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I’ve really been slacking off on my blog entries lately, and I apologize. It’s gotten so bad that the home page looks rather empty because I only show the last two weeks of entries. I’ve just been really busy with work and various other projects I’ve been working on. Well, that, and baseball season is approaching, and following spring training takes up a lot of my free time.
I had my first (of three) fantasy league draft this past weekend, and I think it went pretty well. I wrote myself a nice little web ranking system to use for the draft, so I could quickly see who the best (by my rankings, which sucked and will be improved before my next one) player available at each position was each time it was my turn to draft. No crossing out names on piles of paper, and then searching through them for the first name not crossed out – javascript handled it all. Maybe I’ll clean it up and release it so people can set it up for themselves at some point.
I’ve also been working on another Palm program, similar to Quick Chat but with several improvements. I’ve been using it for about a week and a half now as my only IM program on my Treo and it seems to be holding up pretty well. There’s still some work to be done before I actually release it, though. It is currently named “SMS Chat” but I don’t like that too much. If anyone can think of a better name (other than Blood Chat, which I won’t use) please let me know. Maybe post a comment here, or something.
I haven’t been reporting my bowling scores here lately, mostly because they’ve been crappy. That finally changed tonight, and I threw a 191-226-180, for a 597 series. That’s an average of 199 over three games, which I’m plenty happy with. The improvement comes from me slowing down my ball speed, from about 17mph to about 15.5mph, so it actually hooks a bit instead of going basically straight. The bowling alley shows the speed of each shot. It’s cool. Really. That should bring my overall average back up to around a 170, which I don’t really like, but I guess I have to deal with.
I’ve been contemplating lately switching from satellite TV to digital cable, for a few reasons. Well, one reason, mostly. I’m getting sick on my PVR sucking and only recording by time instead of by program name. Tivo just blows the Dish Network PVR501 away. The other reason is Cox Digital Cable offers MLB Extra Innings, and Dish Network doesn’t (but most of the games I’d want to watch would be while I’m at work, anyway). With DirecTV, I couldn’t get any of the major networks, so I won’t get that. No Simpsons = bad. So… with digital cable, I would actually save a few bucks a month if I pay the lifetime Tivo service fee ($300), or it’ll be $5 more per month if I pay it monthly, because of the discount I’d get for getting both cable modem and digital cable. The initial cost of the Tivo hardware would be covered by unloading my satellite system on eBay. If there was zero hassle involved with the whole thing, I’d switch. I’m just not sure if it’s worth the effort. Comments?
One final note: MLB is broadcasting about 1000 games this season over the internet. $80 for the whole season. I’ll have to check out the schedule and some of the sample free spring training games before I decide whether or not to do it. It’s definitely a cool idea. Too bad they’re using RealVideo, though. I wonder if I can even play back the video they’ll be streaming in Linux. Anyway, I’m definitely going to check it out before the season starts.
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no! real is evil!
dooonnt dooo ittttt
Personally, I’d recommend any option that leads to anyone buying a TiVo – I’ve had mine for two years, and it’s completely changed the way the Mrs. and I watch TV. And, no, that’s not just marketing hype.
It’s funny, everyone around here that I know wants to switch to satellite. BTW, I know that you can get a TiVo with many satellite services, so I would look in to that. Most of my coworkers seem to think it would save money. And someone mentioned that the TiVo which works with one of the services saves the feed directly, instead of compressing it again.
Also, I heard that TiVo has eliminated the lifetime service. Besides, it only applied to the specific box, and knowing you, you’ll want to upgrade to a more full-featured box in the future.
Don – I already have a PVR, it’s just not as good as a Tivo. I can pause/rewind, and set up recordings. The main things that are missing are record by name (I have to do it by time, so if something moves or has a special long show, I miss it), good conflict resolution (when I set up a conflicting timer, I can’t give on priority, I have to just delete one), and recommendations/random recordings. I think I mostly want the season pass/record by name thing.
Andy – There are really only two satellite services, Dish Network and DirecTV. I will get fewer channels with the digital cable, but I won’t miss the ones I’m not getting. I don’t watch them anyway. I currently have my crappy PVR and won’t get DirecTV because they can’t offer me Fox at my location. DirecTV has the Tivo boxes, Dish Network has their own crappy fake. The lifetime service is still around, it just went up from $250 to $300.