Happy New Year

I will take one day...or two days...from my Cowboys venting/ranting to wish all my readers a HAPPY NEW YEAR!

Another Day, Another Excuse

Two days after the really big loss and it still hurts. And everyone seems to want to blame one person different from the previous person. Cut Romo, because he can't win the big game. Fire Wade Phillips, because he's never won a playoff game. Fire Jason Garrett, because the defense knows his scheme. Cut Terrell Owens, because he's not a team player and will destroy the Cowboys, etc, etc, etc. Some of them I agree with, and others I can't understand.

From someone who's seen all sixteen games minus a couple of halves, I can tell you this, two things contributed to their bad season. Kyle Kosair, starting Guard on the offensive line, was on IR (injured reserve) for most of the season. Tony Romo, the starting QB, can't throw the ball acurately when he has a 250lb linebacker starring him in the face on almost every play. Don't blame Tony Romo, blame he offensive line. The second thing that comes to mind is the lack of innovation on the offense. Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett could no longer fool the defense, and when the defense knows what you are going to do, then you have BIG/HUGE/GINORMOUS problems. And that is what happened.

But that's not the bad thing. The bad thing is that this happens EVERY year! Not the OLG going out for the season, or the OC not being able to fool the defense. No, what I'm referring too is that every season, on person on the offense gets injured and the entire team falls apart. In '06, it was Running Back Julius Jones that was injured and things fell apart. Last year, it was Terrell Owens. This year, it was RB Felix Jones, OLG Kyle Kosair and RB Marion Barber.

On the bright side, Jason Garrett is being courted by Detriot to take over as the Head Coach. Jason, please, take that job.

Dallas
Home: N.Y. Giants, Philadelphia, Washington, Atlanta, Carolina, Seattle, Oakland, San Diego
Away: N.Y. Giants, Philadelphia, Washington, New Orleans, Tampa Bay, Green Bay, Denver, Kansas City

Cowboys = Cubs?

I would like to preface this with the fact that I am a die hard Cowboys fan. I have written before about how the Cowboys are the most loved and the most hated team in the NFL, and I would have to say that I am in the first category. I live and die by the Cowboys every season, and right now, I'm dying. I can't and wont blame Tony Romo. In fact, I believe that he has received a bad wrap for someone else mistake. What is causing this drought? Well, I honestly believe that its not the players, it's the coaches. Offensive Coordinator Jason Garrett, Offensive Line Coach Hudson Houck, and Conditioning Coach Joe Jurazek need to go.

Let's start with the Jason Garrett. Every defense that plays the Cowboys knows what plays are going to be called. There whole point to an offense is that after a while, they start to vary the plays to keep the defense off it's balance. That hasn't happened. For the second week in a row, I heard that the defense knew what was going to be called, before the hiked the ball. Not acceptable. Hudson Houck is back as an offensive line coach, and he couldn't have had a worse year, but at least for him, he has am excuse: Kyle Koisar, and Montre Holland were lost to injuries. Corey Proctor has been outright HORRIBLE! CUT HIM or put him on defense. Joe Jurazek has been the the conditioning coach since 1997...and the Cowboys haven't won a playoff game in all that time. Any other question?

Well, I can't help but say, 'Well, wait 'till next year'. And I have been saying that for two years now. And I'm going to say it again. Next year will be better. (I can say it, but I'm not sure that I believe it)

On another note, my mother suffered what was considered a minor heart attack, but actually it was a rapid heart beat and as taken to the hospital in Lynchburg on Friday. I didn't find out until the next day. She's doing much better now, but I can't say I was scared. I was worried, but for one reason or another I was never scared. Maybe I knew that she would be okay. I hope that was the case.

The Days of No Productivity

This past week has been BORING! I understand why, but to me, the bosses of the world should just give us these days off, because we don't actually do anything anyway. Please bosses of America, let us take the day off instead of us goofing off all week!

Happy Holidays

Just want to wish everyone a Happy Holidays and a Merry Christmas!

Hulu And Netflix...I Love You

I love streaming video. I never did get into it before because it was such a hassle and not optimal for sitting on my couch and holding a computer in my lap, for a long period of time. Netflix was pretty good at having the discs of that season on hand to ship me, so I never felt like it was absolutely necessary to stream it. But that has since changed. Hulu, and Netflix have stepped up to the plate and done something that has completely changed my buying and watching habits. 1. I no longer watch shows that I have on DVD over and over again, which is a shame, considering how much money I have put into that. 2. I can now enjoy watching new content on a daily basis. But there are differences.

