The Vig

The Interwebs are alight with this story about how Comcast is going to start capping monthly usage at 250 gigabytes of traffic per month.  While I don’t consider myself a power user or anything, I do download a fair amount of podcasts and occassional videos.

Curious to find out how much I consume, I went looking for a bandwidth meter so I could know where I stood and whether I should be concerned.  I pretty quickly found a program called BitMeter which does exactly what I want.  It gives me up-to-the-second stats on my usage and even gives cool looking graphs to show uploads and downloads.  The feature I really like, though, is it tells me how much I use each day, week, and month.  Like I said, perfect.

I’m only a few days in, but I can tell already that I’ll come in way under the 250 gig limit.  I downloaded three complete Wilco concerts yesterday and watched a bunch of YouTube stuff and still managed to only use about 1.5 gigs.  You have to get up around 8 gigs to start getting worried.  So a heavy download day (for me, at least) used less than 1% of my monthly allowance.  I think I’ll be fine…for now.

The free preview of the MLB Extra Innings package has come to an end, and now I’m completely Jonesing for it.  But I just can’t justify the $159 or whatever it is.  I mean sure, Comcast will break it into three easy payments, but that’s not the point.  I won’t be home to watch any of the games and besides, if I need a fix, I know where I can go.

I checked out the MLB.com website the other day to see what alternatives I have.  For all baseball’s current faults, they’ve done a tremendous job with their site and have created a ton of interactive features.  Jerom, for example, subscribes to the Gameday Audio service so he can listen to A’s games wherever he is.  Others seem to enjoy the MLB.tv experience.  Me?  I don’t have the patience for the radio and watching TV on my computer just doesn’t do it.

So I’m going to check out this mobile service of theirs which promises to send text and video messages right to my Palm, which is perfect for me.  Little bite-sized nuggets delivered right to my pocket wherever I am.  And at $3.99.month, it’s very reasonably priced.

What’s the problem, you ask?  Well…  It’s hard to talk about.  I guess I’ll just come right out and say it.  I love two teams.  It should never have been like this, of course.  I should have chosen a team like every other grade school kid and just moved on with my life.  But growing up without cable and in a house that didn’t really value sports, I didn’t have any sort of compass to guide me in any one direction.  Sure, the Dodgers were on TV every Saturday, and I guess I learned their line-up, but I wasn’t passionate.  And we made a few trips to Seattle to see the Yankees or Red Sox play the Mariners, but rooting for the Argyros/Smulyan Mariners was never a serious option.  The Mariners were the Washington Generals.

We caught the playoffs and the World Series every year.  I fell in love with the ‘79 Pirates and the ‘86 Mets, but nothing ever stuck.  I was a baseball dilettante.  And I honestly still am.  I’m jealous of people who have their team.  I remember taking my buddy Doug, a die hard Orioles fan, to a series in Baltimore a decade ago.  Watching him cheer for his team in the home whites was something I’ll never forget.  I’ve always wanted that feeling.

The closest I’ve ever come was watching the Diamondbacks that year I lived in Phoenix.  I probably hit 40 games that season and had a blast.  Loved every minute of it.  Part of the reason I moved to Phoenix in the first place was to watch the Diamondbacks and Randy Johnson.  The Mariners tore my heart out when they traded him away, and I’ve swore to never cheer for them again.  The M’s are dead to me.

I digress.  So I spent that season following the D-Backs.  That should have been the end of it, right?  No.  For the last few years, I’ve secretly been cheering for the Pirates again.  I can’t explain why.  It may have been an early series I saw down in Phoenix when the Pirates brought in a truckload of young arms and proceeded to dominate the D-Backs.  It could be the fact I just need to be abused.  Whatever it is, I always catch myself glancing in their direction.  A big reason I want that Extra Innings package, for example, is because I can watch the Pirates.  In the basement, with the shades pulled.

So what do I do?  Do I get the Pirates?  Do I get the Diamondbacks?  Will they even let me do both?  Or would that just be crazy?

I guess it’s time to grow up and commit one way or the other.  Fidelity sucks.

