Super Bowl sum-up

Two teams I didn't care about. Commercials that weren't that interesting. The game itself was OK, with a pretty good second half and a wild finish, but I will say that every possible call went the Steelers' way. I still would have called the INT return down at about the 1-foot line, because it seemed clear to me that his body touched before the ball crossed the line. I also think the final play was an incomplete pass (I think it wouldn't have made a difference - they needed a touchdown and had, at best, one more play after that).

The one sidenote to the INT was this: If you watch the play, Fitzgerald just sort of loafs in the end zone for a few seconds instead of trying to make a play on the defender. Finally, after he runs it out about 20 yards Fitzgerald takes off after him and makes the play in the end - had he gone right after him that play might never have gotten down to the end zone in the first place. I'm just sayin'.

It was a fun night, though - Super Bowl parties are always more entertaining as parties when teams I don't care about are in it. Our son is absolutely dragging this morning (he still made it to school, though) even though he slept in the car on our way home.

Newsflash

Downloading pirated software from a BitTorrent feed is likely to infect your system with a trojan. Even if you have a Mac. Don't do it.

Keep using your Mac for your pirated music, movies, tv, and porn, though. Media piracy is safer on a Mac. Believe it or not, though, the only thing I do that even vaguely breaks the rules is I take my legitimately purchased DVDs and rip them to .MP4 files so I can put them on my AppleTV. I don't share them, and I don't rip discs I don't own. I pay for my music, use TiVo for my TV, and, well, I've been on the Internet long enough that porn just isn't all that big a deal. So my advice to you in sentence one of this paragraph? I don't even follow it.

My main point in telling you all this is that I've never had one of my systems infected by any form of malware. PC or Mac. Ever. It's easy to do. Just use an ad-blocker on your browser (I prefer AdBlock Plus on Firefox, cross-platform - or SafariBlock on Mac), keep anti-virus software current on a PC (AVG, Trend, and Kapersky are all ones I like), and don't believe anything you get via e-mail. Then resist the temptation to click on links that offer you forbidden temptations, say "no" when something you didn't explicitly load asks you for a password (the biggest reason Macs are usually safer) and bang - you're all set and safe.

That way you don't have to pay me (or worse, Geek Squad!) to come and fix it for you. Yay!

About frakkin' time

We now officially have a non-suckass President.  It's been 8 years since we had one of those.  Boo-yah!

That, and David lost his first tooth this past Saturday.  That's got more immediate impact upon my life, but having Obama as President'll help too.

Apple TV, Day 2

So my holiday gift from Jane was an Apple TV (well, actually it was a gift card to buy the Apple TV because she thought an Apple TV was an actual TV set and figured she couldn't carry it). I set it up yesterday, immediately hacked it to add Boxee, and then I embarked on a project.

The project: take my DVD collection and put as much of it as I can on the Apple TV (I got the 160GB version). Handbrake has done a quick job of it (though the newer version isn't working right on my iMac, so I'm using the 0.92 version on my MacBook Pro for now). I've ripped four movies so far (Stop Making Sense, Monty Python & the Holy Grail, Real Genius, and Apollo 13), and will do more over the weekend. I've loaded more movies on this than I have on my DVD jukebox!

I haven't done any movie rentals yet, though. Coming soon. At some point I may try and hack a bigger drive into it, too. Nice device.

Perfect storm...

The economy's diving into the crapper, the peak energy prices from last year, and the collapse of the auto industry have combined to give motorsports a big kick in the teeth in 2009. F1 isn't coming to North America at all this year (their only trip to the Western Hemisphere is the Sao Paulo race in October), NASCAR's truck series had to get a discount sponsor (Camping World) after Sears pulled out, Indycar is still feeling aftereffects of the Champ Car merger, and in Sprint Cup at least 3 of last year's teams have closed shop entirely (the 01, 15, and 40). Besides that, in the world of Cup we've also seen several teams merge to survive, dropping teams in the process.