I would have to give the upper hand to Netflix for three reasons. You can stream movies off of an Xbox 360 from Netflix (and in some cases in HD) and you can’t (at this time) from Hulu. You can have movies delivered directly to your house from Netflix but not from Hulu (and I don’t think that it will ever be an option). But I think it’s the next part that is most important. Netflix steaming is a MUCH better quality than Hulu. In fact, the comparison isn’t even close. If I watch Hulu on a computer, the image is very rough. Netflix, on the other hand, can stream onto a 50” plasma and look better than some DVD’s I’ve seen.

So, thank you to Netflix and Hulu for giving me things to do while I play!

So Much To Write

I have so much to write, but this being the holiday season, I have absolutely no time to write it all.

The Magic Number

This is my 200th post! W00T!

GOTY

The next episode of Geezer Radio (Skypecast Episode 4: GOTY) is ready for download.

Why Go Home?

Oh, Give me a home...okay, so I won’t ever win American Idol, but I do have something to get off my chest about Sony’s new, revolutionary, totally, like, awesome service: Home. When you first boot up your PS3, you don’t get any kind of prompt that asks you to download it, instead you need to go to the PlayStation Store and enter a code in order to download it (I got into the Beta and that’s probably why I had to do it that way). That was the intro to my experience to Home. I wish it were easier, but for the PS3, nothing including games, playing online and those pain in the ass monthly downloads to update my firmware has ever been easy. And guess what; creating an Avatar isn’t easy either. As opposed to my 360 Avatar that was fun and easy, this one was close to creating an exact digital copy of yourself. You could customize just about every facet of your avatar, which is both tedious and time consuming.

Once that’s finish, your prompted to go directly into your Home. I must admit, when I first saw my “Home”, I was immediately jealous that it wasn’t my real home. I had a great view of a beautiful harbor with sail boats and yachts and the most beautiful water that came in close second to the beauty of St. Maartin’s crystal clear water. But, with a 50” plasma and an HDMI connector, what would you expect. I thought that I had lucked out and gotten a primo spot, but it turns out that a lot of other gamers got the exact same thing. Although, I should have been disappointed, I just said, “Figures.”

There is only a couple things you could do in your “home” and that mainly consisted of dancing to no music, watching a bubble machine, re-arrange furniture and sit on the porch and listen to the digital birds chirping somewhere in the distance. I decided to venture out and enjoy some company, so I tried to venture out my door. I was met with a “Please download Central Plaza 39.5 MB”. Okay, so I had to wait for that. After a few minutes, I walked back to the door and ventured out for my first trip into the Home world. I was impressed for about three minutes, and that consisted of three minutes of watching a trailer on a GIANT jumbotron-sized TV that was showing a game trailer for the PS3 (nice product placement, Sony). I then ventured out and saw the theater and was surprised that all I could do was watch a making of trailer for SOCOM: Confrontation. After that I went to the mall and looked at all the empty shops. Then it was on to the bowling alley, but I didn’t go in there. After being disappointed for ten full minutes, I decided to socialize so I walked to a little outside dance floor and started to dance, although, it wasn’t that successful, because no one was paying attention to me (all the other guys were huddled around these two women). So, I decided to just pack it in.

What a waste of my time. I didn’t buy a PS3 so that I can walk around in a virtual world an be absolutely bored. I could have caught a movie, but it was just some making of video and didn’t offer me the option of watching something I wanted. Not only that, but it wasn’t even private, which makes me believe that going forward, all the movies that they will be showing, will not be chosen by me. So much for a user controlled world. Let’s just call Home, what it really is: One Big Advertisement for Sony.

