roth as Doc Cal Lightman) are all basically jerks. But the sheer in-your-face political incorrectness of both make their shows work. I'll be unhappy with the creative decision to drive Cameron (Jennifer Morrison) away from House, but at least the brought back PI Lucas Douglas, as played by Michael Weston. Lie to Me has ditched the cheating husband storyline for co-star Kelli Williamson's character and that's enriched the show immensely.
ABC's anti-Gregory House is Richard Castle and Castle, the show, is getting better as it moves along, despite a saccharine level too high for a diabetic like me. Yes, it's all Moonlighting-ish with sexual tension aplenty between Nathan Fillion's Castle and Stana Katic's hotter-than-hot police detective, but the key to turning this show into something more than a rehash is the smart-as-a-whip Castle kid, played by Molly Quinn and his loopy mother, played with hammy largesse by Susan Sullivan. (I'm old enough to remember Sullivan as a sexy young thing. And she still is). I'll slip an admission here at the end of the paragraph that I also record Gossip Girl, hoping you miss it. I don't understand the popularity of some of the young ladies in the show, but I just love watching Kelly Rutherford perform. It's a remote control on fast-forward kind of show, but I do record it.
Which brings me to NBC and the two most confounding shows on any night (and we still got Canada and cable still to go). Heroes and The Jay Leno Show. What to say? The first season of Heroes was brilliance that actually started to dim about the time Malcolm McDowell came on board. The decision to keep Sylar around was the wrong one, just about eliminating any actual character development. It was just the same old, same old. And the rot hasn't let up. We are in the last season for the show, but I still watch it. Because I have to. Not because I want to. But boy that first half season ... As for Leno, I still record and watch the monologue. There are some canned bits I watch too, Ten@Ten works mostly, with the delay in responses actually part of the comedic charm. Any bet whatsoever that the writers have fed the subjects to the people? Didn't think so. The car race thing might be the worst use of TV time ever. It's not infuriatingly bad, just totally irrelevant. I get more enjoyment out of that new cable channel that just shows a fireplace. The interviews are mostly miss than hits. And the nightly Saturday Night Live rejected ideas segments have generally been lacking in funny. Maybe one in four are worth watching to the end. Methinks Leno is also a little nastier in this incarnation and that doesn't wear well on him. Honestly, I wish he'd swap places with Conan and go back to doing the Tonight Show. I could record him there happily, while continuing to ignore O'Brien, who's talents I have never, ever appreciated. NOTE: And movement is afoot. The days of pre-nightly news Jay Leno is going, going soon to be gone. Whether he takes back the old slot or does a half-hour (my choice) before the midnight hour, Leno's going to be Late-Night Leno again. A qualified Yippee! depending on what NBC fills the five hours with.
Canadian content lets me point out the always funny Little Mosque on the Prairie continues strong through this, it's fourth season. And I'm already on board with the new comedy, 18 to Life, which started last week. Over across the pond, we've seen Life and Trinity come and go. I really liked Life because David Attenborough and gorgeous nature filming is an impossible to screw up combination.
The weblets that came and went during the time period include Greek, Rita Rocks and the final three episodes of The Closer. Greek still entertains me, but I do wonder where we are headed post graduation for everybody but Rusty. Hated the departure of Johanna Braddy who strikes me as this century's Cheryl Tiegs (take a closer look). But am glad the romantic triangle between Cappy and Rusty's big sis Casey and whoever she was trysting with has been resolved. At least I think it's been resolved. Rita Rocks is a traditional sitcom that's sort of the anti-Two and a Half Men. No smarm at all and a good dose of usually funny Nicole Sullivan. As for The Closer, three episodes to wrap stuff up was more a taste than a full meal, but the show continues to be great TV.
What's left? One Tree Hill, getting tired and ready for retirement. But after six seasons, it's hard to stop recording. Secret Life of an American Teenager. Still record it to compare with Degrassi. Makes me proud to be Canadian. And Men of a Certain Age. Not a Ray Romano fan, but Andre Braugher can do no wrong. So, I record and watch and cringe and then enjoy some of the other stuff.
And lastly, but actually firstly, I make sure to record At the Movies in the wee hours of the morn. The Ben-Ben Disaster that was last season has given way to two adults, Michael Phillips and A.O. Scott, talking movies. Each has a writing pedigree, a love of film, and entertaining personalities. A refreshing return to the days when both subbed frequently for Roger Ebert when the show was being co-hosted by Richard Roeper. Pros doing good prose on TV. Who'd a thunk it? Recommended. Again.
Sunday, January 03, 2010
TV: The Sunday Review of Fall 2009
See the Saturday Review for all the preamble. No sense re-typing it.
Sunday is 60 Minutes. Even when football runs long on CBS, SunTV is showing it at 7pm in its entirety, which is a boon for those of us who record the show. Don Hewitt's legacy wasn't always a Sunday staple. Back in the last century when I was still a teenager, 60 Minutes cropped up during the week! Don't know if they were repeats or whether the show actually shifted mid-week (I think Tuesday's but I could be wrong), but this was the flagship show, not the late, unlamented 60 Minutes II. (Well except for introducing me to Charley Rose). I distinctly remember the segment that made me a 60 Minutes fan for life. It was on William Stephenson and the cracking of the Enigma Machine. I haven't stopped watching the show since. Although, to be honest, I'm usually watching the end of the football game, while the recorder does its duty.
The two new shows that joined 60 Minutes on the disks were Three Rivers, also from CBS and The Battle of the Blades from our own CBC. Three Rivers was a goner before it ever aired. In fact, I'm shocked I managed to get through even one episode about the Pittsburgh-based organ transplant team. But I did and it grew on me. Figures. A medical show I like and the rest of you hate it. I would have preferred somebody keep Alex O'Loughlin on the air with his vamp show, Moonlight, a one-and-done 2008 gem that people also didn't care for. Idiots. But he'll eventually find a vehicle you and I will agree should stay on the air.
