cycling.finial.com

Not, it’s a not a hallowe’en costume.

Caution for extra grossness.

I broke down and bought mlbtv’s postseason special. It seems to be the only way to avoid vapid “debates”, financial meltdown news, and political commercials.

I was afraid they’d force an install of MS Silverlight, but it doesn’t. It uses an embeded MS media player (same as Netflix)  The quality seems pretty good. The commercials a blanked out but not cut out, so there’s however many minutes of “Ballgame in Progress…” blank screen for the duration of the commercial. In-game commercials are still there.

They have 400k, 800k feeds of the game from both the home tv station (NESN for the Sox, usually) and away stations, plus the home radio station (WRKO or WEEI for the Sox) and away station, plus alternate feeds for each (usually Spanish language).

The series games are not available for live video, but the audio is. Archives for the season are available, but I’m not sure when this offer ends. On some pages it sounds like it will end at the end of the World Series, on other pages it sounds like it ends at the end of February (right before 2009 spring training).

But for $10, it’s worth the experiment. Certainly cheaper than Comcast. Right now I’m watching the Aug 12 BOS v. TEX game that ended up 19 - 17 with the 10 run first.

We’ll see how it goes.

[netflix] [IMDb]

Geeky David (Tobey Maguire) and slutty Jennifer (Reese WItherspoon) are argumentative siblings. The current argument is over what to watch on TV. David wants to watch a “Pleasantville” marathon, a sort of Mayberry/ Leave it to Beaver/ Father Knows Best type of idylic 1950s nirvana. Jennifer is expecting a hot date and wants a movie to make out to. During their argument, the remote control is smashed and the TV won’t work without it. Miracle of miracles, a TV repairman (Don Knotts) comes to the door with a new remote which sends the pair to the “actual” Pleasantville where they take the places of the two main child characters in the family rounded out by George (William H Macy) and Betty (Joan Allen) Parker.

Throughout the film, which begins in black and white, small bits of color are introduced as the two iconoclastic teens introduce forbidden, or at least unspoken, topics such as “What’s outside of Pleasantville” and sex and art. It’s a clever device and works very well. The plot, though, is predictable. It’s a pleasant movie, pleasantly acted, and pleasant to watch. It’s … pleasant. The outcome is unsurprizing, and some of the homages in the film were heavy handed. Echoing the To Kill a Mockingbird trial to David’s trial about using unauthorized colors in artwork? Please.

But it’s a film that’s easy to watch and has some very good acting, particularly Joan Allen. The one big fault in the film is the musical score. This is another of those where the music is way too loud and pushy. A film score is supposed to support the film, not stomp all over it.

Can you believe it?

It was the wrong outcome, but it was an exciting game, mostly. It was also very long. I didn’t get home until 1:30 and the game started at 7:30. Their first half inning alone was ½ hour. Yipes! Beckett was so slow in his setups, he runs the risk of taking away Carlton “The Human Rain Delay” Fisk’s nickname. You knew it was not going to be good when Beckett’s very first pitch was hit for a double, and it took 30 pitches to get out of the first inning. Twelve innings later, it was 5-4. And it was, like, 20° below.

But credit the defense. They had more than double our hits yet were held to “only” one extra run.  But there were some very bad mistakes. Beckett covering first completely missed the bag. Pedroia made a pretty good catch off a line drive, but nobody was covering first, so he had no one to throw to. Bad. Ellsbury blundered stealing 2d and that should never have happened. The refs blew quite a few calls, but it looked like the flubs were pretty equally divided.

So the series stands at 3-1, next game tonight. Tonight is also darts, so I’m sure everyone’s attention will be divided.

They’re going to have to play better than this if they want to make it to the series. True, you can’t sweep every series, and this did go 12 before there was a winner, but there was some sloppy play out there.

Great game, but man am I dragging today. I thought Joe Castiglione was going to blow a gasket.

Okay, ppls, it’s time to schedule Sunday’s game. I can only guess it will be a night game so those people out there can get to bed on time. But I suppose there’s an outside chance that Sunday’s game might be the clincher!