Future Weapon Used

I read today that the police in Italy were being harassed by laser weapons! WOW! So it has begun! I think this is both awesome and frightening. On the one hand, I like the fact that people have found a use for laser weapons. On the other hand, it’s scary because someone, outside of the military, has USED these weapons in an aggressive way. These “attacks” on the Italy police were only to blind them, but if you amplify them with a higher power battery, you could have a weapon that can kill. What makes a laser more dangerous than a gun? Lasers can shoot in hurricane force winds without any effect on the beam, there is no kick-back from firing it and in zero atmosphere no visible trace. AND its ultra portable and very dangerous if used at higher powers. Imagine a man sitting on the shore of a beach, and takes out this weird looking gun. Takes aim at an airplane and fires. Next thing you hear is that 200+ people died in a plane “accident”, and there is NO explanation to why the plane crashed. Scary!

A Lot Of Thoughts

I have a lot of thoughts rumbling through my head, but no time to organize them. Maybe I will one of these days, but I don't think it's going to be today.

Thoughts on my mind;
PlayStation Home
Dallas' Victory over the Giants
Smart Phones...

Anyway, look for those in the upcoming days...unless I don't get time to write them up.

No Fantasy, No Problem

This is the first year in many, probably 9, that I haven’t played fantasy football, and you know what? I don’t miss it at all. It’s like a pain in your body. When it’s gone, you don’t remember what it was like or how it felt. So Happy.

Finally Cracked 18,000

I finally got to 18,000 in Gamerscore. It wasn't easy and that's what makes it so satisfying. This time, I actually played through tough games like Gears of War 2, Fable 2 and Left 4 Dead to get there. Now, 19,000 and then the next step 20,000. I just hope that I get a couple games that motivate me to play them all the way through and get the achievements.

This reminds me, MS put in Achievements so that I/we could feel like we accomplished something. Most of the time, I feel like achievements are just something that makes me want to play a game, but this past 1000 points, it actually seemed like I accomplished something. But I think the most enjoyable/worthy 1000 Gamerscore I ever earned was playing COD2 on Veteran. That was hard!

More Numbers

1 - number of days before PlayStaion Home is released for an open beta

15 - number of days until Christmas Day

4.4 - the magnitude of the Earthquake that hit Central California

2 - number of days until the weekend

5 - number of posts until I hit 200 for this blog

GR Episode 16

...is now available for download.

The Numbers

7 - posts I need before I have 200.

50 - more gamerscore until I hit 18,000.

$1.44 - the lowest price of gas.

7 - how many points the Cowboys lost by.

10 - how many points the Cowboys led by halfway into the 4th quarter.

1 - the number of women that make my heart skip when I see them.

25 - the age of the one woman that makes my heart skip.

Blackout!

I was playing Left 4 Dead last night and I had a ball. That game is one of the more amusing fun games that I have played in some time. The purpose of this game is to get from one point to the next and kill everything not human in between. In these days of story based games and the attempt at creating a movie that you can play, this game takes the opposite direction and gives you nothing but running and gunning. It also offers great 4-player co-op and a new take on versus.

But the game does have one minor flaw. When playing 4-player co-op online, for some reason, when you disconnect the power to the router and modem, you can’t continue playing online with your friends. How did I find this out? Well, my wonderful wife, who I love very much, decided to take the blow dryer downstairs because there was a better mirror in the downstairs bathroom, and that resulted in blowing the circuit breaker for the router...and modem...and everything else downstairs.

But other than that, the game is a gem and might come in as a game of the year candidate.

My Angst with Comcast

Since I teased you with my issue with Comcast Cable Internet yesterday, I will today share with my faithful listeners about why I am not happy with Comcast’s Cable Internet policies.

And I am sure that some of you can agree that they aren’t the best policy for customers who pay hard earned money for a good service (one that I will have a hard time giving up, but more on that later) that will cut you off for a year if you use too much bandwidth for two months in a row or throttle you if you are using too much bandwidth at the same time your neighbors are using it heavily also (if I understood the e-mail correctly).

Now, first, let me start off by saying that 250GB cap limit is REALLY generous, and I applaud them for going with that huge limit. And in order to better manage their customer’s usage, they have to limit their customers to 250GB per month. But no matter what they say about it being better for their network, I seriously don’t think it’s necessary for them to cut you off for a full year if you go over that cap for two months (and another oddity, it’s not two times in one year or two months in a row, it’s two months...period. So theoretically, I could have gone over it in November and stayed under that cap for three years and then go over it again in July of 2011, and they would cut off my service per their policy). I would prefer them charge me more per month, but that’s not their policy, apparently. Why not charge me five dollars for every 10 GB’s that I go over? That seems fair to me. Cutting me off for a year means that I wouldn’t have any other choice but to go to a competitor and use them for the rest of my life. I wouldn’t mind switching to Verizon DSL, now that they have 7Mbps down on their DSL. That is just about as good as I was getting from Comcast, and some could say that it’s a better service because Verizon doesn’t have a bandwidth cap. Not only that, it would be an easy switch to their FiOS service when it becomes available.

