UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

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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Quick-hitters:

- When the hell did Subway neuter their $5 footlong deal? I had a hankering for some Subway tonight, and was bent when I saw that the $5 deal only applies to seven of the crappier Subway sandwiches!

Good thing the sandwich I really wanted—a Subway Melt—was only $6.

I think it’s time to start eating at Quiznos. Even if their deal is limited to a few sandwiches, I’d rather have Quiznos over Subway anyway.

(EDIT:  I just saw the commercial for this change.  The commercial states, (paraphrasing) “Due to the fanatical (???) response, we’re putting regular $5 footlongs on our new Subway Value menu.”  My apologies to Subway…I guess.)

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1,600, and I expect it to rise with the Memorial Day sales upcoming.

Current toothpaste-o-meter: a hell of a lot (+4), though I finally finished a tube last night! W00t!

Current backache-o-meter (number of consecutive days I’ve woken up with a stiff back): three. Where the hell is my Theragesic???

(Tangent: The following thought is rated R.

Certainly I’m not the only person that has had this happen to him. I applied some Theragesic to my lower back on Saturday, and either I rubbed some a bit too low, or the stuff spreads along one’s back like wildfire.

After applying the cream, I went to sit down on my sofa, when I felt a burning sensation…um…right in the crack of my ass. I had no choice but to take my second shower of the day right then and there :P.)

- For the love of everything that is good in the word, please make the Mac v PC commercials stop!

I have a feeling that McDonalds and Apple have minority stakes in TiVo.

- First, some thoughts on Cavs-Celtics, Game Seven.

LeBron 45, Pierce 41. That might have been the single best 1-on-1 playoff matchup I’ve ever watched (key word: “watched”; I have never seen the famous Bird-Wilkins duel in 1988). That game was one of those where the casual fan, like myself, was begging for at least one overtime; it was really that amazing. Pierce had it going the entire game, and LeBron’s back has to be sore, after carrying his team on his shoulders in the game.

(Tangent: Sometime during the game, the announcers were talking about how Pierce was the third option on the team, behind KG and Allen. I’ll concede that Pierce belongs behind KG on the pecking order, but Ray Allen? Ray Allen five years ago, maybe, but not the 2007-08 Ray Allen. I would have made this argument even before the playoffs started, even before Ray Allen aged before our very eyes.

How can Pierce be considered option #3? I always see him ranked so high on Yahoo’s Fantasy Basketball rankings! :P)

Now, could you imagine LeBron had some decent help? Sure, Z is a nice player, and West and Szczerbiak were decent parts, and maybe Ben Wallace wasn’t as much of an abomination as I expected him to be, but none of them exactly strike fear into the hearts of their opponents. Next year, though, the Cavs could really be a force to reckon with, with tons of expiring contracts ($30 million worth, I heard somewhere).

As for the Celts, they better hope to get something out of Allen in the next round, or there’s no way they’re getting past Detroit, assuming Detroit doesn’t put it in cruise control for the first few games of the series.

Now, on to Spurs-Hornets. At the start of series, we heard a lot about the Spurs’ championship composure as a huge advantage in the series, but we saw none of that in the first three games in New Orleans. Then Game Seven happened. The Spurs clogged the paint, and the Hornets morphed into a jump shooting team. It didn’t help that their shots weren’t falling, while the Spurs looked like they were shooting a tennis ball through a hula hoop.

Speaking of bad jump shots, Reggie Miller hit it right on the head in the fourth quarter: why was Jannero Pargo taking so many shots?

(LIVE EDIT: I stand by my comments, even after watching Pargo hit a pair of threes. Could the Hornets not draw up anything for Peja?

LIVE EDIT #2: What was with THAT shot by Pargo? I guess the Lakers better start preparing for the Spurs.)

If that is the Spurs team that the Lakers run in to starting on Wednesday, they could be in serious trouble. Who is going to guard Tim Duncan? Who is going to guard Manu Ginobili? Who is going to keep Tony Parker out of the lane?

Back to the Hornets: what happened in that third quarter? It appeared that the Hornets came out of the locker room completely listless, with zero sense of urgency, almost as if they knew a rally was coming. Unfortunately, that rally never materialized, and now they’re going to play golf.

Until next time.

Tags: $5 footlongs, back pain, cavs, celtics, chris paul, hornets, jannero pargo, lebron james, paul pierce, quiznos, spurs, subway, theragesic by Peter
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Sorry, no Office review tonight! I really didn’t expect the Spurs-Hornets game to be THAT entertaining!