The Battle of the Blades was one show I only watched on Sundays, the day of the actual competition. I skipped all the Monday shows AND forgot to record the finale, having to watch it over the net at the CBC site. I enjoyed watching some of the hockey B-listers make the switchover (eventually) to figure skates. But like all reality shows, the public voting was nonsensical. Thus Craig Simpson and Jamie Sale were rewarded for a season's worth of excellence rather than their performance in the denouement, where they were obviously third-best behind Claude Lemieux/Shae-Lynn Bourne and Stephane Richer/Marie-France Dubreil. Simpson, a CBC celebrity and non-francophone and reigning Olympic gold pairs medalist Sale were good, just not good enough. But it, like American Idol and others of the ilk, was a popularity contest. Ahhh well.
The recording centre is also busy Sundays recording CTV's seminal high school drama, Degrassi: The Next Generation (Two back-to-back episodes each week) as well as the early-morning sports reporter gab-fest The Reporters on TSN. I've had my personal differences with Dave Hodge over the years, but he runs a usually entertaining half-hour with regulars Damien Cox and Steve Simmons.
Which brings me to the Sunday-night cable hits. Dexter, Californication, Bored to Death and the end of the summer season of Drop Dead Diva. All are finished now, so nothing I'm going to say is going to affect your decisions to have watched them, or to go out and get the DVD set. You either like the killer in Dexter or not, the sex-addict in Californication or not or the obsessive dreamer in Bored to Death or not. I like all three. But I really loved all of Drop Dead Diva, surely one of my top 25 shows when my birthday rolls around in July. Brooke Elliott is a star. A plus-sized star for sure. But a star nonetheless. This is one DVD set worth getting. And the second season makes this summer something to look forward to.
Tomorrow (maybe), the problem (even with three recorders) that is making decisions on Monday night TV.
Sunday is 60 Minutes. Even when football runs long on CBS, SunTV is showing it at 7pm in its entirety, which is a boon for those of us who record the show. Don Hewitt's legacy wasn't always a Sunday staple. Back in the last century when I was still a teenager, 60 Minutes cropped up during the week! Don't know if they were repeats or whether the show actually shifted mid-week (I think Tuesday's but I could be wrong), but this was the flagship show, not the late, unlamented 60 Minutes II. (Well except for introducing me to Charley Rose). I distinctly remember the segment that made me a 60 Minutes fan for life. It was on William Stephenson and the cracking of the Enigma Machine. I haven't stopped watching the show since. Although, to be honest, I'm usually watching the end of the football game, while the recorder does its duty.
The two new shows that joined 60 Minutes on the disks were Three Rivers, also from CBS and The Battle of the Blades from our own CBC. Three Rivers was a goner before it ever aired. In fact, I'm shocked I managed to get through even one episode about the Pittsburgh-based organ transplant team. But I did and it grew on me. Figures. A medical show I like and the rest of you hate it. I would have preferred somebody keep Alex O'Loughlin on the air with his vamp show, Moonlight, a one-and-done 2008 gem that people also didn't care for. Idiots. But he'll eventually find a vehicle you and I will agree should stay on the air.
The Battle of the Blades was one show I only watched on Sundays, the day of the actual competition. I skipped all the Monday shows AND forgot to record the finale, having to watch it over the net at the CBC site. I enjoyed watching some of the hockey B-listers make the switchover (eventually) to figure skates. But like all reality shows, the public voting was nonsensical. Thus Craig Simpson and Jamie Sale were rewarded for a season's worth of excellence rather than their performance in the denouement, where they were obviously third-best behind Claude Lemieux/Shae-Lynn Bourne and Stephane Richer/Marie-France Dubreil. Simpson, a CBC celebrity and non-francophone and reigning Olympic gold pairs medalist Sale were good, just not good enough. But it, like American Idol and others of the ilk, was a popularity contest. Ahhh well.
The recording centre is also busy Sundays recording CTV's seminal high school drama, Degrassi: The Next Generation (Two back-to-back episodes each week) as well as the early-morning sports reporter gab-fest The Reporters on TSN. I've had my personal differences with Dave Hodge over the years, but he runs a usually entertaining half-hour with regulars Damien Cox and Steve Simmons.
Which brings me to the Sunday-night cable hits. Dexter, Californication, Bored to Death and the end of the summer season of Drop Dead Diva. All are finished now, so nothing I'm going to say is going to affect your decisions to have watched them, or to go out and get the DVD set. You either like the killer in Dexter or not, the sex-addict in Californication or not or the obsessive dreamer in Bored to Death or not. I like all three. But I really loved all of Drop Dead Diva, surely one of my top 25 shows when my birthday rolls around in July. Brooke Elliott is a star. A plus-sized star for sure. But a star nonetheless. This is one DVD set worth getting. And the second season makes this summer something to look forward to.
Tomorrow (maybe), the problem (even with three recorders) that is making decisions on Monday night TV.
Saturday, January 02, 2010
TV: The Saturday Review of Fall 2009
I'm going to attempt to do a TV review for each night of the week of the shows we were exposed to during the 2009 Fall season. I have two TVs in the TV room, a fair cable package, three DVD recorders working full-time and a connection to the internet. So, here's what I watched/recorded/whatever over the last four months. (I'll try to get each night covered over the next week, earning a week off after that)
The easy one, Saturday. Nothing new during primetime worth watching, save for Hockey Night in Canada as far network broadcast TV is concerned. Being a Canadian, HNC is a birthright and a requirement. On the other hand, it's often shunted to the smaller TV while I catch a basketball game on the main screen. Comes from not being a Toronto Maple Leaf fan. But I do tend to watch Don Cherry's segment in the first intermission and the Hot Stove Lounge in the second intermission. Just like a million or so Canadians. Even when the Leafs are stinking the joint out. Which is frequently these decades.
November saw something crop up in afterhours to join HNC. The Wanda Sykes Show on Fox makes one wonder if the news guys at that net actually watch the non-news shows on their own network. A black lesbian comedian with a decidedly liberal bent? If they so much as surfed ove there for five minutes, some Fox News natterers would die of apoplexy. Not that that's a bad thing. Regardless, Sykes is one of the funniest people on TV and her one hour late night show is different enough and funny enough to merit skipping the better known Saturday Night Live to watch. Do I record SNL? Depends on the host.
