UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

No quick-hitters, but one quick aside:  tonight at the Nokia Theater LA Live, Vin Scully & John Wooden will be on-stage together, and yours truly has tickets to the affair.  Two legends of their respective sports—and arguably life itself—and the proceeds go to cancer research?  Awesome.

I can’t wait!

- So after having a night to sleep on the disaster that was Game Four, I woke up, dropped by ESPN.com, and happened to notice that Bill Simmons posted a running diary of the game.

(Yeah, it just so happened that he was keeping a running diary of arguably the greatest combination comeback/gag job in NBA Finals history.  Uh-huh.)

Let the hysteria/myopia begin:

1) “Special thanks to Gasol for not helping in time — I’m starting to think Kwame Brown, Javaris Crittenton and two draft picks was a fair trade.”  By this logic, the Randy Moss trade was an awful one for the Pats.

Does anyone think the Lakers would be anywhere close to where they are without Gasol?  And would be singing a different tune if Bynum were healthy?

2) “Just when I thought this couldn’t get any better, they just cut to a replay of Vujacic punching a chair and fighting back tears on the bench. That wasn’t just the best moment of the Celtics season, I think it was the best moment of my life.”  Talk about kicking a guy (and all of Los Angeles, for that matter) while he’s down.  Seriously?  The best moment of your life?

3) “RAY ALLEN!

RAY ALLEN!

RAY ALLEN!”

As great as Allen has played in this series, the MVP has to go to Pierce (his Game One “theatrics” aside), right?  The Celts’ comeback only got rolling when Pierce finally realized that the likes of Vlad, Walton, Ariza, and even Kobe couldn’t guard him.  In addition, Pierce had as much to do with Kobe’s lackluster game than Kobe himself.

4) “The Kobe-MJ thing … done. Over. Jordan never would have let that happen in the Finals. Ever. Under any circumstances. Nobody is ever allowed to bring this up again.”

Done and done.  Kobe could win the next four rings by himself, and I wouldn’t rank him up there with MJ.  Simmons couldn’t be more right on.

5) “For all my bitching about Doc Rivers over the years, I have to hand it to him — he played the right guys at the right time and helped facilitate one of the great moments in Boston Celtics history. The man deserves all the credit in the world. He outcoached the Zen Master. It happened. His focus was on winning, and they won.”

See #4.  Rivers could easily have over-coached, but he didn’t.  He was as integral to the Celtics’ winning, I’d argue, as the Big Three.

When Simmons was expressing his lust for the Patriots during the last NFL season, his articles were completely unreadable to me.  I really couldn’t stand them.  For some reason though, his love-fest for both the Red Sox and the Celtics don’t annoy me nearly as much.  I guess it might have something to do with my added hatred for Beli-cheat, Brady, et al.

- Some more NBA Finals parting thoughts:

1) Tell me John Hollinger did not just rate Dwyane Wade’s 2006 FT-shooting contest performance as the greatest Finals performance of all time.

(If you want to award Wade an Oscar after the fact for his performance, on the other hand, I’m fine with that.)

Wade’s performance was better than any of MJ’s six Finals’ performances?  Really?  You can say that with a straight face?

2) Every LA fan has to wonder how much different our interior defense would be with a healthy Bynum out there.

By “different,” of course I mean “better.”

I’ll think about it…for another week or so.

3) Does this game do more to Kobe’s legacy than the three rings he won with Shaq?

I’m inclined to say “absolutely.”

I guess I can now return my Sceptre LCD TV I bought from Costco early last year :P.  Do you blame me?  I’ve got a summer to look forward to of watching the Dodgers stink (in HD, at least!), Boston Celtics’ championship DVDs (”Witness the greatest comeback in NBA Finals History!  AHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!”), and decent summer shows—My Boys, Burn Notice, to name a couple—that aren’t in HD because Time Warner hasn’t yet offered USA in HD yet.

(That was supposed to be a Bostonian “AHHHHHHHHH!” like in Good Will Hunting, and not a scream.  I’m terrible at phonetically spelling stuff :P)

Later.

Tags: bill simmons, boston celtics, diary, dwyane wade, greatest finals performances, john hollinger, john wooden, los angeles lakers, nba finals, scully & wooden for the kids, vin scully by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- I just noticed that my blog lists blog categories under “Tags:” at the end of each blog entry, rather than the tags themselves.

I’ve since fixed this, but knowing me, I probably screwed up somewhere.  If anyone sees a problem with the “Tags:” entry in the future, please let me know!

- Current rebate-o-meter:  $1,550 (not counting the two orders I placed in the last hour or so and, obviously, have yet to even consider filing :P).

