January 23rd, 2007
The past week, MLB sold exclusive broadcast rights for their MLB Extra Innings package to DirectTV.
I’ve gotten MLB Extra Innings for the past 3 years, but since I have Time-Warner, that’s going to be a large stumbling blcok for me to get it a 4th year… UNLESS, I get DirectTV installed.
If I get DirectTV, I’d also be able to watch the NFL Network and ESPNU (which I expect will continue to broadcast some UNC games)
This also hits me just as I’m considering getting an HDTV setup…
This “perfect storm” makes me think that by the end of it, I’ll be paying ~$2500+ to get a nice HDTV and DirectTV.
Then, I’ll be paying ~$200/Month for DirectTV, HDTiVo service, Internet, and Phone (since we’ll probably have to move to Bellsouth for DSL).
Plus: the $200 yearly cost to get the Extra Innings package.
Ugh. That’s alot of money… Especially for someone who proclaims that he’d like to not have a TV in the house… (I watch sporting events, the Simpsons, and PTI)
Suggestions welcome!
Posted in Sports, TV | No Comments »
December 1st, 2006
Y’know what’s a weird juxtaposition?
Walking around my neighborhood in shorts and short-sleeves while seeing Christmas lights.
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October 5th, 2006
Time Warner recently went with the nuclear option for their Road Runner offering… They apparently disallowed any outside connections from coming into my house which effectively caused Askingforthirds to be offline.
Now, this is within the license agreement, but it certainly was painful to discover and work around.
This past weekend, Erin and I went to be with my family for Yom Kippur and that was a good opportunity to move the box to my Dad’s Time Warner “Business Class” connection.
Now there was not a lot of time to set the machine up, so I ended up working on Yom Kippur.
You hear that Time Warner! You’ve caused me to be a lousy Jew!
Anyway, I did get it set up, and now we should be back.
Now, I’m going to look into getting a different Internet provider for my home since Time Warner seems pretty expensive and the only reason I was keeping them was to keep the network connection to Askingforthirds continuous.
Now I don’t have to worry about that.
Posted in Rants, Site News | No Comments »
June 20th, 2006
Apparently, Queen snuck a backwards message into ‘Another One Bites the Dust’. (Either intentionally or unintentionally)
I listened to this before reading the wikipedia entry and I couldn’t hear any message.
After reading the wikipedia entry, though, it was clearer.
Is this intentional? I dunno. But it is neat.
Another one bites the Dust backwards
The wikipedia explanation of what you’re hearing
(via Mike Kruckenburg’s Weblog)
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May 22nd, 2006
This past weekend my family flew into Philadelphia for my second cousin’s Bar Mitzvah.
While we were there, we stayed at the Four Seasons Hotel (ooh-lah-lah).
As soon as Erin and I got in, we were very hungry. We asked the concierge where we could get a good burger. He recommended a place 6 blocks down from the hotel. It was a place called Rouge’s. I was a bit skeptical since it cost $15, but they had a display on the front of their restaurant that said their burgers were one of the “20 burgers to try before you die”.
That seemed like a pretty good endorsement, so we went in to give it a try. The burgers were indeed great. To paraphrase Pulp Fiction: “I don’t know if they’re worth 15 dollars, but their pretty fricking good hamburgers”.
That night, we were surprised to see that the Red Sox (who were in town to play my favorite team the Phillies that weekend) were staying at the Four Seasons.
Manny Ramirez, David Ortiz, and Curt Schilling were all staying at our hotel!
I didn’t want to bother them since they were obviously just trying to relax (or perhaps because I was just timid), but my sister was fearless and caught Manny in the elevator and asked him for his autograph. Since she didn’t really care about the BoSox particularly, she gave me the autograph.
On Saturday, the family went to Joey’s Bar Mitzvah and the party afterwards.
On Sunday, my family went to Citizen’s Bank Ballpark to watch the Phillies/Red Sox game. I sat in left field and watched the Phillies finally stop their 5 game losing skid by winning 10-5. (Hooray!)
Posted in Raves, Sports | No Comments »
April 3rd, 2006
Toward the end of last week I actually got out of the house… in stark contrast to just reading books (I’m already up to 18 for the year)
On Thursday night, I got a call to go to the Ben Folds concert at Raleigh Grand with a coworker from my old job at webslingerZ… The concert was pretty good (although I’ve seen better performances from him).
On Friday night, I received complimentary Hurricanes tickets from my current employer Red Hat and took Abby and Steve to see the ‘Canes secure the Southeast Division title over the Florida Panthers (mostly due to a poor play by the Panther’s goalie).
And on Saturday morning, I finally put the old condo at Weatherstone on the market (with our realtor’s help).
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January 1st, 2006
Erin and I just bought a house:
See some pictures of our new house
We’d like to give a big thanks to Jo Wiles (our agent) of Guld and Associates who helped make it happen. (As well as our parents who know a thing or two about house-buying and maintenance)
Now, there are two things on our agenda:
We need to sell or rent my old condo at 108C Weatherstone Drive. $750/month would be what I charged for rent or we would be willing to sell the condo for $115,000. If you know someone who’s interested, send them my way. I’d be interested in references if you would like to rent.
We’re also looking to move in to the new place by February 5th so that I can continue my streak of hosting Super Bowl parties.
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January 1st, 2006
I was able to accomplish the goal I set in early 2004 this year.
I read 50+ books in 2005.
The list says 52 books, but that includes a couple of children’s books that I have a hard time counting toward my goal.
Strangely, 45 of the books are Non-Fiction, 7 books (including the two children’s books) were fiction. That’s more skewed than I would have thought!
Posted in Books, Raves | 5 Comments »
November 15th, 2005
I’m giving some space to Google‘s AdSense on the right side. I don’t know whether this will generate any revenue, but I’d like to see where this leads.
Why put ads on my blog?
Two reasons:
1) Askingforthirds is getting expensive to keep up. I recently had to buy a new drive for the box that it’s hosted on, and that made me realize that I’d like to see Askingforthirds.org become self-sustaining so it’s less of a charity and thus make it easier to justify the amount of time and money I spend making it go.
2) I like Google. I think they do neat things. I’d like to be a part of what they’re doing.
Hopefully, the ads won’t be too intrusive. I went with something that seemed tasteful. Let me know if this interferes with your enjoyment of this website.
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November 8th, 2005
Some time ago, I went on a weekend rafting trip with my (then-new) employer Red Hat.
During that weekend, my wife decided she had had enough of the wallpaper in our upstairs (primary) bathroom and proceeded to tear it down. This required taking down the mirror and the other fixtures that were on the walls.
Her plan was to prime the walls and paint them.
That was a year and a half ago.
As of two weeks ago, the walls were still bare and the bathroom had only been (partially) primed.
This is why if you’ve seen me over the past year and a half, you’ll notice that I have a lot more (and scragglier) facial hair than I ought to. This is the reason! It’s really hard to shave without a mirror.
Erin and I had both took some time to try to fix the bathroom, but it just ended in frustration. For my part, it was a big job and I’ve never painted a room before and didn’t want to mess it up to the point that I hurt the property’s value.
Anyway, we had Mr. Handyman fix our bathroom in half-a-day and I must say it does look better than the wallpaper did.
Posted in Raves | No Comments »