Syndicated TV does have a couple of Saturday keepers. Merlin from Britain just finished, but the teen take on the old Arthurian wizardry legend works. The second season is in the can, but you can pick up season DVD's at an electronics super-store near you. The other syndic show that makes the grade here is Legend of the Seeker, which I only caught the first season of, after the fact on DVD. Now, it's a weekly staple for recording myself. It's from the same folks that brought the sublimely sly Xena and Hercules shows to us in decades past. Gorgeous New Zealand scenery combined with an attractive bunch of actors makes this show rather better than the Xena/Herc rip-offs we've seen since those shows completed their runs. And there's always a chance creator Sam Raimi's brother Ted will pop up to add some tongue-in-cheek mirth to the occasion.
Lastly, I also admit to recording the early Saturday morning showing of Food TV's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives featuring Guy Fieri. Say, I think I need a snack.
The easy one, Saturday. Nothing new during primetime worth watching, save for Hockey Night in Canada as far network broadcast TV is concerned. Being a Canadian, HNC is a birthright and a requirement. On the other hand, it's often shunted to the smaller TV while I catch a basketball game on the main screen. Comes from not being a Toronto Maple Leaf fan. But I do tend to watch Don Cherry's segment in the first intermission and the Hot Stove Lounge in the second intermission. Just like a million or so Canadians. Even when the Leafs are stinking the joint out. Which is frequently these decades.
November saw something crop up in afterhours to join HNC. The Wanda Sykes Show on Fox makes one wonder if the news guys at that net actually watch the non-news shows on their own network. A black lesbian comedian with a decidedly liberal bent? If they so much as surfed ove there for five minutes, some Fox News natterers would die of apoplexy. Not that that's a bad thing. Regardless, Sykes is one of the funniest people on TV and her one hour late night show is different enough and funny enough to merit skipping the better known Saturday Night Live to watch. Do I record SNL? Depends on the host.
Syndicated TV does have a couple of Saturday keepers. Merlin from Britain just finished, but the teen take on the old Arthurian wizardry legend works. The second season is in the can, but you can pick up season DVD's at an electronics super-store near you. The other syndic show that makes the grade here is Legend of the Seeker, which I only caught the first season of, after the fact on DVD. Now, it's a weekly staple for recording myself. It's from the same folks that brought the sublimely sly Xena and Hercules shows to us in decades past. Gorgeous New Zealand scenery combined with an attractive bunch of actors makes this show rather better than the Xena/Herc rip-offs we've seen since those shows completed their runs. And there's always a chance creator Sam Raimi's brother Ted will pop up to add some tongue-in-cheek mirth to the occasion.
Lastly, I also admit to recording the early Saturday morning showing of Food TV's Diners, Drive-ins and Dives featuring Guy Fieri. Say, I think I need a snack.
Friday, January 01, 2010
LIFE: Happy New Year
Okay, the project from hell has descended to the fifth circle of Dante's favourite concentric construct. I think. Might be the eighth. Haven't read the book nor the Pournelle/Niven SF update(s) in years. So take my placement with a grain of salt.
At this point, meeting my latest deadline isn't going to happen and I've decided to stop stressing and admit I'm incapable of predicting when the project will be ready to go. That's my one and only resolution for this year. No more ego trips predicting I can churn out code fast enough to match my mouth. The client needs it. I want it done and out the door and get in some reading from a hefty reading list turned out during Christmas. And I am still watching TV recorded from the first week of November. That's a serious deficit.
I'd LIKE to announce here that I will be writing daily. That's a lie. Won't happen. But I think I can hit the once-promised three times weekly target. It's a goal, not a promise.
Thanks for stopping by. And you have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! ... starting now.
At this point, meeting my latest deadline isn't going to happen and I've decided to stop stressing and admit I'm incapable of predicting when the project will be ready to go. That's my one and only resolution for this year. No more ego trips predicting I can churn out code fast enough to match my mouth. The client needs it. I want it done and out the door and get in some reading from a hefty reading list turned out during Christmas. And I am still watching TV recorded from the first week of November. That's a serious deficit.
I'd LIKE to announce here that I will be writing daily. That's a lie. Won't happen. But I think I can hit the once-promised three times weekly target. It's a goal, not a promise.
Thanks for stopping by. And you have a HAPPY NEW YEAR! ... starting now.
Thursday, December 17, 2009
LIFE: Don't Come A-Knockin' On My Front Door
It's that time of the year, where even a Grinch like me attracts visitors. Visitors I want. And Visitors I don't want. Dead of summer, start of winter. Every year. About a month ago, I had, in order, a wandering real estate would-be mogul, a gas salesperson and our friendly friends of the Church of Latter Day Saints. I was somewhat sympathetic to the latter, although I sent them on the way as quickly as possible, was polite to the first guy and slammed the door on the insistent lady in the middle.
Then I made up this sign. Since then, I have had three people ask for copies. It isn't perfect, but it gets my sentiments over pretty well. Do with it as you will.
Then I made up this sign. Since then, I have had three people ask for copies. It isn't perfect, but it gets my sentiments over pretty well. Do with it as you will.
Wednesday, December 16, 2009
SPORTS: Is Double-A Going to Remember December Fondly?
Alex Anthopoulos certainly felt sick at the Winter Baseball Meetings. He was contending with a cold AND with the need to give Roy Halladay the Christmas present of a new home address. He left Indianapolis early and all indications were that Doc was going to have to wait until the new year for moving instructions. HE wanted to go to Philly, but the Phillies seemed to have a case of the shorts, both in money and in willingness to empty out the rest of a pretty good prospects holdings.
So, it had to come as a bit of a surprise Monday when the news broke. Halladay to the Phillies, "Almost World Series Hero" Cliff Lee to the Mariners and some prospects to both Toronto and Philadelphia. A LOT of names were bandied about. In fact, a fourth team joined the group hug. Oakland wanted one of the former Philly farmhands. A four-team trade is a pretty good way to break your maiden, although, ultimately, if the trade is as has been speculated for the last 18 hours or so, it's actually a series of three trades. Still, an interesting start. And isn't that an easy segue into the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!"