No changes to my toothpaste-o-meter, but I did pick up six additional bottles of mouthwash.

- Lamar Odom just earned his entire year’s salary tonight.  Too bad it was all for naught.  The Lakers’ bigs finally started running hard in that first quarter.  Where was this during the first three games of the series?  And did someone inject something into Trevor Ariza?

(Random thought:  That crossover that Luke Walton pulled off early in the second quarter might have been the whitest crossover ever :P)

Naturally, Boston was going to make their run in the second quarter, but that three-point play by Fisher was absolutely huge.  And did I read that wrong, or did Kobe really not have a FG in the first half?

Then the third quarter happened, and with that, the series is now over.

(David Stern probably is not a happy camper.  Certainly he wanted this series to go seven.  Well, perhaps he could still do something about it… :P)

There’s just something about the third quarter that just absolutely energizes the Celtics.  21-3 to end the quarter?  +16 for the entire quarter?  That might have been even more impressive than the Lakers winning the first quarter by a record-setting 21 points!  Most importantly, Pierce got rolling, and that’s when I knew the Lakers were in huge trouble.

Championship teams play through adversity.  Boston clutched up.  The Lakers wilted.  Ray Allen gets to the basket untouched?  And why the hell did the Lakers inbound the ball???  And those are the reasons why Boston is going to win the NBA Championship in five or six games.

Worst of all, now I’m going to have to hear how the Lakers choked away a 24-point lead for years to come, especially from the Boston myopians.

(Thanks, Jeff Van Gundy, for the hex, when you declared the series tied 2-2 early in the game :P)

Congrats, Celtics!  You deserved it!

One parting thought:  this series reminds me a bunch of the 2004 Finals, minus the team bickering.  I argued that Detroit actually won that series 5-0, and one could argue that Boston is up 4-0 in this series right now.

Let’s hope the aftermath of the Finals does not include another Kobe Bryant meltdown.

Tags: Blog, boston celtics, categories, lamar odom, los angeles lakers, tags, trevor ariza, wordpress by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- How come I never realized how addictive graham crackers can be?

Damn graham crackers. Good thing I don’t have any chocolate and marshmallows lying around…

- Current rebate-o-meter: ~$1,400. Apparently I forgot to enter about $400 in rebates that I almost completely forgot about!

And by “enter” I mean “I completely forgot about these items I ordered, and therefore I’m not even close to thinking about filing these rebates.”

I’m lazy.

- Hey Sprint! Did you loan out some of your CSRs to Sirius?

I was shopping through Sirius’ web site via AAA for a radio and subscription service. The site had a pretty nice deal: $14.99 for the Stratus 4 Dock & Play Kit, plus a free month of service and free activation. After notifying my sister of the deal, she quickly told me to order it for her.

When I got to the checkout, though, I saw the $15.00 activation fee in my shopping cart. I looked back at AAA’s website, and made absolutely sure that everything looked good. Free shipping? Check. Free month of service? Check. One year subscription? Check. So where’s my free activation?

I called the Sirius/AAA hotline, and almost immediately, a guy with a thick accent answered. He asked me for my name, phone number, and address, but I pointed out that I was not yet a subscriber, and just had a question or two about a AAA promotion. I pointed out that AAA members get free activation when ordering online, adding the fact that I did sign up for a one year contract.

The moron asked me to read the serial number off the back of my radio. Strike one.

I reminded him that I was not yet a subscriber, and wanted to sign up for service. I stated again that I was supposed to get free activation as a AAA member.

The moron, matter-of-factly, stated that it was “policy” to charge the $15.00 activation fee. Strike two.

At this point, I was furious, so I decided to speak in my one-word-at-a-time, near-the-top-of-my-voice voice (which will, from now on, be known as the “IVR voice”), pointing out again that I was signing up through AAA’s site, and the site clearly mentions that AAA members get free shipping AND free activation.

The moron told me that he would research it with “somebody,” and he put me on hold. When he came back, he acknowledged an error on the site, and that I should only be charged $10 for activation. Foul tip…

I screamed, “TEN DOLLARS IS NOT FREE!” That’s when the rep dropped this bomb on me: he said that his coworker insisted that the activation charge was correct!!!

(Now I’m assuming “coworker” != “supervisor.” For all I know, maybe he did mean supervisor. For now, though, I am not giving him the benefit of the doubt.)

One final time, I adamantly pointed out that I should be getting free activation. That’s when I heard his “coworker” in the background utter “It’s right! It’s right!”, to which the trained seal stupid rep responded with something to the effect of “There is a $15.00 activation fee, which is policy to charge for new subscriptions.”

*click*

Strike f**king three.