- DEI merged with Ganassi, switching Ganassi to Chevy from Dodge in the process

- As of today, Petty has merged with Gillett Evernham, going from a 5-6 car team to 4 cars (only the #43 of Petty will make the move)

- Bill Davis Racing was sold and may not run in 2009

- Furniture Row Racing will only run part-time with 1 car (they had been 1 full-time, 1 part-time)

- The former Wood Brothers #47 is now an affiliate team of Michael Waltrip Racing. GOod for them, because without that Waltrip goes from 3 cars down to 2 (the #00 team was shut down, though the number is being moved to the former #44 team)

- The #4 team is gone (Morgan-McClure)

- The Wood Brothers have kept the #21, but now it'll be a part-time car

- Several races (most notably the Watkins Glen race) have lost sponsorship

Basically, in 2007 there were as many as 8 cars being turned away each Sunday. Last year, there were a couple of cars most weeks that didn't qualify, but the cast varied. In 2009, there will be a few races where NASCAR will be lucky to get a full field of 43.

In other motorsports, Honda is closing their F1 team, and both Subaru and Suzuki pulled out of World Rally Championships.

New Hampshire Motor Speedway sends us a Christmas card every year, by the way. Just thought I should mention it.

Idle thoughts going into this new year

In March, my company will have made it to 5 years in business. I'm not sure if I expected to make it there, but that's sobering. When I worked at the insurance company, I only was there a few months past 5 years before getting laid off (in the last downturn), and I was at the company before that a hair less than six years. So this is historically about my shelf life, except this time I should make it the whole way through my career. Which is both sobering and cool at the same time.

Wow.

On a much lighter note, my son will turn seven this spring. And I was thinking tonight about things I grew up with as a child that are utterly alien to him now. And all the things he has that I never even imagined. For instance:

- He will never know what the Central Artery was like.
- When we went to Florida back in November, he asked why we were stopping at the tollbooth. We never have to do that. Ever.
- He's never seen a cassette tape. And he doesn't remember what a videocassette was, either.
- There hasn't been a film camera in this house used regularly (including my poor neglected Nikon 6006) since about 2000. Virtually all his friends have digital.
- Though he has some CDs, he's not used to using them. He uses iTunes.
- TV in David's world can always be paused. He even knows how to operate the TiVo.
- I had my first computer (an Apple IIc with a monochrome monitor) when I was 18. He's had a Mac since he was 2.
- Videoconferencing. He can talk to my parents or his cousins on the Mac anytime he wants to. Even though they are all in different states.
- He thinks everyone keeps their phone in their pocket. The first time he saw a payphone it was confusing for him.
- Rotary-dial phones. WTF?
- He thinks most cars have DVD players or nav systems built-in.
- When I was a kid? Walkmans were a big deal. I got my first one as a teenager. For him - iPods are cool, but he wants one that plays movies.
- He takes the Internet for granted. Everywhere.
- And he's never seen a vinyl record.
- I believe I was a teenager when we got a microwave oven. He know how to operate ours.
- Doesn't every kid carry a game console in their pocket, along with their cell phone?
- What's a floppy disk?

Sox Talk

I heard from my agent that the Yankees are about to offer me a $4 million contract if I don't rip them here, so I won't. Why not take it? After all, they're operating in a financial realm that no other team - not even the Red Sox or Mets - can fathom, apparently. They can afford it, it seems.

As much of an advantage as the Red Sox have over almost all the other teams (the Mets, Angels, and possibly the Orioles are the only other teams in the top tier of financial capacity, and you have to discount the Orioles because they're owned by a douchebag), the Yankees have over them. Which puts the Yankees a full quantum jump ahead of all the rest of baseball. Just the first 16 players on their current roster are going to be making about $185 million combined next year.

Basically, the best hope for Boston (and Tampa) is to see if this year becomes like the last time the Yankees tried to assemble a team by buying all the players in sight. It resulted in 15 years of mediocrity until they started developing minor-league talent during Steinbrenner's suspension. People think of the 1977-1978 Yankees as the first teams that bought titles. Really, there were two truly high-profile free agents on those teams - Reggie Jackson and Catfish Hunter. Other than that the teams were mainly assembled through trades and minor-leaguers that they developed. The return to prominence they had in the 1990s was pretty much the same thing - good trades, developing talent, and a couple of hired guns to fill the holes. This Yankees team is becoming an all-star squad, and I really wonder if they can break the Curse of A-Rod. I wasn't nuts about the Red Sox trying to sign Mark Teixeira (I was happy with the lineup as-is - assuming a healthy David Ortiz at DH and a healthy Mike Lowell), but I really thought he'd wind up in Washington or Baltimore.

