Tag reed hasting apology stupid

My Saturday got off to a 4am start since I had to time another race.  This was going to more of a challenge than normal since I would be doing all timing related duties myself instead of having my faithful sidekick Ali helping out.  This was a new race, held at a local hospital.  The venue was really nice with ample parking and full access to the building lobby for bathroom facilities.

Luckily for me the race wasn’t huge in terms of numbers.  Even with the 35-40 walk up entries we only had a total of around 225 runners.  Even so I was quite busy, especially because I once again brought the additional timing equipment to do a chip start.  I was quite eager to atone for the failed chip start from the last race.

I ran out to the start line with about 10 minutes to go to start time and hurriedly got the box set up.  Initially I had a few issues getting connected to the box but it seemed to just be because the Elite box takes considerably longer to boot up and connect to the network than our STK Lite unit.  It was actually a decent race to use the chip start since the road the race started on was narrow, we had people 100 feet or more back from the start line.

I actually only had one of the two mats up and running since the one receiver card was sent out to Ipico for repair.  One mat was enough apparently as I successfully captured the runner start times. I was happy.

In general I was really happy with the way the race turned out.  Like I said it was a nice venue, the timing went smoothly and they had a nice spread of post race refreshments, enough for double the amount of people.  I was proud to have handled it alone as well.

Once I got home and finished up the post race work I immediately dove into chores, fully intending to get everything done.  Doing the manual labor was made more difficult by a right shoulder that was KILLING me.  Any motion that involved the right arm radiated pain from my shoulder.  Great, not only do I have a right knee that is not getting better, now my shoulder is f’d up. I tried to compensate by using my left arm wherever possible, even in tasks where it was awkward to do so.

I headed into the bathroom and buzzed my hair.  Despite my threats to bore everyone by taping the session I decided against it.  It turned out pretty well although I noticed a few stray hairs I might need Ali to attend to.

I worked relentlessly and got both the inside and outside work done by around 3.  I then headed out with the girls in the party van for some errands, they love errands.  One of those stops was at Best Buy.  The intention was to look at CPU fans.  I recently had replaced two fans in my 5 year old computer in an attempt to eliminate some annoying noises.  I was successful in quieting most of them but there was still an intermittent high pitched sound that drives Ali crazy.

So the CPU cooler Best Buy sells was something like $70 bucks. It was a big, gawdy thing.  I started running scenarios through my head.  I had no guarantee that the CPU fan was the source of the noise.  If I replaced the thing and the noise still lived, I was going to be majorly annoyed.

Just for the hell of it I started walking down the aisle where new systems are located.  I spotted an Lenovo mini-tower on sale.  As I examined the specs it seemed decent with 6 gigs of RAM and a 1TB HDD.  I took a picture of the snap tag and was redirected to the Best Buy site.  The customer reviews for the system were overwhelmingly positive, describing the system as a good value for the money.

The system utilizes a Pentium 620 processor which is low on the totem pole as far as CPU power nowadays but still a nice upgrade from my aging, power hungry, hot as an oven Pentium D system.  I justified the purchase as something Ali would endorse since it would eliminate the noise problem once and for all.  I justified it to myself by noting that for the last 15 years I regularly would replace my computer every 12-18 months.  I was now around 60 months, it was time.

The one upgrade I did have to address on the system was the built in graphics which are not up to snuff.  I picked out a Nvidia 545 card with 1.5gb of memory to handle my gaming needs on the system. I rung up my purchase and happily carried my system out of the store.  I was pretty excited to update my home system since it has been so long since I built my current full size tower.

When I got home I immediately noticed something in front of the left fence line.  A closer look revealed it was a turtle. I wasn’t sure what direction he wandered in from or where he was hoping to go.  All I knew is I didn’t want to see him wind up as turtle road kill, something I see far too often in this shitty, thoughtless driver infested area.

As I picked him up he hissed a little bit but then settled down.  He actually had his head poking out a bit as we walked to the far back of the property.  I sat him down by one of the fill pits that transforms into a pond during rainy season, figuring he may enjoy it back there.  He was several hundred yards away from any roadways at least.