EDIT: Wanting my sister to share my pain, I had her call back and try to get a supervisor on the line. “Jay” answered her call, and while he wouldn’t transfer her to a supervisor, he did append our order for free activation. There were some issues getting the radio she wanted for $14.99, but he eventually fixed the pricing of the kit as well. He was ready to put the order through, and he asked my sister if it was OK to put her on hold.

She did. And, in-freaking-explicably, she “accidentally” hung up on him.

She immediately called back, and tried to find “Jay.” The first rep explained that she couldn’t do so without his extension. The second rep she spoke to wouldn’t put the order through, insisting that the price of the radio was wrong. While being on hold with a third rep, and she inexplicably hung up while on hold a third time!

(Apparently the rep I dealt with cursed us.)

When she called yet again, she again demanded a supervisor. Tired of waiting being placed on hold for so long, she hung up and called again. Finally, she got a rep that spoke English!

This rep instructed my sister to order the service through sirius.com, and once the order was in the system, the rep was going to manually waive the activation fee. How do you suppose that went?

After the order was submitted, the rep put my sister back on hold, and attempted to manually credit her account. When she came back on the phone, naturally, she told us that she could not credit the account. Instead, she told my sister to call back when she receives the radio, and request the credit upon activation.

Hey, stupid rep: if you couldn’t credit the account right now, what makes you think one of your fellow morons reps is going to be able to credit the account when my sister calls in to activate the radio?

Several calls, zero supervisors, two headaches…and we aren’t even customers yet. Awesome.

- Paul Pierce went 2 for 14. Kevin Garnett went 6 for 21. The Lakers held a double digit lead in the first half. Kobe Bryant shot 18 foul shots. Sasha Vujacic scored 20 points.

And after all that, the Lakers still had to fight for a Game Three win? That can’t bode well for the Lakers’ chances in the series. Then again, Lamar Odom was non-existant for three quarters, Pau Gasol got a couple key offensive rebounds, and Derek Fisher had another ineffective game. So did the Lakers really win, or did they just not lose?

Speaking of Sasha, what a great game he had. Killer treys, irritating defense, but not a single shot of him adjusting that thing he had in his head that keeps his hair manageable? And I loved the little tussle between PJ Brown and Jordan Farmar.

If Pierce and Garnett give Boston anything decent in Game Four, and Odom and Gasol rebound as well, who wins Game Four. You have to give the Lakers a slight edge, all things considered, don’t you? Then again, a dominant Pierce might be all Boston needs to win Game Four and end the series in six games at the most.

Note to Phil Jackson: Trevor Ariza does not belong on the court, much less checking Paul Pierce or Ray Allen.

Until next time!

Tags: boston celtics, free activation, incompetent csr, kevin garnett, kobe bryant, los angeles lakers, paul pierce, sasha vujacic, satellite radio, sirius, stratus 4 by Peter
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I’m going to go sports-free today.

In other words, I’ve got tons to rant (and a little bit of raving) regarding customer service issues.

(Warning: L O N G blog entry today!)

Quick-hitters:

- So I just signed up for a free seven day trial of Sirius Internet Radio.

(I know…I’m WAY late to the party).

So far, I like the idea of commercial free radio, though I was hoping that the stations were COMPLETELY interruption-free (every now and then, the DJs insist on interjecting their thoughts between songs).

You could say that I’m testing out Sirius to try to convince my sister to sign up. With her AAA card, she should be able to get a decent deal on service + a radio, though nothing close to the $0 deal that was posted on SlickDeals recently, which even included a $30 gift card!

- I understand that credit worthiness is as understood as Mars, but I gotta wonder why Discover card is willing to offer me a promotional 0% balance transfer rate for a year, Chase is offering the same—as well as 2.99% for life (and that check is still sitting on my desk just in case)—but Citibank insists that their 0% for 4 months or 7.99% for life offers are worth my time.

Worse, while Discover only offers me this when I log into my online account, and Chase sends me balance transfer checks about once a quarter, Citibank insists on sending me these checks 2-3 times a week. I guess that’s why I bought a Staples MailMate shredder.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,049, with at least $200 “cut” (check written, and en route to me.)

Current unfiled-rebate-o-meter: $500 or so

(I’m so lazy.)

- Screw you DHL, and you too, idiot driver! I had a package scheduled for delivery on Wednesday, but I was not available to sign for the package (it was signature required). I got the notice on the door that night, and the next day, my sister was around to sign for the package.

That evening, the driver never came around! I checked the status of the package, and it said that a delivery attempt was made at 2:54pm! Ok…then where’s the second notice, remarking that Friday would have been DHL’s third and final delivery attempt?