A shame about the Cubs loss, though. I’d like to see the Dodgers whomped.

Lost. Won.

Played two games: doubles cricket (lost), singles 301 (won). The team lost, 5-2 against, what I was told, is one of the best teams. The other win was the team captain in singles cricket. I also scored “tonnage” (if that’s how you say it) of 122 points. Or maybe Ton-22?

It’s better when you win.

Man, have I been having some weird dreams. And what’s even weirder is I’m remembering some of them.

Like last night.

It was something out of a David Lynch movie.

Somehow, I, specifically my arms, became infested with what I understood to be chiggers. Except they were black, and I could watch them burrow into my skin like some tiny sand flea. There they would continue to burrow and scurry around.

I could get rid of them with a topical application of Listerine®. It skin around the burrow site would bubble and percolate a purple-black ooze and the stunned chigger would upwell. But if it wasn’t wiped away quickly enough, it would burrow again. You had to be fast to get rid of them and the success rate wasn’t high, and most of them started digging again.

This went on for quite some time with no resolution.

Then the construction workers downstairs woke me up.

Weird.

I scored tickets to the ALDS home game 1.

It will be either October 1, October 2, or (most likely) October 5, depending on where the final standings end up. Of course, they could totally collapse and not make the playoffs, but that’s unlikely as the magic number right now is one. If they can’t win one game out of six against Cleveland or NYY, then they have no business in the playoffs.

Seats are in Section G4.

They only let you buy two tickets and they were pretty spendy, so now I have a big decision to make.

I can be bought! Maybe.

I won and won and lost.

I was wrong in trying to remember what games are played. There is team 601 (three per side), two doubles cricket, three singles 301, and one singles cricket making seven games total.

This week I did team 601 (won), doubles cricket (won), and singles cricket (lost). The team lost 2-5. My first singles game and I lost. My consolation is that I lost against the best of the other team’s players.

Still, it’s more fun when you win.

I got invited to a barbecue by one of the NEC people up in Derry, Nuh Hampshah yesterday. I pondered for a bit and decided to take the SS. It’s about 10 miles from the Haverhill commuter rail stop. There was “switching trouble” just before Lawrence, so the train got in about ½ hour late. At least the engineer wasn’t texting.

It took about 1:15 to get there, mostly because I had a bit of trouble getting out of Haverhill. Apparently, Haverhill doesn’t believe in street signs, so it was really hard to tell where I was. The only thing I could see was “Washington St” which, I thought at the time, was the road I was supposed to take. It wasn’t. I was supposed to take Washington AVE., which is the little side street next to the depot. Whoever heard of a Washington St, Ave, Blvd, or any other Washington that isn’t a main street?

I got cruised on the train! Probably a rent boi, he looked about 20. I suppose I could have asked directions…

Anyway, it took a bit of spinning around before I found Rte 97, but it was smooth sailing from there. I had the GPS with me, but it’s not terribly useful as a map. Great for telling you when turns are coming up, and passable as a map out in the rural areas, but in the middle of a city, the streets are so close together that it’s easy to get the wrong street, especially when you don’t notice the difference between Street and Avenue, and when the Avenue is not marked. See the problem?

It’s a bit hlly, but only one really significant hill, especially for the SS. Downhill on the way there, uphill on the way back. Topo tells me it tops out at 13%. RIght before Rte 111, the bridge was out. And it was really out. Sometimes they’re only out for cars and you can still walk across, but this was a pretty steep ravine with an unknown amount of mucky looking water at the bottom, so there was no way to cross. Luckily, there was a woman sunbathing at the previous corner, so I asked her how to get around it. It was about a 2 mile detour (which could have been a bit shorter if I’d had a map).

I got there about 2:00. People couldn’t believe I’d ridden there!?!?! It’s only 10 miles (although they did think I’d ridden all the way from Boston when I first pulled up). The bad news was that the return train was to leave at 4:15, so it didn’t leave much time to socialize. And I didn’t get any food! Just some chips and celery sticks. They were just putting food on the grill when I had to leave. But the next train wasn’t until 7:30 which would be too late. Too late and too cold.