The apparent haul for the Jays stands at uber pitching prospect Kyle Drabek, who's dad Doug toiled for years in the majors, catching prospect Travis D'Arnaud and the peripatetic Brett Wallace, a third baseman, who's a bat wanting some place to hide on the field. First base according to some, no place according to others. A DH in everybody's opinion.
Wallace must share some sympathy with Michael Taylor, the Philadelphia prospect who didn't even cross the border on his way to Oakland. While Taylor's doing his three teams in a single day thing, Wallace did his in less than six months. He originally went to Oakland this past summer in the Matt Holliday deal with St. Louis. Hmmmm, Holliday and Halladay together at last!
Did Double-A get enough for Halladay.? He could have kept Doc, given him 15+M this season to win a lot, tutor his young charges for one more year and then show up in Boston or New York at Christmas, with a freshly signed four-year commitment to beat the Blue Jays about five times a year for the length of the contract. Toronto would get a late first-round draft pick and an extra one between the first two rounds in the 2011 Summer Draft. OR he could save about nine million smackers right now, get the three players he got and forego the anguish over drafting, then signing, then hoping the draftees make an impact before he's shown the door as GM. Hmmm, door number two appears a WHOLE lot more appealing, considering the stock scouts have in the newly-minted Blue Jays.
Drabek might see September in Toronto. My bet is that he comes up mid 2011 for a long stay in Toronto. He's about a year away from arm surgery now, and whatever arm injury-itis that's been floating around town these last three years might need another season to dissipate. He MIGHT be good enough to force his way onto the big league roster earlier than that, but I believe the Blue Jays will be careful with him. Luke Schenn anyone? (For non-puckheads, Schenn is the young defenceman that is looking clueless in his sophomore season with the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs. It's been a historical trend with the Leafs to rush defense prospects to the big league ... almost always being a mistake to do so).
D'Arnaud is the mystery man. I've heard glowing stories and some not-so-glowing stories about him. The Blue Jays signed THREE catchers last week and have (supposedly) top prospects at AAA and AA. So, a catcher at A ball has to be something really special, right? Especially since the Phillies offered either relief pitcher Phillipe Aumont or OF Tyson Gillies to replace him in the deal. Both the former Mariners are Canucks. Aumont has already pitched in the majors AND in the World Baseball Classic where he showed potential closer stuff against the Americans. Gillies has a distinct Juan Pierre rep, but with a better glove. And that's something the Blue Jays need, given their absolute poverty in terms of outfield prospects. But no, Double-A wanted D'Arnaud. It has to be a scout thing, because D'Arnaud's numbers don't back up the claim by more than one wag that he might be the best of the three prospects!
And that includes former top draft pick Wallace, who now presents problems, as well as possibilities. If Wallace is to get onto the field, it has to be at 1B. He can also DH. But DH is something the Blue Jays don't have to offer right now. Adam Lind won the Silver Slugger award at the spot last year. He's a left fielder they were GOING to turn into a first-baseman. That's because LF is the only spot you want to see Travis Snider play 140 games in. He's barely adequate in LF and a no-hoper in right. And there's the one-year, 7M contract-owning Lyle Overbay holding down first base, being the best actual defender of the lot. What to do, what to do? There was some hope of sending him to the National League for a catcher. Seattle were supposedly interested in the Seattle native.
But it says here, the best thing the Jays can do is to leave Wallace to get a year's worth of playing first in Las Vegas. I think Overbay for Atlanta's Derek Lowe would make a LOT of sense, considering the difference between the two's contract is just about that nine million saved on not having Roy around. And old pro Lowe has pitched in the AL East, so he won't melt. And he's an innings eater AND he might have some mentor in him. But even on into 2011, the Jays aren't on track to win and it will probably be best to have his 200 innings to give to young, cheap pitchers. Toronto will have enough. Then, in 2011, Wallace and Lind can share 1B and DH. Lind can then be the emergency fifth outfielder. He's not a LOT worse than Snider.
None of the three is likely to spend more than September with Toronto this upcoming season. D'Arnaud's two, maybe three years away. Given the bandiment at various times of major-leauge names like J.A. Happ, Cole Hamels, BJ Upton, Wade Davis, Clay Buccholts, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, Eric Aybar and more 'top' prospects than JP Ricciardi can say no to, the fact that we'll need the Internet to know how the trade haul is performing this year is really quite astonishing.
It says here the whole deal rests on young Mr. D'Arnaud's shoulders. I assume Drabek becomes a starter, maybe even the number two some think he can be. A solid, cost-controlled middle-of the rotation starter is valuable. Maybe Wallace becomes the second coming of Carlos Delgado, may he becomes Russell Branyan. Somewhere inbetween would be good enough ... IF D'Arnaud is a ten-year starter in Blue Jay Blue and White. Otherwise ...
Five year's hence, just how to YOU think Alex Anthopoulos will be remembering December 2009?
So, it had to come as a bit of a surprise Monday when the news broke. Halladay to the Phillies, "Almost World Series Hero" Cliff Lee to the Mariners and some prospects to both Toronto and Philadelphia. A LOT of names were bandied about. In fact, a fourth team joined the group hug. Oakland wanted one of the former Philly farmhands. A four-team trade is a pretty good way to break your maiden, although, ultimately, if the trade is as has been speculated for the last 18 hours or so, it's actually a series of three trades. Still, an interesting start. And isn't that an easy segue into the old Chinese curse, "May you live in interesting times!"
The apparent haul for the Jays stands at uber pitching prospect Kyle Drabek, who's dad Doug toiled for years in the majors, catching prospect Travis D'Arnaud and the peripatetic Brett Wallace, a third baseman, who's a bat wanting some place to hide on the field. First base according to some, no place according to others. A DH in everybody's opinion.
Wallace must share some sympathy with Michael Taylor, the Philadelphia prospect who didn't even cross the border on his way to Oakland. While Taylor's doing his three teams in a single day thing, Wallace did his in less than six months. He originally went to Oakland this past summer in the Matt Holliday deal with St. Louis. Hmmmm, Holliday and Halladay together at last!