Quick-hitters:

- Does anybody own a Treo 700 series, specifically the 755p? My sister’s 755p is in a never-ending reboot loop, no matter how many times I soft- or hard-reset the damn thing. What the hell is causing this, and how the hell do you fix it?

The last I heard, she took the PDA to the Sprint store. Hopefully Sprint stores are not as clueless as their phone reps can be.

- Best Buy sent me this email earlier today:

Dear Peter,

In an ongoing effort to improve our services, we’d like to hear about your experience of having BestBuy.com products shipped. Please click the button below to fill out a brief survey about your recent purchase on 05/01/2008, including [items purchased]. It should only take a few minutes.

Thanks for helping BestBuy.com serve you better!

Usually, I have zero desire to fill out these surveys. However, in this case, I have less than zero desire to fill out this survey. You see, this order is currently on backorder!

Nice job, Best Buy!

- I get a balance transfer (BT) offer from either Chase or Citibank (boooooooo!) practically every day.

(Who doesn’t?)

Normally, these checks find their way immediately into my shredder. Most of the time, I get BT checks on my lowest-limit credit cards—$1,200 and $2,000—or on my primary credit card. If I’m going to take out a BT, I’m not going to “waste” my time on a small balance like $1,000, nor am I going to take out a big BT on a credit card that I use everyday. (Why? So I can pay 12% on my purchase balance?)

Today, though, I found a very interesting offer in the mail from Chase on my second-highest limit card, on which I already have a low-interest (3.99% for life) BT. I’ve received BT checks on this account before, but usually the offers range from weak—4.99% for life—to pathetic—1.9% for six months, and then the purchase APR applies. However, I got two different offers today:

• 0% until 2/09 (yawn)
• 2.99% fixed for life

2.99% for life? Considering that the existing BT on the card is at 3.99%, it would be reasonable to expect future offers to have a higher interest rate, especially when you consider that payments apply to balances with lower interest rates first.

I wonder what my credit score is if I’m being offered a 2.99% balance transfer rate. I know people with good-to-excellent credit card scores that are offered 3.99% rates for life.

- (from Consumerist…just spotted a minute or so ago, that is) I normally don’t shop at Walgreens, usually because CVS deal hunting takes up most of my time as it is :P. However, if one of my local Walgreens pulled crap like this, I’d boycott all the Walgreens in the area for sure.

Cliffs: woman falls into diabetic coma near the checkout register, two nurses and an officer nearby administer OJ and sugar, someone pulls a glucometer off the shelf, woman is rushed to hospital, manager runs out in a hissy fit and demands that somebody pay for all the items.

Seriously? Mr. Manager got pissed off over the loss of an EIGHTEEN DOLLAR GLUCOMETER, as well as some OJ and sugar? From the way he acted (according to the nurse and officer), they used his Gluco-tech 5000 series Professional Blood Glucose counter (accurate to 0.0001%!), went to the appliance section, grabbed a high-end juicer, stole an orange that the manager was saving for a snack, juiced the orange, and gave the patient the juice.

Walgreens’ statement was priceless:

“We’re sorry for the misunderstanding. The store manager didn’t arrive on the sales floor until after the paramedics have left, so he didn’t realize a medical emergency had taken place.”

So the two frantic nurses, the officer, the missing glucometer, and the sirens in the distance, not to mention the obvious commotion in the store, weren’t enough of a clue that a medical emergency had taken place? Not to mention, I think a “misunderstanding” is a slight understatement. At least Walgreens was nice enough to offer a refund on the glucometer…

Question: if the store manager insisted that the accounts of the nurse and officer were wrong, why did he not attempt to explain what really happened?

I hate to imagine what would have happened if the woman had bled on the carpet. Would the manager have demanded compensation for the carpet shampooer he would have needed to clean up the stains?

- Quickly…

It’s about time the Spurs’ Big 3 finally showed up for a game in this series. For three quarters, it sure looked like the Hornets were well on their way to a monumental sweep. I still think the Hornets will win this series, and I like their chances in Game 4. Manu’s got a bum ankle, and Duncan hasn’t been nearly as effective as he has in years past. If the Hornets find a way to slow down Tony Parker, the Spurs are cooked.