The return trip took 50 minutes. I got spun around a little in Haverhill on the way back, too. I saw the train pulling out just as I came into town and was in a bit of a panic not being able to find the station. But it couldn’t be pulling out, it was only 4:01 and wasn’t scheduled to leave until 4:15. Not having the time to consult a map, I trusted my instincts (which consists of following the tracks) and found the station, but no way in. It’s on an elevated section and the entrance isn’t apparent. On my side, it was a big stone wall. I was approaching from the back side from where I left. But I did get there, with about 4 minutes to spare. Sweating like a pig.

I didn’t get cruised on the way home.

Total ride: about 25 miles.

I’ve been having increasing trouble with my router, an SMC 7004VWBR. I think it’s tired. It’s certainly old, at least in hardware terms. The main problem, I think, is that many of the new(er) web techniques (specifically AJAX) was causing it fits. Google maps was nearly unusable. Google maps opens hundreds of connections to your browser to load all those little map squares, and the router’s firewall thought it was a “SYN flood to host” attack and blocked access. (I’m not the only one with this problem, apparently.)

But rather than fool around with some settings, try again, and considering this an 802.11b router, I decided to upgrade. And as I’ve always had really good luck with SMC, I got another one. I over bought (a/k/a future proofed) a bit and got a gigabit/802.11n draft 2 router. I only have one PC that has a gigabit (1000baseT) network card and I have only one 802.11g laptop (the other is a b). So I don’t have any machines that can take full advantage of the new speed, but the new router will be able to support whatever new machines I get over the next several years.

I bought a SMC WGBR14-N from CDW. It’s a bob or two more from CDW than elsewhere, but their customer service is unparalleled. The one time I had to send something back (my fault - I bought the mac version by mistake), the replacement was here before I had a chance to send the original back.

The new Barricade router has way more features and options than the old one. I’m not sure what they all do, but apparently, there’s a lot of built-in support of multimedia-over-lan (think Slingbox), VOIP, and gaming.

One thing I’ve found, that has also been widely reported, and that is that SMC’s customer support teh sucks. The router interface is not accessible with Firefox 3. You can get at it with IE and Firefox 2, but not 3. I wrote to customer support asking if there was any way around this and the answer, from “Chandramouli S,  SMC Customer Support” said

Kindly try it with a different computer and check if you have the same issue.

Of course, I had laid out the entire testing matrix which included using every computer I have. It doesn’t work with FF3. Gah.

But so far, so good. It certainly seems zippier and no problem with Google maps yet.

Back in July, I was ripped off by the MBTA to the tune of $1.70. The caught me in an annoyed mood, so I decided to get my money back.

So I went to their website and “wrote to the top”. I dutifully filled out the form and waited. And waited. After a couple of weeks, it occurred to me that I hadn’t heard anything, so I called. She found the complaint, but didn’t know why it wasn’t acknowledged “because they always are’. Not in this case.

It also hadn’t been acted on. So she said she’d get it in the works “right away” and send it to the auditing department for “investigation” and I should have an answer in “six to eight weeks”. Weeks. For $1.70. She also said that if it’s approved, they send out a CharlieTicket for the refund.

To those who don’t know, the T has two prices: one for CharlieCards (a plastic, credit card type thing), and one of the cash and CharlieTickets (a sort of movie pass type thing made of paper with a  mag stripe). A subway fare with a CharlieCard is $1.70. A subway fare with cash or a CharlieTicket is $2.00. See the problem? A CharlieTicket with a value of $1.70 is worthless. You have to add 30¢ just to use it for a single fare.

Since I’d given her my CharlieCard number, I didn’t see why they just couldn’t add the fare back onto my card. She said they couldn’t, but didn’t know why. (Since then, we’ve found out why. The values are inexplicably stored on the card, not in the system, as the MIT guys found out.)