I was around all day on Friday, awaiting the package, and around 7:00pm that night, I checked the status of the package again, and it appeared that the package never made it into the hands of the driver! WTF???

I called DHL earlier today, and the rep flatly told me that it was returned to sender. When I asked him why only two delivery attempts were made—by my count, there was only one delivery attempt, but whatever—the rep told me that the first delivery attempt was made on Tuesday.

(WRONG! Look at the status page! And I’m completely ignoring the fact that the package went to the wrong shipping facility on 6/2, a day before the supposed first delivery attempt!)

The rep asked me if I received a notice, and I pointed out that I received one on Wednesday. I then explained that, if the second delivery attempt was made on Wednesday, then why did I not get a notice on Tuesday? In addition, if this was the second delivery attempt, then wouldn’t I have been notified that the next delivery attempt would have been my last?

That’s when the rep dropped this bomb: he said that the driver scanned the package three consecutive days, and that the third scan was done on the sixth.

(If that’s the case, then wouldn’t the first scan have come on the fourth, and not the third as the rep mentioned earlier?)

The rep added that, regardless of what the online tracking says, three scans = three delivery attempts. I pointed out that the driver might have been at my front door once out of the three attempts, and the rep would not budge on his three scans = three delivery attempts argument.

I’m almost 100% convinced that, after Wednesday’s delivery attempt—regardless of which delivery attempt that was—the driver didn’t even try to contact me via the intercom on Thursday, and didn’t even bother to attempt a delivery on Friday. Good thing the package contained nothing of great importance.

I suppose DHL guy still isn’t as bad as the FedEx driver, who really loves to throw packages against my front door. And as much as I think the UPS guy is not at all funny, at least he cares enough to leave me notices every day that he attempts a delivery.

And I don’t want to hear, “Well, if the package was important, then why didn’t you sign the back of the notice?” One, even if I did so, I’m not even sure that the driver made a second or third delivery attempt! How can he leave a package without stopping by my front door? Two, I still live in the complex where an LCD was stolen from my front door, and someone’s boxed up broken tuba (!!!) was stolen from their front door!

Screw you, DHL.

- After all that ranting, I think it’s time to switch gears. I submitted a $30 rebate for Windows Live OneCare, which, according to my records, was mailed out on 5/6/08.

The rebate check showed up in my mailbox today.

(In a world where rebates takes 8-12 weeks, usually from the date of receipt, but sometimes from the date of the end of the promo, or even 30 days after the end of the promo, a rebate that takes four weeks to receive is awesome.)

I checked my email inbox and noticed that I had only gotten notification that the rebate processor got my submission on 5/27 (the email itself arrived 6/3). Thirteen days—nine business days—from receipt to a check? Wow!

Even funnier is the fact that, when I checked out my online rebate status, it says this:

Date received: 05/27/08

Date checked mailed: 06/19/08 (est.)

Estimated check arrival date: 06/29/08

In other words, the rebate processor still thinks the check is only in the processing stages!

Incidentally, Microsoft rebates are handled by Young America, the same company that processes TrendNet rebates (rejection rates = Ray Allen’s free throw shooting percentage; really really high, in other words), Corel and Office Depot rebates (really really slow), and Sony software rebates, which leads me to my last story…

(Young America also used to handle Kaspersky rebates, and while I had no real problems with Kaspersky rebates handled by these guys, many people on SD weren’t so lucky).

- Three days ago, I checked the status of a pair of Sony Vegas Movie Studio 8 rebates at web-rebates.com. One rebate was good to go, but the second rebate had this little remark attached to it:

Submission did not include an original UPC from Movie Studio 8

Now, the UPC was a sticker, which I stuck smack dab on the top edge of the rebate form. Certainly you can see how a moron could miss that, right?

(Unless the piece of invisible tape I used to further stick the UPC to the rebate form yellowed in transit, and thus blocked the UPC from plain sight, I guess…)

Naturally I did what I do best: I sent a hate-filled email to their customer service desk, using the webform found here. This morning, I got this reply:

Dear Mr. Ung,

Thank you for your interest in the Sony rebate offer.

We have reviewed your request and find the UPC was submitted. Your $30.00 rebate has been processed.

Please allow 10-14 days to receive your rebate check.

We apologize for the error and the inconvenience incurred.

It’s good to know that these rebate processors don’t mis-see (:P) UPCs, and then immediately trash the rebate submission afterwards, which begs the question: why don’t they? If a rebate submission is clearly invalid, then why keep them?

Perhaps it has something to do with rebate companies trying adhere to a strict quota of only processing a select percentage of rebates…

(Nah.)