Full-on Blazermania is almost back. It’s like that movie Backdraft where the fire is just waiting for that gush of oxygen to make it explode.

Or words to that effect.

Last night’s game was #1 of my 20-game package for the season. The way the thing works, I paid $100 for 20-games in the 300-level. The seats are never in the same place twice and I don’t get any sort of season-ticket holder privileges. But I am in the building. So that counts for something, right?

Last night I sat parallel to the retired jersey numbers in the back of section 317.

Twardzik will always be my all-time favorite Blazer and when I figure out how to order the 4XL Mitchell and Ness special, I’ll be displaying my love at every game. In the meantime, I’ll just be content to start a grassroots effort to bring him back to Portland to replace Anotonio Harvey as the radio color man. Brutal does not even come close to describing Harvey’s style on the air. He’s frequently unprepared and rarely offers insight beyond gibberish. And as long as we’re on Blazer broadcasters, it’s only because no one in the local media has Comcast that there’s been no mention of how bad the Blazer TV production is. Sideline reporter Rebecca Haarlow is well on the way toward becoming a YouTube sensation to rival Miss South Carolina (she is that bad) and Michael Holton isn’t much better in the studio.

I haven’t spent much time up in the 300-level in the last several years. It’s always closed for Winter Hawks games and the Blazer games I’ve seen have been so sparsely attended that lower level seats were practically being given away. The folks at Global Spectrum did a fantastic job upgrading the luxury areas the season before last. And this season they’ve gone even further in revamping the main concourse. They’ve added a couple of beer gardens and completely redone the concessions. It looks really good. The 300 level, though, still has some work ahead of it. What, for example, is this display still doing up there?

‘Sheed’s been gone since 2004, kids. Brian Grant, who’s palm print is to the right of ‘Sheed, left in 2000. That’s 7 seasons ago. Yet the display is still up there. We’re on our second GM since 2000. Let’s get this taken care of, a’ight?

Some other thoughts, in no particular order:

Darius Miles will play for the Blazers this season. You can take that to the bank. Don’t believe me? Read this. If they’re smart, they’ll play him on the road to start. Far away from the several hundred who booed when he was on the screen going through his Eddie Murphy “Trading Places” bit. “GI Joe with the kung-fu grip.” The perfect time to bring him in would be on the East Coast road trip starting January 13 in Toronto. It would get him showcased in front of some Eastern Conference GMs ahead of the trade deadline and who knows, he may not come back. That would be the best case scenario. But I’m guessing they’ll put him in to get us used to having him around when they get back home on January 25th.

The question then becomes who’s minutes does Miles take? Webster’s? Jones’? Outlaw’s? Who?

Wally Szcerbiak is still in the league? Now that I look at it, he was part of the Ray Allen deal. It all makes sense now. The point is that guy can fill it up. Wow.

Did you know James Jones leads the league in 3-point percentage?

Sergio Rodriguez is Jason Williams. He’s never met a shot he didn’t like. He even had me yelling at him in the fourth quarter. “Shoot it! You know you want to!” No wonder Nate doesn’t want him out there. The team needs a distributor at the point, not a shooter. And not a poor decision maker. I can live with turnovers, but poor shot selection will make a man tear his hair out.

Why does Brian Wheeler never yell Boom Shaka Laka when Przybilla dunks? Employee #10 had a much more spectacular dunk in the first quarter than the one Roy threw down in the second. Yet Roy gets the extra dap. Why is that?

BeBe Winans has got some pipes. Normally I’m not a fan of overwrought national anthems, but I make an exception for Mr. Winans. Maybe he can come fill in for Katie Harman at the Winter Hawks game next Monday.

Greg Oden is worth his weight in gold. His “Day Before Christmas” bit was pure comedy genius. And whoever figured out to rhyme Charles Barkley McLovin with microwave oven deserves an extra holiday bonus.

It was fantastic to see Paul Allen animated. An engaged Allen is a good thing.

Is Christmas In Hollis considered old school? I don’t know how to feel about that.