But, she said, I could take the ticket to Downtown Crossing and have the Ticket value added to my card. It costs one fare to get to Downtown Crossing customer service booth since it’s inside the turnstiles. There is no customer server without paying a fare. Not at South Station, North Station or Back Bay. So I’d have to be an extra 30¢ and use the Ticket to get to Downtown Crossing to add what’s left onto my card. Oh wait! There’s nothing left! At least I wouldn’t have to pay another fare to get back home afterwards.

A few more weeks pass (six, I think) with no word from the T. So I call again. No action has been taken because they “didn’t have my address”. You’ll note on the form, there’s nowhere to enter your address. But they did have my e-mail address, so why not ask? No answer to that one. She took my address and said it would not move forward. Expect and answer “in about six weeks”. I said I’d already been waiting at least six weeks. “We didn’t have your address.”

So that brings us to last week, the latest six  weeks later. I call again. The excuse this time was … wait for it … “we didn’t have your address”. In spite of still having my e-mail address, and my having given them my address more than a month ago. Again. She said she’d give it to her supervisor in the morning and expedite it. I assumed “expedited” probably meant five weeks instead of six.

But Tuesday in the mail, I got a CharlieCard (not Ticket) in the mail with a letter saying there was $1.70 on it. Result!

Yesterday, I got another letter in the mail. WIth a CharlieCard and a letter saying there was $1.70 on it.  Result!!

So now I have my $1.70 back with a 100% bonus. Of course, I haven’t actually verified that either card has any money on it at all, I’m going by what’s in the letter. But still…

I do have to say the customer service people were all very courteous, if not particularly effective. But I really have to wonder at just how efficient this system is. How many man-hours did it take to give me my $1.70 back, when having a “customer agent” on site who could have just let me through the gate when my card was buzzed would have been way cheaper for everyone. Then again, the likelihood of having an agent listen to your issue, let alone do anything about it, is close to nil.

Actually, that’s not really true. In my experience, about 50% of the agents are friendly and helpful. I even had a pretty good conversation with one of them at North Station coming back from NEC, still in full kit, about cycling (he was a triathlon competitor). But when you get a bad one, it can really spoil the day.

This site was hacked some tme last night which is why all the pages were blank if you visited this morning.

I’m not sure how they got in, but every php page on the site was modified with some code I’ve yet to decipher, but which I assume to be one of those things that try to deposit evil stuff on an end-user’s machine. So if your AV stuff went off, that’s probably why.

As I say, I’m not sure how they got in, but I suspect the Coppermine stuff as it’s a bit out of date. So I’ve turned it off which is why there are no more rotating pictures at the top of that pages. I’ll have to figure out what to do about that later when I’ve got some time.

A guy at my client’s office won a bike “through the power of positive thinking”. Or so he tells it.

He brought the bike into work yesterday (I work at client’s office on Tuesdays) and we took a lunchtime ride. It’s the first time I’ve been out since getting back from the NEC. I felt it. It was only to Watham and back, mostly along the Charles, but when I tried to open it up, I got about five feet before thinking “whoa, this is work!”

On the good side, it was a fun ride. I rarely ride with anyone else. Plus, it made the afternoon go wicked fast. On the down side, I spent the afternoon all sweeeeeeeeaty.

20 miles.

Monday was the first night of this dart league thing I joined. It was fun. We won, which, I’ve been told, is unusual. That’s fine by me. There are five on our team. I’m not sure if the play is the same every week, but this time there was team 601 (3 players each), two games of doubles cricket, two games of singles cricket, and two games of singles 301.  At least if I remember correctly. I do know i played in the team 601 and doubles cricket. We won both of those and ended the night 5 games to 2 against our opponents whose name I forget. The scores aren’t posted yet, so maybe I’ll find out who they are at some point.

It was a little strange as quite a few people seemed to leave as soon as they were finished. I played the first and third games but stayed until everyone had finished playing. Others left as soon as their games were over, regardless of whether the team was finished or not. I thought that odd.

There’s also some kind of drama going on in the league, but I don’t know what it is and don’t care to know. I don’t even want to keep score. I just want to play, that’s it.

