On infrequent blogulations

Can a photo album serve as one's primary news source? Are you tired of looking at a map of the world as a background? Should I get my sports news from anyone other than ESPN or Yahoo? Does anyone other than me care?

I have used the best of the web directory (just Google "Best of the Web") to locate a couple of neat new toys. I am actually going to see how informed I can be using 10x10 as a news source and I am interested in how well informed Yard Barker is on sports.

Day 17 on No Cable Island

So we have made it to day 17 of no cable without any real signs of mental breakdown. We did sign up for the Netflix 1-at-a-time unlimited plan with unlimited online viewing ($9.95 per month). This gives us a decent stream of online TV and movie content and we still appreciate a savings of $110 per month. I still miss my sports a little but I am adjusting to the concept of listening to games on streaming radio and watching GameCast style content online. All in all we are watching less TV as there is a lot less to loss but we are spending more time together as a family and being a little more selective in what we watch. I for one was someone who put the TV on by default and next thing you know six hours of my life is gone.

As an aside I have basically been sick for two weeks so going to bed a little earlier sans TV has probably helped a little. Right now I am typing this obviously but I am listening to Air Force football free online and I have Yahoo's GameChannel on so I can check up on the stats.

Things I missed while fiddling with my Netflix

So the trouble with NASCAR isn't that the sport is unexciting. The trouble is that the the excitement is spread out over three days of pageantry and buildup followed by four to six hours of somewhat redundant racing. For the love of god, shorten the races. I know the advertisers pay the bills but would you rather pay for six hours worth of ads on an event no one watches or three hours worth of ads with a nice consistent Nielson rating. As a matter of fact here's three tips to improve your sport;

shorten the races, I swear I've turned off races after five hours, who watches anything for five hours.

single elimination chase (12 in the first race, 11 in the second, etc. down to three drives in the chase for the final race),and finally

work on your scheduling in two ways: start all of the races at two times (Saturday night at 8 or Sunday afternoon at 3). Everyone in the English speaking world knows when NFL games are on. The second way that you can fix your scheduling is to dust off the wipers and rain tires, I'll bet the ratings were just fine for that race in Montreal a couple of years back. Racing at 70 instead of 170 is still racing. Does anyone ever watch the race on Monday afternoon?

But whatever you do make sure you let guys keep doing idiotic stuff like this, it's funny and it's ratings gold.

Who needs cable?

So chalk up one point for who needs cable with the website Hulu.com. All the content you crave? No, but a lot of content and free.