Nathan's Occasional Blog

I’m watching the Dodgers and Giants on InHD right now.  The Giants are getting shelled – it’s 5-0 with no outs in the top of the 2nd.

It’s so bad that Greg Maddox, a (hall of fame) pitcher, led off the second with a ground rule double.  The guy behind him then laid down a sacrifice bunt.  Which the pitcher fielded, thought of going to third (didn’t) and threw way wide of first.  The or second baseman got the ball from the wall half way down the line and threw to third.  The third baseman missed the ball.  The pitcher eventually got the ball off the wall on the third base line … and threw late to the plate.  Sacrifice bunt turns into a home run.

I’m astonished.  No wonder the only teams the Mariners can beat this year are in the NL.

Heh – Giants pitcher just got yanked.  Box score for B Hennessey tonight.  1+ innings pitched (no outs in 2nd before pulled).  7 runs (3 earned).  1 walk. 1 strike out.

And the carnage continues.  7 hits for the Dodgers so far in the 2nd with no outs.  This is going to be a LONG night for SF.

I’m sitting here watching the third round of the PGA Championship on CBS in high definition (HD).  First off, it’s about time CBS put their HD programming feed for golf in widescreen format (they usually show golf in 4:3 even on the HD channel).

Another thing of note is that when I turned on the TV (after Kaitlyn went down for a nap) there was one of Microsoft’s “PeopleReady” adds on TV.  This is the first TV ad I’ve seen in HD that’s actually using widescreen.  Most of the ads on HD broadcast TV (CBS, ABC, NBC, FOX, ESPN, etc.) are still in 4:3 format, leaving big black borders on the left/right of the screen.  OR the ad will be widescreen, but widescreen in a 4:3 format so they’ve added a black border on the top and bottom to go with the crappy borders on the sides.

WHY WHY WHY do advertisers think that’s a good idea?  You’re shrinking your products on the screen and wasting 15-20% of the screen real estate you’ve already paid for!

As I write this I just saw a Sprint ad that was full screen 16:9 widescreen too – good job Sprint!

Of course you have to be wary when you ask for.  One of the easiest way to fast forward through a recorded HDTV program’s ads is to watch the borders to see when the ads are over.  🙂

Most accidents reported in the media involving motorcycles make it sound like the motorcycle driver was at fault … at least in the headline.  It’s quite concerning to see them take the same tack with the accident the other evening on Hwy 18 where a 17 year old girl was going 100 mph on the wrong side of the highway at 2a.  She was killed when her vehicle slammed into a big rig.

I feel sorry for her and her family.  Another account I read indicated she had taken off after an argument with her parents.

But the headline in the PI says “17-year-old dies after her car is hit by semitrailer”.  Really?  Because in my mind when you’re roughly doubling the speed limit in the middle of the night and end up running into another vehicle that pretty much seems like you hit them.

So why did the PI write the headline as such?  Same reason we see “sensational” news on TV … ratings.  Everyone’s scared of these huge trucks on the road so let’s play on that fear.  “Look – a trucker killed a 17 year old girl” the PI seems to say.

A 17-year-old Spanaway teen died early Friday after a semitrailer hit her car, which was westbound in an eastbound lane on state Route 18, authorities said.
Source: 17-year-old dies after her car is hit by semitrailer

Screw that PI.  The statistics show that truckers are actually the safest drivers on the roads … long-haul truckers even more so.  It’s the folks who go out partying, or want to show off to their friends how fast/cool they can drive, or gab on cell phones while driving down the road who are dangers to society.

Seattle PI RSS feeds: UNSUBSCRIBED.  Hopefully the Seattle Times is better.

By the way, if I see another idiot driving 50 mph in a 60 mph zone while holding a cell phone to their head and driving a $70k vehicle I’m going to …. I don’t know – I’ll think of something.  You can spend $1000/month on a car and insurance but you can’t scrape together $15 for the hands free earbud for your phone?  Hell, most phones ship with the earbud.  GEESH!

UPDATE: I just browsed through the rest of my unread RSS items from the PI and found the same story with the headline “Teen killed after driving wrong way on state Route 18“.  This story was posted just after noon yesterday, with the article that pissed me off published at 10:30p last night.  I wonder which headline made it in the paper?