Tags: balance transfer checks, chase, citibank, dhl, discover card, frys, idiot driver, internet radio, microsoft, missing UPC, rebates, return to sender, satellite radio, sirius, tracking, web-rebates, windows live onecare, young america by Peter
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No quick-hitters tonight.

- On Friday, my sister had the craving for some chili, and armed with a suggestion from her boss, we swung by Chili My Soul that night.

(Tangent:  I’m not much of a fan of heat, and by that, I mean that I’m a wuss when it comes to peppers.  My tolerance for heat is pretty low, and it wasn’t long ago that my tolerance was even lower than it is now.  My sister, on the other hand, could probably chow down on five-alarm chili.)

After sampling two chilis—the Texas Pride, rated 5/10, and a little bit of the Gunslinger (8/10)—I opted for the Texas Pride.  My sister sampled the Gunslinger and declared it “as hot as ketchup,” sampled the Demon (10/10), loved it, but came to her senses and went with the Gunslinger.

I forgot to take into account the fact that sour cream and cheese can kill a significant amount of heat in something peppery, but I was still quite satisfied with the chili.  Maybe next time I’ll go up to a 6 or a 7.

(My sister was pissed after adding the sour cream to her chili.  She’s definitely getting the Demon next time).

- That sound you hear is the Lakers’ bandwagon derailing and crashing into a ravine.

(Please wait for the bandwagon to come to a COMPLETE stop before exiting.  Thanks and see you next year!  And be sure to put away those stupid flags!)

The NBA might as well etch Paul Pierce’s name onto the MVP trophy right now.  I’m not even sure the series is going to return to Boston (well, unless the refs have something to say about that…it wouldn’t surprise me if Kobe attempts forty FTs in Game Three.)

As much as I would love to give the refs a share of the blame in the Lakers’ loss (seriously, look at the FT disparity, and that second foul on Kobe was absolute garbage), that would be deflecting the blame from where it belongs:  the Celtics’ suffocating defense.  When Kobe Bryant doesn’t get into the paint, the Lakers aren’t going to win any games.  Also, when did the Lakers become a terrible rebounding team?  I mean, they were never elite, but is Boston really destroying the Lakers that badly on the glass because of Boston’s superior rebounding, or the Lakers’ lack of desire?

(Tangent:  Please, ESPN/ABC, enough of Paul Pierce’s “heroics” in Game One.  When is Disney going to release the made for TV movie based on what happened?  Kobe Bryant’s image repair over the last few years is sick of hearing about Pierce’s “heroics.”)

By the way…Leon freaking Powe???  And why is it that Pau Gasol plays well for only one or two quarters per game (Game One v Denver excepted)?

(Note:  I typed everything above after the third quarter, when I finally turned off the TV.  I did not watch the Lakers’ near-comeback.)

More thoughts about this game, once the anger subsides, next time!

Tags: boston celtics, chili my soul, demon, gunslinger, kobe bryant, leon powe, los angeles lakers, mvp, paul pierce, texas pride by Peter
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I’m topic-less today, so finally, here comes part 3 of my covert ops mission

Quick-hitters:

- Is the Wii Fit the 2008 version of the Gym Membership (the gift that is followed by a swift kick to the groin)?

Just wondering…

- Some more quick Celts-Lakers reax before Game Two.

1) I’ve heard more than enough about the Boston myopians comparing Pierce’s injury-and-return to that of Willis Reed.  Please!  It was a memorable moment, but let’s not get carried away now.

And enough with Laker myopians calling Pierce a faker.  I don’t buy that either.  Yeah, like Pierce decided to fake an injury, watch his team play for a couple of minutes without him, and then energize the entire arena with his return.  And Kirk Gibson did the same thing in 1988, right?

2) I’ve been thinking this over for the past two days:  should the loser of the Finals declare the season a failure?  You always hear that teams are only playing for a championship (true), and that anything short of that is a failure.  But seriously (and this has been stated eleventy billion times already, I know), who had Boston and LA in the Finals a year ago at this time?

I’m actually looking forward to next season.  Boston’s Big Three will get another year of playing time together, and the Lakers, hopefully, will get to trot out a front line of Odom-Gasol-Bynum for a full season.  Awesome.

- Time for part 3 of my covert ops mission!

(Part One and Part Two)

So after hacking the Fonera, I was ready to set up the Sony LocationFree LF-B10 on my mom’s entertainment center, when I thought to myself, “That Trendnet POS router I have at home is probably not going to be stable enough to handle the added stress that the LF-B10 is going to put on it!”

A week later, I found out that Staples was selling a Linksys WRT54GS router for $29.99, no rebates.  Knowing full well that this particular router could be flashed with DD-WRT firmware, I decided to order one.

