UngsungBlog: A (Fantasy) Sports Blog

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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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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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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No quick-hitters.  Let’s just get to basketball.

- Raise your hand if you didn’t think that Deron Williams’ last-second shot was good.

Now THAT was a great playoff game.  The Lakers punched Utah in the mouth for three quarters, and the Jazz made their inevitable push by finally draining triples down the stretch.  Leave it to Derek Fisher, an 88% FT shooter, to brick that free throw late, giving the Jazz a shot at the tie.

The story of the game (other than Kobe’s virtual game-clinching 6-0 run, including that dagger trey and the “bank’s open late” and-1), though, had to be the two offensive foul calls on Carlos Boozer.  The one right before halftime was a pretty weak call, and I thought the one in the third quarter was even worse.  Think Utah could have used a not-in-foul-trouble Carlos Boozer down the stretch of the fourth quarter?  I will entertain the argument that Boozer got taken out of four games by foul trouble, and in at least three of them, he drew some pretty weak foul calls.

(That being said, what was Deron Williams complaining about right before halftime, when he obviously fouled Derek Fisher on the left arm?  In fact, I’d argue that he fouled Fisher twice on that shot:  once before the release, and once on the follow-through.)

This begs the question:  did Carlos Boozer do something to deserve the lack of respect he got from the refs?  Did he spill a drink on David Stern at an NBA function?

At least Utah has a bright future ahead of them.  Deron Williams made “The Leap,” and their team will return largely intact next year.

(Like that is supposed to make Jazz fans feel better, I know.)

Speaking of poor officiating, that charge call on Paul Pierce, late in the fourth quarter of Celtics-Cavs, was abysmal.  Instead of Pierce shooting two to potentially trim the Cavs’ lead to three, the Cavs got the ball back.  Matt Harpring getting run over by Pau Gasol in Game Five of Jazz-Lakers thought that call was horrible.

The Ray Allen non-goaltending, on the other hand, was absolutely the correct call.  I always thought that goaltending couldn’t be called if a shot had no chance of going in, and who would argue that a shot hitting the side of the backboard had a chance of going in?  Michael Wilbon insisted that the basket should have counted, but I was happy to hear that I was, indeed, correct.

Anyway, what a pair of Game Sevens we basketball fans have in store in the next few days!

Tomorrow, part 3 of my “covert ops” mission.

Tags: boston celtics, carlos boozer, charging, cleveland cavs, derek fisher, deron williams, fouls, kobe bryant, lebron james, los angeles lakers, paul pierce, utah jazz by Peter
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