Casey Holdahl looks freaking weird in a coat and tie. I wondered walking into the arena who got the better gig. Marentette or Holdahl. I’m guessing Marentette hasn’t had to wear a tie in a while. I’ll give the edge to him. But it’s close.

So that’s that. I think my next game is Sunday versus the Sixers. I gave away Friday’s tickets as a Christmas gift. Hopefully the Blazers will be working toward #13 when I see them next. Maybe they can bring in Twardzik to celebrate. Wouldn’t that be nice?

It didn’t immediately register with me when I heard the ad yesterday.  The new Comcast SportsNet channel will feature 25 Vancouver Canucks games.  How about that!  I’m way more excited about this channel than I should be.

A day late, but here goes:

Oregon State: I had to listen to the game on the radio. I about yelled myself hoarse between screaming at Mike Parker and screaming at my buddy Doug. The offense did just enough to let the defense win it. So ugly to do it that way. But whatever. A win is a win. And over the #2 #1 team in the country to boot. Good for them.

The Blazers: Is the new Comcast channel a done deal? Anyone know what channel it’s going to be on?

The Winter Hawks: I only made it through 2 periods on Sunday night. It didn’t have anything to do with the product on the ice or anything. I was just a little under the weather. I did manage to see Viktor Sjodin make a monster hit that cost him 2 minutes in the box. I did see all of Tayler Jordan’s penalties. And I did see Luke Walker continue to progress toward being the best player on the team. I do wonder whether Frazer McLaren will be here in January. I do wonder what Jim Goldsmith thinks of the attendance. I do wonder whether they’ll break 5,000 this coming Saturday night with Seattle in town and mascots fighting between periods. That the over-under is that low should be embarrassing. As should the fact I’m taking the under.

The Cardinals: I heard a blurb on the radio today that the only reason Vinnie Testaverde suited up for the Panthers this weekend instead of the Cardinals was the fact Charlotte is closer to his home in New Jersey. Would things have been different with him backing up Warner? Who knows. All I know is I never in my life thought I’d type the name Tim Rattay. Or Tim Hasselbeck for that matter. The Cardinals do have a couple things going for them.

1. The o-line is opening holes for Edgerin James to do his thing. That 20-yard touchdown run was a thing of beauty. And that came after the Warner injury and after the Panthers started selling out for the run.
2. Larry Fitzgerald is the man. He made a couple of one-handed grabs on Sunday that brought me to my feet.
3. The NFC West blows chunks. If you don’t believe me, you must have missed the Seahawks game.

The next five weeks look like this.  At Washington.  Bye.  At Tampa.  Vs. Detroit.  At Cincinnati.  That’s a legit 3-1 stretch right there.  Even with Mr. Elizabeth Hasselbeck at quarterback.

The underdog pool:  I had the Texans.  It’s only money…

In case you’re interested, Hope Solo and the rest of the US Women’s soccer team is in town this week.  It will be interesting to see how the team and the Soccer Federation deal with the fact their most recognized star is about to get cut.

The UFC and HBO have been in hot and heavy negotiations for the last several months to bring a series of cards to the cable network.  According to Yahoo! Sports Kevin Iole, before negotiations broke down, the first card was tentatively scheduled for Portland in early December.  This would have been HUGE.

Ultimate fighting has been steadily gaining mainstream acceptance over the last few years.  When I worked at the Comcast call center back in 2002, the phones would light up Friday afternoons with guys throwing parties to watch the various cards.  These buy rates have only gone up in the last couple of years.  I’m sure that played a large role in the UFC’s desire to bring their product to town.

I didn’t get ultimate fighting until just recently.  I certainly do now.  I’ve been a boxing fan for years but that sport is all but dead.  Killed by greedy promoters and a lack of television, boxing hasn’t been relevant for at least five years .  UFC, on the other hand, has done a tremendous job of marketing their product while keeping promoters and rival circuits at bay.

HBO would be foolish to pass on this chance to ditch boxing and hitch their star to the next big thing.  As big as UFC is now, adding them to premium cable would launch them into the stratosphere.  It would be a real win-win.  Hopefully Portland can be a part of that.