(After a coupon and some free after rebate software, as well as sales tax, the router cost me about $13.  I figured that was a much better buy than $50 for the WRT54GL, which would have definitely run DD-WRT.)

Using this guide from the DD-WRT forum, I began preparing for the hack.  I got to step five, where I got stuck.  Unfortunately, I ran into a bit of a problem; I could not download the Linksys TFTP utility!

(Tangent:  Remember when I typed this?

Don’t you hate it when you need a critical piece of data or an application to do something, and the site hosting said file just happens to be down?

That happened to me TWICE this past weekend. I’ll recap what happened in a later blog entry.

Now you know what I was talking about.)

(Tangent #2:  Naturally, the download works now.  Sigh…)

I decided to go ahead with the hack, hoping that I could download the TFTP utility later.  After flashing the WRT54GS with the VxWorks killer firmware, I patiently waited for the Linksys FTP site to allow me to download their utility.

Thirty minutes later, I decided to research an alternate way to get the DD-WRT firmware on the WRT54GS.  After a bit of Googling, I stumbled upon the necessary TFTP command to use at the Windows Command Prompt:

TFTP -i 192.168.1.1 PUT [name of firmware]

Once the transfer was done, I waited for the WLAN light to turn on.  Five minutes later, it turned on!  When I tried to access the router, though, I got the dreaded “This page cannot be displayed” error.  Argh!

Several minutes, a couple network connection repairs, a power cycle of the WRT54GS, and a couple checks of the ethernet cable later, and I was finally able to access the newly-flashed WRT54GS.  Hooray!

The next day, I replaced the junky Trendnet router with the WRT54GS, and constantly pissed off my siblings by throwing them offline several times, while I made adjustments to the router.

(Note to self:  Do EVERYTHING late at night from now on!)

As for the router itself, I still have a couple of minor issues that I haven’t quite been able to iron out yet.  For some reason, my sister’s laptop and my own can’t connect wirelessly to the WRT54GS unless I use the wireless card’s software (not the Wireless Zero Config tool built in to Windows XP).  Also, for a while, my sister’s laptop could not connect to the wireless network on startup automatically; I would have to open the Intel wireless card tool and manually refresh the network to get it to work.  That problem eventually went away after a while (as some computer problems are apt to do).  I was also having trouble using WPA+PSK security on the WRT54GS; for now, my home network is stuck using WEP.

(That is NOT an invite to try to hack into my network at home :P)

Later in the day, I had an opening to install the Fonera and the LF-B10 onto my mom’s entertainment center.  That’s when I realized I forgot to bring an extra composite cable!  Half an hour (and $3 at the local discount store) later, I had everything I needed, and setup was a breeze.  I tucked the Fonera behind my mom’s TV, and the LF-B10 was installed on an empty shelf at the bottom of her entertainment center.

While finishing up, my mom walked in on my install and asked about the “black box” sitting on her entertainment center.  I simply told her that it was important to be there, and she took a cursory look at the box, uttered “I don’t like it there,” and walked out.

(It’s still sitting there to this day :P).

The LF-B10 works decently well; video streams get choppy on occasion, and I’m not completely sure from which end the problem is originating.  The audio stream is nearly perfect, though.

(EDIT:  I have not been able to connect to the LF-B10 for the last 2-3 days.  Hopefully my mom didn’t get so upset with my not moving it that she unplugged the damn thing!)

Until next time!

Tags: celtics, ddwrt, lakers, lf-b10, linksys wrt54gs, paul pierce, sony locationfree, willis reed by Peter
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No quick-hitters today.

- So thanks to SlickDeals, I scored a pair of cheap field level tixs for Tuesday’s Rockies-Dodgers game.  I expected to see two struggling offenses (check), solid pitching (nope), and the typical rude, obnoxious Dodger fans (check, naturally).

What I didn’t expect was a scrum, which is exactly what we got in the bottom of the eighth inning.

I remember seeing Matt Kemp strike out on that wild pitch, and as I went to sit back down in my seat, I saw the Rockies bullpen all of a sudden pour out.  I stood back up immediately, and that’s when I saw Kemp fall to the ground.

Nothing like a brawl to energize an otherwise moribund crowd!  For the rest of the game, the fans chanted  “Rockies suck!”  I wanted to remind the fans that the scoreboard said otherwise, but I had no intention of spending the night in a hospital room.

When the hell is Rafael Furcal coming back?

(After seeing the replay of the events that led up to the brawl, Kemp clearly overreacted.  Torrealba didn’t even shove him, and Kemp acted like he got sucker punched.  Yeah, Torrealba shouldn’t have shoved Kemp in the throat, but Kemp was clearly the instigator.  I thought Kemp deserved a five game suspension—one more than he got—and Torrealba should only have gotten two—one less than he got.)