For the first time all series, we saw the fluidity that the Spurs offense possesses at times: quick passes down low to Duncan, forcing the double team, followed by several passes to open shooters or cutters. And was that a Michael Finley sighting?

For years, the Spurs were called “boring” and “unwatchable,” but I became a passive fan of the team.

(I know, I know. BLASPHEMY! And BLAS-for-you! BLAS-for everybody in the world…)

I just loved how professional the team was—a Robert Horry hip check notwithstanding—and I became quickly impressed by how easily they were able to reload their teams to contend for championships each year. Of course, it helps to be able to build around a cornerstone like Duncan. As far as their boring offense is concerned, sure, running their offense through Duncan could be considered boring, but it was damn effective, was it not? And now that Tony Parker has flipped the switch and is utterly dominating games with his speed and ridiculous finishing ability, how can anyone call this team “boring” any more? Who wouldn’t like Parker v. Paul to go a full seven games?

As far as the other game tonight is concerned, how about them Cavs and the greatest player in the history of the NBA? Is it bad Cavs offense, or excellent Celtics defense? I refuse to say a little of both, and I’m giving credit where credit is due: to the Celtics’ defense. I know that the C’s had a highly rated defense, but after watching bits and pieces of these two games against the Cavs, I know see why. It’s not that LeBron’s settling for jumpers; it’s that LeBron has no choice but to take jumpers!

Should the Cavs lose this series (I actually had them winning in six, and would now like a mulligan :P), we can’t pin this one on LeBron. Cavs fans can start blaming the Celtics’ D, and I hope this doesn’t cost Cavs’ coach Mike Brown his job.

Until next time!

Tags: balance transfer, best buy, cavs, celtics, chase, chris paul, hornets, reboot loop, sprint, spurs, survey, tony parker, treo 755p by Peter
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Quick-hitters:

- Cavs v. Celtics thoughts: I missed the game completely (more on that later), but I was astonished to find that “King” James only went 2-for-18. As soon as I heard that, I assumed that he had to have been fouled several times w/o getting calls.

Apparently that was not the case. “King” James will have to wait another game to earn his moniker.

- I picked myself up a Linksys WRT54GS from Staples for ~ $5 after some FAR items and a $20/100 coupon. Now I gotta decide whether or not I want to hack and flash it with some third party firmware, or just use the stock firmware.

One key deciding point: this router is for use at my parents’ place, not here. I’ll probably just leave it as-is :P.

- Current rebate-o-meter: $1450. I got a ton of rebates in the past week or so—about $300 worth of Symantec Rebate debit cards alone!

I know have over $400 in unspent Amazon.com gift certificates.

(Every time I receive a Symantec Rebate debit card, I immediately convert it to an Amazon.com GC, which I add to my Amazon.com buyer account.)

- Sprint’s customer service is awesome. Don’t believe me? Read on!

Back in January, I extended my contract in exchange for a 10% discount on service. The Sprint rep I spoke to told me that I would see the 10% discount on my account effective within the next two statements.

In April, the 10% still didn’t show up, so I called Sprint, and the rep I spoke to assured me that the 10% would show up on the next statement.

Fast forward to yesterday, and the 10% was still nowhere to be found. I called Sprint again, and here is our conversation (paraphrased):

Me: My 10% discount still hasn’t shown up on my account!

CS: Ok…well…it’s there, and I can’t do anything about it. It will probably show up next month.

Me: Probably? And what if it doesn’t show up next month?

CS: (laughs) Then you can call back and yell at me.

I love Sprint.

- So I swung by Ross today with my sister to return a shirt I bought over the weekend.

That’s when I found a really nice golf polo (Adidas ClimaCool something or another) for $20, marked down from $70. I couldn’t resist, though I’d say it’s 50-50 that I return the shirt sometime in the next week or so.

Anyway, when I got to the checkout line—single line, but multiple registers—I noticed three people in line, followed by a little gap, followed by a shopping cart full of stuff. I looked at the cart, wondered if it actually belonged to somebody, and before I could make up my mind, the owner of the cart came up to it—she had been looking through a rack of clothes near the line—nudged it forward, and gave me a death stare, as if to say “Yes, this is my cart, and yes, I’m in line, a$$hole.”

So I stood behind the lady’s cart, and she went back to her shopping. The line moved some more, and I just stood behind her cart, like an idiot. A guy was behind me, wondering what the hell the idiot in front of him (me) was doing just standing there, and the gap between the cart and the person in front widened. I seriously contemplated just shoving the cart out of the way, but the woman came back, nudged her cart forward again, and walked off.