Did Double-A get enough for Halladay.? He could have kept Doc, given him 15+M this season to win a lot, tutor his young charges for one more year and then show up in Boston or New York at Christmas, with a freshly signed four-year commitment to beat the Blue Jays about five times a year for the length of the contract. Toronto would get a late first-round draft pick and an extra one between the first two rounds in the 2011 Summer Draft. OR he could save about nine million smackers right now, get the three players he got and forego the anguish over drafting, then signing, then hoping the draftees make an impact before he's shown the door as GM. Hmmm, door number two appears a WHOLE lot more appealing, considering the stock scouts have in the newly-minted Blue Jays.
Drabek might see September in Toronto. My bet is that he comes up mid 2011 for a long stay in Toronto. He's about a year away from arm surgery now, and whatever arm injury-itis that's been floating around town these last three years might need another season to dissipate. He MIGHT be good enough to force his way onto the big league roster earlier than that, but I believe the Blue Jays will be careful with him. Luke Schenn anyone? (For non-puckheads, Schenn is the young defenceman that is looking clueless in his sophomore season with the NHL Toronto Maple Leafs. It's been a historical trend with the Leafs to rush defense prospects to the big league ... almost always being a mistake to do so).
D'Arnaud is the mystery man. I've heard glowing stories and some not-so-glowing stories about him. The Blue Jays signed THREE catchers last week and have (supposedly) top prospects at AAA and AA. So, a catcher at A ball has to be something really special, right? Especially since the Phillies offered either relief pitcher Phillipe Aumont or OF Tyson Gillies to replace him in the deal. Both the former Mariners are Canucks. Aumont has already pitched in the majors AND in the World Baseball Classic where he showed potential closer stuff against the Americans. Gillies has a distinct Juan Pierre rep, but with a better glove. And that's something the Blue Jays need, given their absolute poverty in terms of outfield prospects. But no, Double-A wanted D'Arnaud. It has to be a scout thing, because D'Arnaud's numbers don't back up the claim by more than one wag that he might be the best of the three prospects!
And that includes former top draft pick Wallace, who now presents problems, as well as possibilities. If Wallace is to get onto the field, it has to be at 1B. He can also DH. But DH is something the Blue Jays don't have to offer right now. Adam Lind won the Silver Slugger award at the spot last year. He's a left fielder they were GOING to turn into a first-baseman. That's because LF is the only spot you want to see Travis Snider play 140 games in. He's barely adequate in LF and a no-hoper in right. And there's the one-year, 7M contract-owning Lyle Overbay holding down first base, being the best actual defender of the lot. What to do, what to do? There was some hope of sending him to the National League for a catcher. Seattle were supposedly interested in the Seattle native.
But it says here, the best thing the Jays can do is to leave Wallace to get a year's worth of playing first in Las Vegas. I think Overbay for Atlanta's Derek Lowe would make a LOT of sense, considering the difference between the two's contract is just about that nine million saved on not having Roy around. And old pro Lowe has pitched in the AL East, so he won't melt. And he's an innings eater AND he might have some mentor in him. But even on into 2011, the Jays aren't on track to win and it will probably be best to have his 200 innings to give to young, cheap pitchers. Toronto will have enough. Then, in 2011, Wallace and Lind can share 1B and DH. Lind can then be the emergency fifth outfielder. He's not a LOT worse than Snider.
None of the three is likely to spend more than September with Toronto this upcoming season. D'Arnaud's two, maybe three years away. Given the bandiment at various times of major-leauge names like J.A. Happ, Cole Hamels, BJ Upton, Wade Davis, Clay Buccholts, Phil Hughes, Joba Chamberlain, Jered Weaver, Ervin Santana, Joe Saunders, Eric Aybar and more 'top' prospects than JP Ricciardi can say no to, the fact that we'll need the Internet to know how the trade haul is performing this year is really quite astonishing.
It says here the whole deal rests on young Mr. D'Arnaud's shoulders. I assume Drabek becomes a starter, maybe even the number two some think he can be. A solid, cost-controlled middle-of the rotation starter is valuable. Maybe Wallace becomes the second coming of Carlos Delgado, may he becomes Russell Branyan. Somewhere inbetween would be good enough ... IF D'Arnaud is a ten-year starter in Blue Jay Blue and White. Otherwise ...
Five year's hence, just how to YOU think Alex Anthopoulos will be remembering December 2009?
Sunday, December 13, 2009
INTERNET: The Funnies As They Are Now
It's been three months since I last had a newspaper delivered to my door. It's the first time in more than 40 years that I haven't paid for the Toronto Star to arrive sometime in the wee hours of the morning. Check that, it used to come in the afternoon, but it's been a morning paper since before Al Gore invented the internet.
One of the things I have done to replace the daily reading ritual that was the Star, is to gather together a folder of bookmarked comic strip sites. Fourty-three, currently. And I've amassed them from a wide variety of places. I started with the Star's comic strips, which weren't complete. Can't remember which ones weren't on the web, but I missed a couple. So I went looking. And the list grew and grew.
And none currently are Toronto Star links!
There's a reason for that. I read a LOT of Toronto Star content and I use Firefox to do so. Further, I have Adblock and NoSquint installed within Firefox. The former stops a lot of ads from showing up on the page while the latter allows me to magnify the page. The problem with NoSquint is that it's site based. And if I magnify the Between Friends strip to be as big as possible on it's page, suddenly I only get a paragraph or two on Doug Smith's basketball blog. So, I sussed out other papers that carry King Features' syndicated strip service, Comic Kingdom, and now use those other papers strictly for their comics. In fact, I went one step further. I go to the Albany Times Union for mostly strips and San Antonio Express News for panel cartoons. I've got each sized 'just right.'
And, by not adjusting for maximum comics size, the Toronto Star news features and blogs can be sized just right for what they provide ... the words.