- Once Paul Pierce returned from the locker room after his injury, you could just feel the game slipping away from the Lakers right into the laps of the Celtics. Add some great lockdown defense on the Lakers down the stretch, and it wasn’t hard to see how the Celtics surged ahead of the Lakers in the second half.

(Damn PJ Brown! That guy was EVERYWHERE in the fourth quarter! Someone give me some of the magical potion someone obviously gave him :P)

Everything that could have gone wrong in this game probably did for the Lakers. And even as I typed that, I knew that Boston didn’t play their best game either. It might only be one game out of a possible seven, but the Celtics are clearly the better team right now.

KG got off (Gasol’s got no chance against him), Allen got off to a great start, and then there was Pierce. And it seemed like, every time Boston needed a play, one of their role players happened to be there to do so.

(Freaking PJ Brown.)

At our lunch last weekend, I was told that the key to the series was stopping Paul Pierce. Personally, I thought the key was figuring out which Kobe Bryant was going to show up. We can both be right, no?

And what was with the Lakers committing so many stupid, away-from-the-basket, in-the-penalty fouls?

(Mark Jackson just said that the Lakers need Kobe to make the right play, and then Kobe goes ahead and takes a terrible three-point shot.)

The Lakers better plan on stealing Game Two if they want any chance of winning this series. Otherwise, this series could be over in as soon as five games.

If there’s anything to be positive about, the Lakers got trounced pretty well in the first road game of their series against Utah and San Antonio.

And the Lakers can’t possibly miss that many open shots in Game Two, right?

Right?

Tags: boston celtics, colorado rockies, los angeles dodgers, los angeles lakers, matt kemp, yorvit torrealba by Peter
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Argh!  This was supposed to be posted two nights ago!

Quick-hitters:

- You know you watch way too much TV when you can nearly recite that entire Taco Bell burrito rap.

(Speaking of commercials, I’m getting sick and tired of that song in the latest Zune commercial that goes “I’m here, and I ain’t going nowhere!” Please, go.)

- So I’m about ready to get a new cell phone (more on that another day; thanks Sprint). What should I get? A Palm Centro? A Moto Q (not the 9c, as that is $100 too expensive for my liking)? Or should I just keep my Sanyo Katana?

Decisions, decisions.

- They say one should not go grocery shopping while hungry. I should avoid online shopping while hungry as well.

I’m this close to ordering about $50 worth of Oberto beef jerky from Amazon. Thank goodness for free GCs through my Amazon Visa card + a $15/39 coupon (OBERSAVE).

- Every time I go to a supermarket that happens to have Gatorade, Powerade, or a similar bottled drink on sale, I cannot resist the temptation to buy several bottles. I do this for two reasons: one, I love sports drinks; and two, I re-use the bottles for drinking water.

(Let’s not get into the potential health hazards of re-using drink bottles.)

Anyway, I’ve now developed an even more ridiculous habit of not finishing a bottle before I start on a new bottle, typically of a different flavor. It has gotten to the point where I could walk from my living room computer to my bedroom, and pass anywhere from two to six unfinished bottles of Gatorade.

(Case in point: one day, there was a bottle of Gatorade on my computer desk, a bottle of water and a bottle of Crystal Light on my coffee table, and two bottles of Sobe Life Water on my kitchen counter. None of the five bottles were empty, and none of them were more than half full.)

Naturally, I’ve begun to take advantage of this. Every time I get up to go to the bathroom, the office, or my bedroom, I pretend to be an endurance runner, quickly taking a swig out of one of the bottles as I pass by.

Simple things like this amuse me, if you people haven’t already figured that out.

- Last night’s Pens-Wings 3OT game (that’s hockey…you remember that sport, right?) was one of the greatest sporting events I’ve seen in some time.

Too bad hockey has fallen so far off the map that not many people give a damn anymore.

But seriously, what else could you have asked for? Two plus bonus periods of hockey? A young goalie stopping 50+ shots in over 100 minutes of game time? A young team 30 seconds from losing, scrapping a game-tying goal to force the extra periods? A guy allegedly calling his shot, saying that he was going to score the game-winner, and actually doing so (Petr Sykora)? Close calls, big saves, and stupid penalties throughout the OTs (the Wings got hosed on the second goalie interference call, btw)?

If only my LA Kings didn’t suck…

and if only I could find hockey games on a network (Versus) that doesn’t require me to shell out $15 for that and a few other channels that I will never watch…

and if only the latest strike/lockout didn’t occur, causing me to not give a damn about hockey…

then maybe I’d still be a hockey fan.