Also worth noting - Scott Boras is evil. I think he stays young by drinking the blood of virgin gneral managers. And I stand by that opinion regardless of whether or not any of his players sign with Boston.

Summary of the last two months

C'mon everyone, pay your bills!

Weekend down the Cape

Halloween party!

America is back, baby!

Ahh, vacation...

David takes Manhattan!

Sick of crappy headsets!

Lots of new customers

Snow, ice, bleh.

In-laws come to visit

Hurry up and wrap the gifts!

And that brings us up to date...

Cry for help

Not me per se - I'm cool right now.  My cry is for a Bluetooth headset that doesn't suck in any way at all.  I've tried damn near all of them, really I have.  Here's the (short) list of features I want:

- Reasonably lightweight.  It doesn't have to be so small people mistake it for a vitamin tablet.  Just light enough so it doesn't hurt my ear.

- No need to stick in my ear.  My ears don't hold devices that well, anyways (I can't use iPod earbuds - they slip right out).  Give me a decent ear loop and I'll be fine.

- The ear loop should be small, but solid, and have enough play so I can actually wrap it properly around my ear.  And I need to wear sunglasses with it.

- Gimmick-free noise cancellation.  No weird probes in contact with my flesh.

- Good volume and easy adjustment.

- Battery life giving me at least 6 hours of talk time.  Standby doesn't matter as much - I plug it in every night.

- Either no blinking light, or one that's off by default.  It's bad enough I wear a headset all day.  I don't want to look like a cyborg when I do so.

- Range good enough that I can leave the phone in my pocket and not worry about static.

- Tough enough to toss in my jacket pocket or backpack without breaking it.

- Buttons that don't accidentally turn it on if I breathe heavy when I have it in my coat.

- A solid enough fit that I can put the thing on and use it without worrying that it's going to go flying off my face as soon as I turn my head.

Virtually all the ones I've tried flunk in some way or another.  I'm still using them anyways, but it's a huge pain in the neck.  Here's the current state of what I have:

- Jawbone 2: Sound is good, battery life is good, but it always feels like it's going to fall off.  And I have to use the old earpiece from the Jawbone 1 to hold it even half-securely.  Plus the little contact is always coming loose from my face.

- BlueAnt Z9i: Good performance, horrible earhooks.  The original Z9 fit somewhat better for some reason.

- BlueAnt V1: See above.  I was able to get an old earhook from a headset I used back in the Stone Age to fit into it and that helped a little, but the fit is still horrid.

- Motorola H15: I'm sending this one back.  Great promise, mediocre fit, horrible connections.  Maybe I just got a dud, but people were hanging up on me when I used it.

- Plantronics 520: Not horrible.  Blinks like a Cylon, looks a little too conspicuous, and I had to hack up the earpiece so it wouldn't cause pain.  But it fits OK now, the sound is pretty good, and the battery will last about a month.  I can leave it in my car for weeks and keep using it when I need to.

We've already established (through about 8 years of posts) that I am a Bluetooth Whore of the worst sort.  But I'm really kind of surprised that the market just hasn't built one that's a no-brainer for me yet.  Meanwhile, I'm struggling to get as close as I can to the right headset - so I keep buying them and keep rotating them in and out of my collection.  I've also given away a few over the years.

What I find myself doing of late is using the built-in Bluetooth in my car more and more, and leaving a headset in my pocket (the 520, usually) for the rest of the time.

Someday...

(It's been a nice last month since I posted - I'll write about it sometime this week or so)

Welcome back, America...

I feel like our country just took a nice, refreshing shower. We're clean again. The dirt of the last eight years is starting to swirl down the drain.