As for the throttling me when my neighbors and I use too much, well, that is another bad decision. Why? Well, I don’t see any reason to throttle me just because I am using a lot of bandwidth while the people in my neighborhood are doing the same thing. What if I were in the middle of an online computer course that relied on streaming video? Then I get throttled and miss my work. Or worse, I get throttled in the middle of a timed test that required a video to download/stream. I just see it as a way for Comcast to really annoy its customers and force them to go else where with their business.

I really hope that Comcast would come to their senses and remove the clause about being cut off for a full year. The rest I can deal with (yes, even the throttling issue doesn’t bother me as much) and remain happy. But for them to cut me off entirely for a year for two violations is just wrong. One question, though, if they cut me off, are they still going to charge me for that year?

Comcast Does Care!?!?

Some of you that listen to Geezer Radio on a regular basis know that I’m not a big fan of Comcast Internet because of their bandwidth cap and now throttling policy. (I’ll get into those thoughts in a different post) No matter what I have to think about those two policies, I have to give them props on their excellent customer service. I don’t know how many of you are on Twitter, but Comcast Frank and Comcast George are on the ball for their unusually good and friendly conversations (or in Twitter speak: tweets). Not only are they attentive to a person’s (customers) needs, they are people who talk about who they are and the struggles they face in everyday life, whether it be being a Eagles fan or going to jury duty. If you are on twitter and have Comcast, follow them and if you have a problem, they WILL listen to you. I know personally how much they are willing to help. I’ve tweeted with both of them and exchanged e-mails with both of them.

They WILL listen (unless you talk about the Dallas Cowboys) and they WILL help in whatever way they can. I welcome either one of them to come onto Geezer Radio for a chat.

AnGrrrr(ER)!

What in the name that is all holy and decent is the motivation for people to be putting the ER onto words that shouldn’t have it? Do you know what I mean? Over Thanksgiving, I heard my sister-in-law say that it was “funner”. Not sure what she was talking about, but I did hear her say the word “funner”. I rolled my eyes and nearly corrected her, but decided not too, but I couldn’t help but wonder why this is becoming popular. Apple (the computer company, not the fruit) has an ad “iPod Touch. The funnist iPod ever” that is, in essence, telling kids (youth and young adults alike) that it's okay to be seen as stupid and that it will not make you look stupider. Who thought that this would be a good idea? Apple (and other companies) is leading the way for bad grammar in today's youth.

With that said, is the word Google a verb? Yes it is, according to the dictionary. I can understand how people would want to use words like funner and funnist, but to me it is considered stupid and immature, and you will NOT hear my children saying things like that...at least until they are 18. And yet, there is a part of me that says let the kids have fun, but if you think this, please ask yourself if you would put that in a Résumé or a company report that you will be distributed? In other words, keep me sane and don’t use those words. Thank you!

The Crying Time

Have you ever found it funny that you can tell what your spouse is thinking or doing just by hearing a noise or two from their general direction? For those of us that are married, being in such close proximity all the time gives us a unique perspective on how and what they can do at any given time. Case in point: Friday night we were in bed and I was reading a book. I heard her sniffle. Not one of the quick one’s either. This was a long drawn out sniffle and there is usually only one reason that she is doing this. I turned my head and asked if she was crying. She responded no, but when she turned her head, I saw a tear on her nose. I then asked her why the top of her nose was wet, and she started balling. For the instant second that she had been crying and balling, I ran back through my day and all the things that I did. Not one of them was bad, at least to me. It turned out, though, that it wasn’t anything I did. The next day, I told the story to my mother and the first question out of my mother’s mouth was, “When was the last time she took a pregnancy test?” I rolled my eyes and closed my mouth for the rest of that day...

Could it be? I told the same story to my co-worker and he said the same thing... I think we may be on to something.

Oh, and how was everyone's Thanksgiving? Did you get stuffed on the stuffings?