One other thing. If you run the NoScript add-on for Firefox, make sure you enable both the newspaper site AND the originating comic syndicate sites. Many papers make use of Comics Kingdom. Others use Comics.com, which, if memory serves, is a brand from United Features. The Washington Post is the other paper site I use a lot. I also enjoy UClick gocomics and what's a list of comics without Dilbert, which I know get directly from www.dilbert.com. There's also Creators.com and ArcaMax.com, which both have delightful layouts and rich, vibrant colours. I wish more of my strips were available from their services.
As for the individual strips, which I start reading with Family Circus and then end with Zits, there are some omissions that people might find surprising. I've never been a Doonesbury or Berke Breathed fan. Garfield? Mehh! I'm a dog guy, which accounts for Buckles, Fred Basset and Marmaduke making the list. You could make a case for mistaken species in Mother Goose and Grimm, but I still claim it's a canine strip. I used to include Tarzan, Spider-Man and The Phantom, but the glacial pace of the daily adventures made them unenjoyable, despite some gorgeous art on all three. Oh, the same goes for Prince Valiant reprints, which is counter to what I remember when I was a youngster. Still, I think I have an eclectic group of strips. The only ones I'm surprised I'm admitting to are Love Is... and Six Chix.
If I had to pick five strips I'd pick Family Circus, Crankshaft, Fred Basset, Shoe and Working Daze. Judge me as you will.
One of the things I have done to replace the daily reading ritual that was the Star, is to gather together a folder of bookmarked comic strip sites. Fourty-three, currently. And I've amassed them from a wide variety of places. I started with the Star's comic strips, which weren't complete. Can't remember which ones weren't on the web, but I missed a couple. So I went looking. And the list grew and grew.
And none currently are Toronto Star links!
There's a reason for that. I read a LOT of Toronto Star content and I use Firefox to do so. Further, I have Adblock and NoSquint installed within Firefox. The former stops a lot of ads from showing up on the page while the latter allows me to magnify the page. The problem with NoSquint is that it's site based. And if I magnify the Between Friends strip to be as big as possible on it's page, suddenly I only get a paragraph or two on Doug Smith's basketball blog. So, I sussed out other papers that carry King Features' syndicated strip service, Comic Kingdom, and now use those other papers strictly for their comics. In fact, I went one step further. I go to the Albany Times Union for mostly strips and San Antonio Express News for panel cartoons. I've got each sized 'just right.'
And, by not adjusting for maximum comics size, the Toronto Star news features and blogs can be sized just right for what they provide ... the words.
One other thing. If you run the NoScript add-on for Firefox, make sure you enable both the newspaper site AND the originating comic syndicate sites. Many papers make use of Comics Kingdom. Others use Comics.com, which, if memory serves, is a brand from United Features. The Washington Post is the other paper site I use a lot. I also enjoy UClick gocomics and what's a list of comics without Dilbert, which I know get directly from www.dilbert.com. There's also Creators.com and ArcaMax.com, which both have delightful layouts and rich, vibrant colours. I wish more of my strips were available from their services.
As for the individual strips, which I start reading with Family Circus and then end with Zits, there are some omissions that people might find surprising. I've never been a Doonesbury or Berke Breathed fan. Garfield? Mehh! I'm a dog guy, which accounts for Buckles, Fred Basset and Marmaduke making the list. You could make a case for mistaken species in Mother Goose and Grimm, but I still claim it's a canine strip. I used to include Tarzan, Spider-Man and The Phantom, but the glacial pace of the daily adventures made them unenjoyable, despite some gorgeous art on all three. Oh, the same goes for Prince Valiant reprints, which is counter to what I remember when I was a youngster. Still, I think I have an eclectic group of strips. The only ones I'm surprised I'm admitting to are Love Is... and Six Chix.
If I had to pick five strips I'd pick Family Circus, Crankshaft, Fred Basset, Shoe and Working Daze. Judge me as you will.
- Daily Strips
- ArcaMax - Family_Circus
- UCLICK- Adam@Home
- Creators- Archie
- WaPo- Beetle Bailey
- SA - Between Friends
- ComicsCom- Big Nate
- TU - Buckles
- Creators- Chuckle Bros
- UCLICK- Compu-toon
- TU - Crankshaft
- Dilbert
- ComicsCom- Drabble
- TU - Edison Lee (The Brilliant Mind of)
- comics.com F Minus
- WaPo- Fastrack
- UCLICK- The Flying McCoys
- UCLICK- Fred Basset
- UCLICK- For Better or For Worse
- WaPo- Hagar
- UCLICK- In the Bleachers
- WaPo- Hi and Lois
- ComicsCom- Lola
- UCLICK- Love Is...
- ComicsCom- Marmaduke
- ArcaMax- Mother Goose
- UCLICK- The Norm
- ComicsCom- Off the Mark
- Creators - One Big Happy
- Creators- The Other Coast
- SA - Pardon My Planet
- ComicsCom- PC and Pixel
- UCLICK- PreTeena
- TU - Pros and Cons
- TU - Retail
- SA - Rhymes with Orange
- ComicsCom- Ripley's
- WaPo- Sherman's Lagoon
- UCLICK- Shoe
- WaPo- Six Chix
- UCLICK - Tank McNamara
- TU - Tina's Groove
- ComicsCom- Working Daze
- ArcaMax - Zits
Saturday, December 12, 2009
LIFE: This Year's Christmas Tree Raising
A little late. This year's ceremony was Thursday night. The mob was reduced to just two industrious workers this year, and somehow the tree continued to seem full when they finished. Kudos to Angela (right) and Megan (left) on a job superbly done. (I put the angel on, six tries only this year!!!!, otherwise I just sit back and watch).
Monday, December 07, 2009
COMPUTERS: And The Next Day...
The switch to GoogleDNS results: Better. Yep, BETTER!
I roused myself from slumber around noon and decided to sit around and check out the time for the full load of tabs. Last night, I timed the full set at 81 seconds. Today at lunch hour EDT, when things should be booming on the internet, I timed it at 36 seconds for all 143 tabs. I was actually reading the text of the last tab loaded after 22 seconds. Hmmm, another two-fold increase in speed over the 18-fold increase from last night. I think GoogleDNS is a keeper.