I told myself, “If I’m the next person in line, and the woman doesn’t return, I’m cutting in line no matter what.” Unfortunately, the woman came back right when one of the cashiers shouted “next in line!”

One other bit of shopping cart ridiculousness: later, when another cashier called for the next person in line, two older ladies went to the register. One of the cashiers asked the trailing lady, “Were you in line?” The lady responded, “Of course! I was with this woman (pointing to her friend) all the time!”

That’s fine and dandy…HAD THE TWO WOMEN COMBINED THEIR PURCHASES AS A SINGLE TRANSACTION! But nope, the second woman waited for her friend to finish checking out, and then started emptying her cart in front of the register, expecting the cashier to start checking her out! And yes, the cashier reluctantly started scanning the second woman’s stuff.

Oh how I hate stupid people.

- Fifteen dollar ($50 retail) box seats. Chicken nachos, Dodger Dogs, and peanuts. Not-so-obnoxious fans (and if they were obnoxious, it was in a funny way). Blake DeWitt hitting his second career HR in inside-the-park fashion. A couple of B-level celebrity sightings (twice!). What could have ruined tonight’s Mets-Dodgers game?

Answer: the possible existence of an even more powerful, faster-acting Ung-hex!

The Dodgers were up, 5-4, in the bottom of the ninth inning, with two outs: a long fly out to center by Moises Alou, and a hard ground out by Carlos Delgado on a great play by 1B James Loney. The crowd stood up, and my sister and I joined them. That’s when I noticed, out of the corner of my eye, my sister putting her backpack on. I immediately told her, “Take that off!” She didn’t listen.

Single by Angel Pagan.

I told her again to take off the backpack. Instead, she handed me my sweater.

Single by Brian Schneider.

I grabbed her backpack, and slammed it on her empty seat. I tossed my sweater on the seat as well.

Strike three, looking, to Luis Castillo.

As we celebrated, I told my sister, “You lucked out. If I hadn’t removed your backpack, we would have lost!” She denied the existence of her own Ung-hex, but who could deny it after what happened above? Never has my Ung-hex worked THAT quickly, and THAT effectively.

The seats themselves were pretty decent—aisle 44, next to the right field foul pole, and row T, just underneath the overhang of the Loge section—and thank goodness that there were no really obnoxious fans near us. The concession stands were a heck of a lot nicer than in other sections, and there was a much larger variety of restaurants. Also, the bathrooms were really nice! Instead of a trough, there were actually urinals :P. Also, while there were paper towel dispensers, the bathrooms also had Dyson Airblades! Awesome!

The game was excellent, although it was clear that Dodgers’ pitcher Hideki Kuroda was going to have a rough game. Thank goodness for the play of one Blake DeWitt (who?): 3-4, 4 RBI (2-run single with the bases loaded, and what proved to be a game-winning inside-the-park home run that had the home crowd demanding a curtain call with a “We want Blake!” chant.

(Who needs Andy LaRoche? Nomar who? BLAKE DE-WITT! BLAKE DE-WITT!!!)

As for the celebrity sightings, it was nothing much to write home about. Once we found our seats, we immediately got up and visited the concession stands. A few seconds into our walk, and I noticed three men walking the opposite way. I caught a glance of one of them, and thought he looked familiar. My sister immediately chased me down, and exclaimed some gibberish that I don’t quite recall.

(She LOVES the show.)

Turns out that Detective Don Flack (Eddie Cahill) and CSI Danny Messer (Carmine Giovinazzo) were the two celebs she spotted. On the way out of the stadium, we spotted them near the Field level exit (I was 99.999% positive that that was them, and my sister confirmed it, muttering “OMG OMG that’s them!”). I quickly told her that I would walk past them, and then bend over and tie my shoelaces, to give her an opportunity to go bother them.

She chickened out. By the time she gathered herself to do something, they walked away.

(If this is how we act in front of B-level celebs, what would have happened if we saw Gary Sinise?)

Until next time!

Tags: blake dewitt, box seats, carmine giovinazzo, cavs, celtics, checkout, csi new york, customer service, Dodger Stadium, dodgers, eddie cahill, firmware, inside-the-park home run, mets, rebates, ross, shopping cart, sprint, wrt54gs by Peter
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