One thing is clear, though. I need to find somewhere to practice. I’ve got a plastic board and a bristle board. I put the plastic board up behind the closet door and have been using that a bit, but it’s really, really hard on the tips, so I’m disinclined to keep using it. Plus, the league uses bristle boards, so I’d rather practice with as close to the real thing as possible. But I don’t have an enclosure, so I’d need to get some kind of backdrop or cabinet to save my walls!

I also need to refresh on a couple of the rules. One thing that I’m unsure of is the cricket end game.  How does this work? Player A and B have everything but the bull closed. Player A has 50 points, Player B has 60. Player A closes the bull. What happens? Does Player A win even though he has fewer points? Do they keep shooting until Player B closes the bull and then determine points? During this shooting, Player A may score another bull, putting him at 75 points, at which point continuing is moot since Player B can’t score any more. But if Player B closes the bull before Player A can score another bull, does he then win with higher points (60) even though he didn’t close first?

Hmm.

[netflix] [IMDb]

1926
Greta Garbo, John Gilbert, Lars Hanson
Dir: Clarence Brown

Leo (Gilbert) and Ulrich (Hanson) are boyhood friends: blood brothers (complete with ceremony and everything). They go to school together, enlist in the army together, get in trouble together, spend every waking moment together. Granted, this is a silent film a lot of emoting, and I’m looking at it from 2008, but I could swear many times they were seconds away from snogging.

One day Leo spies Felicitas (Garbo) and falls instantly in love. They have a torrid affair until one day Felicitas’s husband, the Count (Mark McDermott), comes home and finds them in flagrante delicto (or as near as you can get to it in a 1926 film). Leo knew nothing of her marriage but is challenged to a duel by the Count, which he wins, killing the Count. In the aftermath, On the recommendation of the court, Leo heads off to  the Afrika Korps for five years. Felicitas promises to wait, and Leo and asks Ulrich to watch over the Count’s widow while he’s gone. (Ulrich and everyone else though the duel was over a card game gone bad). Ulrich introduces himself to Felicitas saying that he’s a wealthy man and if there’s anything she needs, just ask. Soon, Felicitas marries Ulrich, but no one tells Leo. Ulrich works for Leo’s early return which he secures after three years, and upon picking Leo up at the train, introduces him to his wife, Felicitas.

And that’s when it gets really twisty.

This is a potboiler from the word go. Nothing in it is clear cut, and I was trying to figure out all the way through whether Felicitas was a simple gold digger or whether she was helpless in her love. I’m still not sure which. She certainly tries to have it both ways. Or, all ways, I guess. Faith, loyalty, betrayal, it’s all here.

It’s also no mystery why Garbo was so popular.

[amazon] [MBLN]

Of all the James Bond books I’ve read so far, and with the possible exception of Moonraker, this one has the least to do with the movie of any so far. The only thing the same between the two is the bad guy’s name is Scaramanga, and there’s an assistant named Goodnight (but she’s quite different here).

The entire plot takes place in Jamaica. Scaramanga is a gun for hire, but seems to have a boss, a “Mr. C” and the inference is that it’s Castro. The Castro revolution and Bay of Pigs is a major plot point. Scaramanga doesn’t even know who Bond is at first (unlike the film where Bond receives a golden bullet with 007 inscribed on the jacket).

Bond returns from a years absence (from the description, it sounds like from You Only Live Twice, but I’ve not read that yet). He’s been held and brainwashed by the KGB and returns and tries to kill M. Rather than offing him himself, M has him rebrainwashed and assigns him the task of killing Scaramanga.

Scaramanga has assembled a collection of mobsters (Vegas, Chicago, Miami, and KGB, among others) to review their mutual business interests in sugar, drugs, and casinos. Bond, after chasing Scaramanaga through the Caribbean for six weeks, seems to just happen upon him at a brothel on the tip of Jamaica, ingratiates himself, and takes a job as chief of security. He evenutally finds Felix Leiter (with a hook for a hand, so this must be after Live and Let Die), working as maitre d’Hotel.

Lots of blood and mayhem, but Bond comes out on top. Good story, well told but absolutely nothing like the film (and that’s a good thing, really).