Now, it wasn't perfect, as was the download last night. One site, where I download two different pages right off the bat, wouldn't load. And for some reason, the tab right after them failed to load completely. A two percent failure rate. Betcha won't happen tomorrow. But even still...
Also, Patrick installed GoogleDNS and didn't see much of a big improvement, although he said it felt quicker. Mind you, he samples the web one bookmark at a time. Even my parents now load their morning news all at once, fergawdsakes! But he was using Netscape Navigator as recently as last year, atavist that he is. So when he says it 'feels' quicker, then you can be sure it's a darn sight quicker.
I'm a believer. Try it out. What have you got to lose? Other than time spent fiddling your thumbs and clicking on re-load button-developed calluses?
I roused myself from slumber around noon and decided to sit around and check out the time for the full load of tabs. Last night, I timed the full set at 81 seconds. Today at lunch hour EDT, when things should be booming on the internet, I timed it at 36 seconds for all 143 tabs. I was actually reading the text of the last tab loaded after 22 seconds. Hmmm, another two-fold increase in speed over the 18-fold increase from last night. I think GoogleDNS is a keeper.
Now, it wasn't perfect, as was the download last night. One site, where I download two different pages right off the bat, wouldn't load. And for some reason, the tab right after them failed to load completely. A two percent failure rate. Betcha won't happen tomorrow. But even still...
Also, Patrick installed GoogleDNS and didn't see much of a big improvement, although he said it felt quicker. Mind you, he samples the web one bookmark at a time. Even my parents now load their morning news all at once, fergawdsakes! But he was using Netscape Navigator as recently as last year, atavist that he is. So when he says it 'feels' quicker, then you can be sure it's a darn sight quicker.
I'm a believer. Try it out. What have you got to lose? Other than time spent fiddling your thumbs and clicking on re-load button-developed calluses?
Sunday, December 06, 2009
COMPUTERS: To DNS or To Google DNS?
That wasn't the question until this past week.
Then, Google announced its own DNS server product (Free, with strings, of course) and suddenly I started wondering whether I should make a switch. Really, it wasn't a long discussion. Fact is, that the DNS server at rogers.com has been ... well, lousy for awhile. For the unaware, the DNS thingy I'm talking about is called a Domain Name Server. It's the telephone-book like service that lets you put a name, such as http://mugfordmugshots.blogspot.com/ and get back the numerical address equivalent. I can't remember what that is, but it looks like four sets of numbers separated by periods. This directory searching service is a necessity and your internet service provider provides you with one by default.
Until about three weeks ago, rogers' DNS was performing adequately. Every morning (well, sometimes afternoons) I wake up and schlep into the office and middle click on a few folders in Firefox. Together, the four tabs I click on load about 142 tabs (it goes up and down periodically). I then finish the ritual of waking up and come back, expecting to spend the next 90-120 minutes perusing the sites I have bookmarked. By clicking on various links, I probably hit 200-250 page views in all. Having gone through all the trouble of pre-loading those tabs, I expect to get through each site with a minimum amount of effort. That effort should NOT include re-loading the tab because it timed out nor should I have to re-load the tab to have the page finish fully loading, rather than a bit here and a bit there showing.
Lately, I haven't been getting what I wanted. Where I could be happy with, say five pages timing out and five others not finishing, say seven percent unhappy, the failures have risen dramatically of late. Regularly, I was hitting failure rates of SIXTY percent when loading the tabs en masse. Even loading just a section, say the computer programming folder, resulted in more than half of the 14 tabs in that group not loading correctly. And what did, did slowly.
Then I lost the internet completely from Thursday late afternoon to mid Friday afternoon. A reset of the modem got back intermittent support, but for only one connection at a time. No web-browsing while checking email. Forget newsgroups and other stuff. Time to call rogers tech. A technician came out on Saturday and found some rusted out connectors on the outside box (I have two lines coming into the house). He fixed it all and suggested, upon finishing, that I would once again have happiness. I would be getting a big increase in performance, maybe close to what I pay for, the ULTIMATE package. What I DO get is a little less than 10Mbps download and between a half-meg and 1Mbps of upload speed. Rogers rates a 3.1 out of 5 for actual performance, according to speedtest.net.
So, imagine my utter disappointment to discover the hardware fix, didn't fix Firefox. I tried upping the disk cache to twice what I had before and boosted the memory cache by 50 percent. No big improvement. The Toronto Sun Sunshine Girl page was still taking 49 seconds to load. Well, mostly load. A second re-load page was required to finish the job, meaning it actually took 54 seconds. I called Patrick to palaver over options.
I had read about GoogleDNS and knew about OpenDNS, two publicly-available DNS replacements for your ISP's version. I had tried OpenDNS, but was unfamiliar with the product and gave up on it. It allows for more filtering of sites and I obviously ran afoul of a few filters I didn't know I could turn off. So, I ditched OpenDNS back then and went back to the local product. A series of columns these past few days in ComputerWorld touted both of the DNS alternatives. OpenDNS has a greater attraction amongst parents and corporations, for the ability to pre-filter spots. Google had the charm of being totally agnostic. It didn't do anything but serve up the sites you ask for, as quickly as Google can manage it. And Google equals fast in most things internet these days.
And GoogleDNS is not going to ruin that operation. With some hesitation, I changed my DNS settings in my router to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. I flushed all my caches with Crap Cleaner. And then I put Firefox through the whole load test. All 143. And all 143 loaded in 81 seconds. ALL of them. Completely. No timed out errors. No mishmash of pages with some elements loaded and some not. The 40 Comic Strips I visit daily were all there, even the ones from the Toronto Star, which hates loading correctly at the best of times. I shut down Firefox, ran Crap Cleaner and then went back and loaded just the Toronto Sun Sunshine Girl page. Less than three seconds.
Now, anytime you do something that gets you an 18-fold increase in performance, you have to try to look behind the curtain. Somebody HAS to be yanking your chain, don't you think? My caveat is that this happened on a Sunday night when, as Patrick put it, everybody was watching Desperate Housewives on TV. Not me, I have taste. But most folks. The Internet bandwidth probably looked like the Autobahn to my computer that time of the night. But I do check a LOT of European sites, as well as ones in China, Australia and Russia (Delphi programmers can be found all over the world). Those came up lickety-split quick too.