Now of course I had a shitload of work to do when it came to migrating my old computer to my new computer.  My plan had multiple stages.  First I pulled the internal 2TB hdd from my old system that is used for back up and installed it in the Lenovo.  I then took my old computer into the hobby room and attached it to the network connection in there and turned it on.  My plan was to copy files from it over the network as well as using a RDP connection to it to verify/check configuration settings. I also installed the upgraded graphic card in the Lenovo while the case was apart.

So I put the new Lenovo in place.  It is a mini-tower form factor, significantly smaller than the full size tower it was replacing.  It was nice and quiet when I turned it on, I really couldn’t hear it at all, Ali will be pleased.

The first thing I needed to do was join my home domain.  This exposed the first hurdle.  The new computer came preloaded with Windows 7 Home Premium which does not support joining a domain, great.  Now Microsoft is “nice” enough to bundle in the ability to upgrade your OS to other versions on the fly.  I could upgrade to Windows Professional for $89 or to Windows Ultimate, which I was already running on the old system, for $139.  Ouch.  Well the last thing I felt like doing was spending that much money to get a version of Windows 7 up and running that work on my domain.  It could quickly turn what was intended as a bargain purchase into not much of one.

Well just for the hell of it, I thought I would try using my product key from the copy of Windows Ultimate I received for hosting that fake Windows 7 launch party.  I did not expect it to work as I recalled that the copy I had supposedly would only work/activate once.  Well imagine my surprise when the Windows Anytime Upgrade took the code.  Within about 10 minutes I was up and running with Ultimate, very sweet.

I spent a good portion of the rest of the evening starting the migration process which surprisingly wasn’t all that bad.  Since I keep most of my data in an organized manner, moving it across was pretty straight forward.  All of the software I needed to reinstall I could download from the web.  I even got WoW moved across Saturday night and was very happy to see I was holding a steady 60 FPS no matter where I was in the game.

I fell asleep quite content with my Saturday.  Topping off a solid day of getting stuff done with a new pc purchase gave me the warm and fuzzies.

Despite having more work to do on the computer swap, I hit bed early since I was getting up early to do water support for Michelle.  It was an early bedtime kind of weekend, despite being solo.  I turned off the light before 9pm on Friday night.

I had my alarm set for 5am Sunday however I woke up on my own at 4, how nice.  I figured I would get up and get ready, plus I could do some more computer migration work.  I was supposed to meet up with Michelle at 6:30.  She was actually starting her run at 4am, running around her development. She had a total of 23 miles to cover.

I got there early due to my early wake up.  I figured I would ride around the development and try to find her.  I was unsuccessful, instead I just met her at our designated spot at 6:30.  I was surprised that Michelle had already got 13 miles in and had 10 to go.

I had made some adjustments to make my role as bike support more comfortable.  I pulled the clip pedals off and threw on regular mountain bike pedals.  I also doubled up on my butt padding by wearing my spandex tri shorts under my baggy bike shorts. The two changes definitely helped.

Doing the bike support wasn’t bad at all.  Michelle had a strong run, only really slowing down the last 2-3 miles when the sun was rapidly heating things up. We finished up a little after 8:30.  Michelle thanked me for the support which I was more than happy to do, I know support really helps with runs that are that long.

I had brought stuff along to swim at the water park but I decided against it.  The park didn’t open up for over an hour and I figured I could make better use of my time working more on the computer migration. Instead I grabbed a large coffee from DD and headed home.

A friend of mine had posted a clip of the ending of the Mayweather/Ortiz fight.  It was quite the scene. By all accounts Mayweather was winning the fight easily although in the final round it was pretty apparent that although Mayweather was outpointing Ortiz, he wasn’t really hurting him.

Ortiz actually was putting Mayweather against the ropes a few times, dropping some bombs.  Well during one exchange Ortiz did an obvious, deliberate head butt, a dirty move for sure.  The ref immediately flagged Ortiz for doing so and took a point away.  Ortiz, to his credit,  knew it was shitty, hugged Mayweather and presumably apologized.