(BTW, hockey in Hi-Def is incredible.)

- Here are some quick thoughts I have regarding the Celtics-Lakers NBA finals:

1) People have been saying that the key in the series is whether or not the Lakers can stop Paul Pierce.

Am I the only one that thinks that stopping Kevin Garnett is as important? And am I the only one that doesn’t see anyone on the Lakers guarding his well? Gasol’s too slow, and Odom’s not long enough. Yeah, we know that KG is not clutch, but if the Lakers are forced to double-team him, you don’t think that Posey, Pierce, or even Allen is going to hit a wide-open shot?

2) I fear that Gasol is going to play like a “weenie” again. I fear that Odom will do too much, and will be shut down by KG. And I fear that Pierce will do enough to slow down Kobe. All that spells disaster for the Lakers.

Laker fans should breath a huge sigh of relief, though, knowing that Doc “I’ll blame anyone buy myself, even God” Rivers is Boston’s coach.

(I’m not being facetious when I say that Rivers will blame God if something happens; I recall, during one of those coach’s interviews, Rivers blaming God for the Celtics’ shots not falling!)

Talk about a coaching mismatch!

3) Despite the coaching advantage and (I’d argue) the bench advantage, I think the Celts are just too strong. I don’t expect to see the same Celts team that took seven games to oust Atlanta to show up in the Finals. For now, I expect Boston to take the first two in Boston, and then win either Game Four or Five, and close out the Lakers in six.

I’m so confident of that prediction that I will bet $20 on Boston winning the NBA Finals.

(Boston fans, you may begin to send me hate mail :P)

Tags: 3 OT, amazon.com, beef jerky, boston celtics, commercial, detroit red wings, hockey, los angeles lakers, moto q, oberto, palm centro, pittsburgh penguins, rap, sprint, taco bell, water bottles by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- You know you need a haircut when nearly your entire family rags on the mess on your head that is your hair.

I guess I better get my haircut tomorrow :P.

- I love going back to MPK, even if it’s a last-minute thing.

Why? Food, naturally. My aunt gave me two fresh cornish game hens and my mom sent me packing with some excess stuff from her fridge: a ton of string cheese, and some sauce.

More on the visit home to come.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,100! Will I get down to triple figures by the end of the week?

I’ll lay 2:1 odds to anyone willing to take that bet

- So we went home on Sunday because it is my cousin’s b-day on Monday (Happy Birthday!). We decided to go to Gin Sushi on Colorado Blvd and Lotus (St?) in Pasadena. Gin Sushi is decent, cheap, average, cheap Japanese food, if you haven’t been there before.

It took a while for our waitress to take our orders, though that was partially our fault. We spent so much time talking that I don’t think anyone really knew what they were going to order until the waitress came by. For some reason, though, she didn’t take our orders in an organized fashion; you would think that a waiter would start at one corner, and work his/her way down one row, and then finish the other row in a similar fashion. Our waitress decided to start somewhere in the middle, and she ended up taking my order last.

(That last line is very important, as you will see.)

It took about fifteen minutes before the first plates of food came out. A few minutes later, people started getting their meals; apparently almost everybody ordered the two-item combination lunch special, which comes with rice, salad, and your choice of two dishes. Soon after, I noticed that myself and the b-day girl were the only two people that didn’t have food in front of them.

(I found out later that her appetizer was, in fact, her actual meal.)

When the waitress came back to the table—a full half-hour or so after we ordered our food—we pointed out that I had yet to get my food. She came back a few minutes later, showing me her little notepad, pointing out that she had written down my order last and marked it off, signifying that she delivered my food already!

(That’s fine and dandy, but that didn’t change the fact that I did not get my food!)

Knowing full well that only nine plates were delivered, I retorted, “Count the dishes!” As soon as the words came out of my mouth, I felt kinda bad, thinking it was just a mix up in the back.

Apparently she thought we were cheating her or something, because someone at our table (I forget who) thought s/he saw the waitress insist (to a chef, maybe?) that she did, in fact, deliver the tenth plate! I immediately felt no longer sorry for the girl, and we started cracking jokes over what I allegedly did with the missing plate. Apparently, I either hid the plate under the table, or I hid it in the bathroom to scam them out of more food.

It took a bit of prodding (ok, two of my cousins yelled at the waitress, “His food should be free!”), but they eventually agreed to give me my meal for free. At that point, I just wanted to get the heck out of there, so minutes after my food actually came, I asked for a to-go box.

Something tells me the next time I’m there (if there is a next time), I’m going to get special sauce with my tempura.

Until next time!

Tags: bad waitress, gin sushi, haircut, mpk by Peter
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