mike

Sports
Maybe more TV related but the Flyers were on OLN-HD last night. The first HD Flyers game I’ve watched on my new TV. I didn’t think I could be impressed by HD anymore, I’ve been watching HD programming at home for over 4 years. I was blown away, the picture looked perfect. I’ve always said hockey is the best HD sport.

While OLN-HD was shown on INHD2, NBATV-HD took over on INHD1. The Sonics were playing the Spurs, so who cares. However it was in HD so I glanced at it for a bit. Something was strange about it so I watched a little longer. What was so strange? There were no announcers. All you could hear was the sound of the arena and the arena announcer. After someone scored they would show his stats at the bottom of the screen, really the only useful thing for a broadcaster to do. They also had different camera angles at each end of the court that made the most of the widescreen aspect. I think broadcasters are still needed, especially during stoppages or if something odd has happened that can’t clearly be explained. This is still very cool though and I can practice my own announcing without having to put the game on mute.

Phillies back in action in Atlanta tonight at 7:05. Lidle vs. Sosa. On CN8.

Random
From MediaWeek: Boomerang Uncovers Lost Episodes of Captain Planet and the Planeteers: Boomerang, the home of classic animation, will debut the never-before-seen sixth season of Captain Planet and the Planeteers in two four hour marathons on Saturday, April 22. Look for the eight hours of the environmentally themed series from 7:30-11:30 a.m., and 3:30-7:30 p.m. ET.
– A few things. First, how did they not air the 6th Season? Was the 5th Season so bad that they decided it wasn’t worth putting it on? Who even knew when new episodes of Captain Planet were coming on? Was there a cliffhanger at the end of the 5th Season that people have been dying to know what happened? How long ago did they make this? Is it even still relevant? I also included this because since I read this last night I’ve been singing in my head “Captain Planet, he’s our hero, gonna take pollution down to zero.” Over and over.

From si.com’s Ten Spot, could have put this is sports but this is pretty random and I need to beef up this section: Smells like victory: Blue Jays pitcher Gustavo Chacin created a cologne last week that the team will give away at a June 27 game against the Nationals. The reason for the scent is that when Chacin (pronounced “shah-SEEN”) came up to the bigs last year, the morning-show hosts at Toronto radio station The Fan 590 joked that the pitcher’s name sounded like a cologne. “Chacin cologne” became a running joke on the station until the Blue Jays, evidently, decided that it was actually a good idea. That’s why Chacin spent last Wednesday at Leslie Cosmetics’ laboratory picking scents. The resulting unisex blend reportedly combines “warm, spicy, citrus and a bit of amber,” according to the National Post. I didn’t realize “warm” was a scent, but then I don’t typically wear cologne.
– Remember the list of Top 10 giveaways. I think we’ll have a new addition to the 2007 list. Who wouldn’t want to wear a scent like Fasano? It just works, I can already picture the commercial. Just like all the other cologne commercials. Then in a whisper at the end … Fasano. The new cologne for hairy Italians.

(Blink 182 – Adam’s Song)

On Trooper Rd on the way to work they have had one of those police speed limit signs setup for a little over a week. It’s a 35mph zone. In the afternoons everyone slams on their brakes so that they get under 35. However when I’m driving to work the people coming the other way fly through the zone. I can see in my rear view that the sign is flashing like crazy as people are all going around 50. I guess they figure no one is paying any attention at 645am. Its odd that its been there so long. It also reminded me of the one in Valerie’s neighborhood that was positioned at a dead end. We were going to try and run by it to see if we could get clocked, or use it as a speed pitch. Unfortunately we forgot to go back.

Phillies
You’ve got to be kidding me. I watched the game on ESPNHD, just for the HD. Unfortunately that glorious picture comes with ESPN announcers. ESPN needs to upgrade their broadcast teams to a better definition. Which leads to a new special …

SUTT’S GEMS
– Discussing the trade talks in the offseason related to Abreu he said that everyone in Philadelphia was shocked that the Phillies were considering trading him.
– The Phillies have the lowest batting average in the majors so far this year with runners in scoring position. He said that will improve because we have veterans like Bell and Lieberthal at the bottom of the lineup.

I still chuckle every time the phase ‘Gold Glove Winner Bobby Abreu.’

Having Baseball Tonight in HD is likely the biggest problem with having ESPNHD in my room. Its going to keep me up every night.

Off day today. Phew. Not to worry, they can still guarantee a playoff spot by going 144-12 the rest of the way.

New CD Tuesday
I’ve been looking forward to today’s releases for quite a while. Unfortunately neither band is big enough to be on sale, hopefully Best Buy will at least carry them and I’ll have to pay a few more bucks.
Punchline – 37 Everywhere
I was hooked on their last CD for almost the entire Fall semester of Senior year.
Hit the Lights – This is a Stick Up … Don’t Make it a Murder
Hit the Lights is one of my Next bands. Previous Next bands include Fall Out Boy and Cartel. Their EP was amazing.

(Angels and Airwaves – The Adventure)

Almost back to 100%. Spent the majority of the weekend watching TV. You might say, how is that different that any other weekend? I say, shut it.

TV
Friday night I finally got an HD box for my room. I was tired of waiting for the DVR to become available so I decided to get the box until it was. Now I have a bunch more HD channels (ESPN and CSN are most important), all the digital cable channels, HBO, and On Demand. My mountain of boxes is growing with the cable box stacked on top of my ReplayTV, DVD Player, and Receiver. I need that DVR to shrink it down a bit and hand off my ReplayTV.

This week on The History Channel each night they are showing two episodes of 10 Days That Unexpectedly Changed America. It started last night. The premiere was On Demand and I watched it Saturday night. The first one was about Antietam. I had seen the ads and really wanted to see it. Hopefully the rest will be On Demand, if I record them I’ll probably never get around to watching them. I know that doesn’t make sense, but I need a deadline.

Did anyone watch ESPN Sunday Night Baseball? They have a guy on the field now running after players with a camera. Rolen hit his homer the guy ran down the third base line behind him then ran up to the dugout and got an extreme close up. They seem to have a new gimmick each year. Wasn’t last year the chase camera down the first base line, that worked out well.

Phillies
I don’t really have anything to say about them. We finally won a game and then sat half the team and lost. If I had been 100% on Sunday I would have gone to the games. Sal Fasano is the man. I had a feeling he’d start hot and people would start copying his facial hair, at least with a marker.

Tonight they are in Atlanta, Myers vs. Thompson, 7:05 on CN8 and ESPN-HD (ESPN-HD better not be blacked out!).

Question of the Day
Has anyone ever won the grand prize in any of these lottery scratch-off games? I see these commercials for new lottery games with all these fantastic prizes, but I’ve never won (not that I’ve played) and I don’t know anyone who’s ever won big. At least with the number games you expect that someone might have picked that number. With scratch-off they could have just printed them all up with no winning ones. How would anyone know? They could just say, ‘Oh, the person who bought the winning one must have thrown it out without realizing.’ Sneaky, these lottery people. By the way, my scratch-off game is $5 a play. You can buy them at my desk.

Bad girl, don’t rub your butt on the carpet through telekinesis.

(New Found Glory – My Friends Over You)