So, I'll await the sun's rising here in Brampton on the morrow and see if the speed increase holds. Heck, if even half of it holds and the completeness remains true, then I become a whole-hearted Google evangelist for this product.
In case you want YOUR internet to perform like greased lightning, check out GoogleDNS!
NOTE: The strings. You were wondering about the strings. When you type in a non-existent site, you frequently get a message saying your site can't be found. When you use GoogleDNS, you end up at a site saying so ... WITH ads Google has sold companies. PLUS, potentially Google gets a track record of every place you go on the internet, which it currently doesn't keep. Some of the more paranoid (Yes, Irwin, there are people even more paranoid than me) of you out there will balk at that. On the other hand SOMEBODY gets that data. Do you trust rogers more than Google?
Then, Google announced its own DNS server product (Free, with strings, of course) and suddenly I started wondering whether I should make a switch. Really, it wasn't a long discussion. Fact is, that the DNS server at rogers.com has been ... well, lousy for awhile. For the unaware, the DNS thingy I'm talking about is called a Domain Name Server. It's the telephone-book like service that lets you put a name, such as http://mugfordmugshots.blogspot.com/ and get back the numerical address equivalent. I can't remember what that is, but it looks like four sets of numbers separated by periods. This directory searching service is a necessity and your internet service provider provides you with one by default.
Until about three weeks ago, rogers' DNS was performing adequately. Every morning (well, sometimes afternoons) I wake up and schlep into the office and middle click on a few folders in Firefox. Together, the four tabs I click on load about 142 tabs (it goes up and down periodically). I then finish the ritual of waking up and come back, expecting to spend the next 90-120 minutes perusing the sites I have bookmarked. By clicking on various links, I probably hit 200-250 page views in all. Having gone through all the trouble of pre-loading those tabs, I expect to get through each site with a minimum amount of effort. That effort should NOT include re-loading the tab because it timed out nor should I have to re-load the tab to have the page finish fully loading, rather than a bit here and a bit there showing.
Lately, I haven't been getting what I wanted. Where I could be happy with, say five pages timing out and five others not finishing, say seven percent unhappy, the failures have risen dramatically of late. Regularly, I was hitting failure rates of SIXTY percent when loading the tabs en masse. Even loading just a section, say the computer programming folder, resulted in more than half of the 14 tabs in that group not loading correctly. And what did, did slowly.
Then I lost the internet completely from Thursday late afternoon to mid Friday afternoon. A reset of the modem got back intermittent support, but for only one connection at a time. No web-browsing while checking email. Forget newsgroups and other stuff. Time to call rogers tech. A technician came out on Saturday and found some rusted out connectors on the outside box (I have two lines coming into the house). He fixed it all and suggested, upon finishing, that I would once again have happiness. I would be getting a big increase in performance, maybe close to what I pay for, the ULTIMATE package. What I DO get is a little less than 10Mbps download and between a half-meg and 1Mbps of upload speed. Rogers rates a 3.1 out of 5 for actual performance, according to speedtest.net.
So, imagine my utter disappointment to discover the hardware fix, didn't fix Firefox. I tried upping the disk cache to twice what I had before and boosted the memory cache by 50 percent. No big improvement. The Toronto Sun Sunshine Girl page was still taking 49 seconds to load. Well, mostly load. A second re-load page was required to finish the job, meaning it actually took 54 seconds. I called Patrick to palaver over options.
I had read about GoogleDNS and knew about OpenDNS, two publicly-available DNS replacements for your ISP's version. I had tried OpenDNS, but was unfamiliar with the product and gave up on it. It allows for more filtering of sites and I obviously ran afoul of a few filters I didn't know I could turn off. So, I ditched OpenDNS back then and went back to the local product. A series of columns these past few days in ComputerWorld touted both of the DNS alternatives. OpenDNS has a greater attraction amongst parents and corporations, for the ability to pre-filter spots. Google had the charm of being totally agnostic. It didn't do anything but serve up the sites you ask for, as quickly as Google can manage it. And Google equals fast in most things internet these days.
And GoogleDNS is not going to ruin that operation. With some hesitation, I changed my DNS settings in my router to 8.8.8.8 and 8.8.4.4. I flushed all my caches with Crap Cleaner. And then I put Firefox through the whole load test. All 143. And all 143 loaded in 81 seconds. ALL of them. Completely. No timed out errors. No mishmash of pages with some elements loaded and some not. The 40 Comic Strips I visit daily were all there, even the ones from the Toronto Star, which hates loading correctly at the best of times. I shut down Firefox, ran Crap Cleaner and then went back and loaded just the Toronto Sun Sunshine Girl page. Less than three seconds.
Now, anytime you do something that gets you an 18-fold increase in performance, you have to try to look behind the curtain. Somebody HAS to be yanking your chain, don't you think? My caveat is that this happened on a Sunday night when, as Patrick put it, everybody was watching Desperate Housewives on TV. Not me, I have taste. But most folks. The Internet bandwidth probably looked like the Autobahn to my computer that time of the night. But I do check a LOT of European sites, as well as ones in China, Australia and Russia (Delphi programmers can be found all over the world). Those came up lickety-split quick too.
So, I'll await the sun's rising here in Brampton on the morrow and see if the speed increase holds. Heck, if even half of it holds and the completeness remains true, then I become a whole-hearted Google evangelist for this product.
In case you want YOUR internet to perform like greased lightning, check out GoogleDNS!
NOTE: The strings. You were wondering about the strings. When you type in a non-existent site, you frequently get a message saying your site can't be found. When you use GoogleDNS, you end up at a site saying so ... WITH ads Google has sold companies. PLUS, potentially Google gets a track record of every place you go on the internet, which it currently doesn't keep. Some of the more paranoid (Yes, Irwin, there are people even more paranoid than me) of you out there will balk at that. On the other hand SOMEBODY gets that data. Do you trust rogers more than Google?
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