So after the ref finished the point deduction he was looking away for some reason.  I don’t know if he ever uttered the command “FIGHT” to signify the resumption of the match.  Well obviously Ortiz thought action was not resumed as he had both of his hands down by his sides as Mayweather smacks him in the face.  Ortiz is obviously surprised by this but instead of putting his hands up, he looks to the ref, I assume to say WTF?? Well Mayweather follows with another punch that lands squarely on Ortiz’s unprotected chin, knocking  him silly.  Ortiz’s hands were clearly down when both punches were delivered. Even if the punches were legal, there was no way to classify them as anything but cheap.  Obviously Ortiz thought time was still out.

So after the controversial finish we are treated to even more fireworks when Larry Merchant interviews Mayweather, asking him the obvious questions about the ending of the fight.  Well a few questions in Mayweather loses it and screams at Merchant, saying he has always been critical of Floyd and that he doesn’t know shit about boxing.   As he walks away from Larry, Merchant fires back that if he was 50 years younger (Larry is pushing 80) he would kick Mayweather’s ass.  It was GREAT.

It was the most interesting thing that I have seen come out of boxing for at least a decade if not more.  You know there HAS to be a rematch.

Despite my best intentions, I was unable to stay awake for the entire Eagles game, falling asleep for good early in the second half.  Watching a game in bed is a recipe for shuteye.  Well it appears I was lucky to miss the ending.

The Eagles had a 31-21 lead going into the 4th quarter and collapsed.  Vick left the game with a concussion in the 3rd quarter but even so, a team with a reasonably solid defense could close that game out. Instead they fell flat and lost a game by all accounts they should have won easily.

Last night during the game they flashed a stat that revealed just how bad the Eagle D was last year and possibly this year.  Last year 76% of the time an opposing offense entered the red zone, they scored a touch down.  The Eagles rated dead last in the league.  In fact, no team in over a decade has posted such a miserable defensive red zone performance.  No wonder Howdy Doody was shown the door. Last night the Eagles set the fail bar even higher, allowing the Falcons to score a TD in all FIVE of their red zone appearances, sad.

It seems the core of this problem is the round robin linebacking crew the Eagles have had the last several years.  This year the Eagles are starting a rookie at MLB, Casey Matthews.  Thus far it seems the only thing he shares with his outstanding LB brother Clay is the long hair.  Casey has been in a word, awful.

The good news I guess is it is early in the season.  Hopefully there is enough time to do something about it.

I was surprised that when I woke up on Sunday my right shoulder was dramatically better.  I hardly felt any pain at all.  It felt so good that I almost went outside and did a bar session but I reconsidered, erring on the side of caution.  The last thing I needed was to injure it again.

I wish I would have a similar miraculous recovery from my right knee issues.  I still have persistent, deep stiffness and soreness in the joint, especially when getting up from the seated position.  It seemed like even biking with Michelle aggravated the knee a bit.  I need to get this sorted out.

So today I receive an email from the president of Netflix, Reed Hastings.  The letter started off being an apology for the recent ridiculous decision to dramatically increase the price of their service essentially doubling the cost to the consumer if they want to have both DVD’s in the mail AND online streaming.   He starts off trying to explain why the change was made. Ok, that’s nice that he is at least making an effort.  However as I read further I was in disbelief.

Reed goes on to explain that Netflix is making further changes to their service, breaking the DVD part of their offering into another entity called Quickster.  Quickster is going to be a totally separate site, while the streaming part of the business will still be called Netflix.

This is an incredibly idiotic move, especially on the back of a price increase that already flushed a number of customers away.  Let me explain why.

Currently when you search for a title you will see if it is available via DVD AND via online streaming.  If it is available via streaming, there would be no reason to wait for the DVD to arrive in the mail.  Well with the new proposed arrangement you would no longer have this ability.  You could wind up renting a DVD in Quickster even though it is available via streaming from Netflix.  The two sites do not interact so the only way you can tell if this is the case is to search both sites.

So Netflix’s brilliant strategy is to RAISE prices and offer LESS convenience.  I don’t know anything about Reed Hastings but if this was his brainchild he is a dipshit, no doubt about it.

I love what Netflix offered me but these recent developments make me think more and more about going without.  I don’t enjoy dealing with stupid companies.