JTMacc99

Cat-sitter sounds like a pretty good retirement gig.

Disney is simply making the decision to move it's regular ABC Monday night stuff (Dancing with the Stars, The Bachelor crap franchise) to later in the week to fill in programming holes created by the strike and simulcasting an additional 8 ESPN games on ABC. They were already showing 10 games on ABC during the year, making it 18. I'm assuming that even though the same game is already on ESPN, they'll still make more money from advertising by simulcasting the NFL on ABC than they would running some kind of repeat or other dreck on the nights later in the week.

There has been an influx of Niners fans to the Giants site that I visit for team news. They're an awfully mouthy bunch for a team that hasn't won a Super Bowl since before the last time the Cowboys won one. I guess they got a lot of practice talking about winning the last 27 years. Although, I agree with their confidence about this upcoming game. As a Giants fan, I'm thinking it's gonna be one of these nights...

We've got two dogs, both some kind of poodle mix, who bark like lunatics every time somebody walks by. They're both inside of electric fences, so they're a ways back in their yards, but still... The retired ladies I frequently see walking when I'm out walking my dog have mentioned that they don't like the barking dogs (while complimenting Norman, who completely ignores the barking.)

The full press release did lay out that Disney can no longer force Spectrum to carry all of those fringe channels in the packages of at least 80% of their customers, which is what Disney traditionally stipulates in their contracts with cable and satellite companies. So back of the envelope math tells me that Disney traded off forcing Spectrum to collect about $2 a month from 11 million subscribers for all of the dropped channels in exchange for $2 more every month for ESPN, Disney, ABC, NatGeo, FX and so on. (Give or take those rates. Disney probably got more from the increases on the channels they kept than lost from the ones they dropped.) Like most traditional cable TV companies at this point, Spectrum is totally fine with subscribers dropping their cable TV packages all together and just streaming everything. That's how they got Disney, who typically "negotiates" by offering take our rate increases or we're shutting you off, to actually trade off costs and agree to give Spectrum customers who are already paying for Disney content the access to Disney+ and the ESPN streaming services. Spectrum basically told Disney, we can live without you, because we can live without video customers, and let's see how you do without the $2.2 Billion dollars we're collecting from our customers and handing directly to you this year. Plus all the advertising dollars that Disney would lose. The poor customer service agent can't tell you that they don't care if you drop video, but I can. Selling video services as a cable company is kind of like selling homeowners insurance to people in a flood zone. There's only two viable ways to stay in business: Either you charge unbelievably high rates to cover the cost that it will absolutely end up costing, or you offer the package but don't include everything.

That will never, ever, ever, ever happen. Not the part about Disney wanting people to sign up for Hulu, which is definitely happening, the other part. The LAST thing any internet provider wants to do, or will ever do, or has ever done, is intentionally throttle connections. They have enough problems with trying to avoid draconian regulations based on make-believe reasons. They sure as heck don't want to actually create a real reason. Also I'm fairly certain that both of those companies have legitimate competition offering 1GB speeds over more than half of their homes passed, so they can't be jerking around their own customers like that. And lastly, Spectrum struck a deal with Disney that let them give their customers Disney+, ESPN+ and eventually the flagship ESPN streaming service as part of their cable subscription. Spectrum WANTS their customers to get used to using and placing value on the Disney streaming services. Having said that, Hulu was not part of the Spectrum/Disney deal. We Spectrum customers will still need to pay for Hulu directly. And as far as dropping FXX, Spectrum got Disney to stop forcing them to carry a whole bunch of extra channels in the basic lineup including FXX, Disney Jr., and NatGeo Wild. My guess is that Disney reluctantly agreed to this, but you're right. They see the silver lining as subscribers will definitely need to turn to their streaming services, putting some money back in their pockets.

The Super Bowl every few years is a big part of why FOX, NBC, etc paid $2+ billion each for their packages. That is THE TV event of the year every year. I wonder how much money the NFL would have to get through making it PPV to offset the money the networks are willing to pay. There is a number, I’m just wondering who did the math and what they came up with.

I think he gave them the Dean speech to Flounder in Animal House: “Fat, drunk, and stupid is no way to go through life men.” Daniel Jones carried the Giants on his back to this win after a bunch of drops and a terrible defensive effort in the first half. He is a tough kid. They’re going to get slaughtered by the Niners on Thursday. I say rest all the starters. Lol.

Lambeau field has 8-9 football games a year with maybe two more if they get a top seed and make it to lose the NFC championship game at home. They stopped holding high school games because it damages the field creating dangerous conditions for the NFL games, and they very occasionally work in a college game. They also very occasionally hold a one off event. Same with Soldier Field and the Browns Stadium (except for the playoff games) although Chicago will host a few concerts in the summer. I’m assuming this holds true for all of the cold weather grass stadiums. They can have a grass field because it’s feasible to have a grass field. Unlike MetLife. There is no current technology or innovation that is feasible to have a grass field in a northern climate stadium that holds 20+ football games where the grass would be superior and safer than the current field turf. Which by the way, is nowhere near as unsafe as it’s being made out to be per the sports medicine professionals I’ve heard talking about it this week. It’s materially better than previous artificial turf. Hell, look at how bad Arizona screwed up the grass for the Super Bowl last year, and they cultivated that field for ONE game in perfect growing conditions. You need to have separate stadiums for the Jets, the Giants, split up the concerts and farm out the other football games to the baseball stadiums. (Hopefully they do that 20 years from now when we’re due for a new stadium.)

Claiming the moral high ground and policing what words people are and are not allowed to say is super fun. Always has been; always will be.

A few years ago I went through the process of picking out stamps online from the USPS. Then I discovered they were going to charge me shipping, and I never placed the order. I mean, I get that the post office needs to charge a small amount to deliver mail, but I couldn't get past the idea in my head that THEY WERE COMING TO MY HOUSE ANYWAY, WHY CAN'T THEY JUST DROP OFF THE STAMPS WHILE THEY'RE HERE?

I am really happy with the way this new season of Futurama handles its social satire. It's still biting, but it's got a nice light touch feel to it.

I saw that David Bakhtiari post on social media about how the stadiums can switch for the World Cup, so it's feasible, and the NFL clearly cares more about soccer players than them. It's a piss-poor analogy. I mean, I get it. He's upset for his good friend Rogers, so of course he's looking to place blame on someone or something. However, one situation is NOT AT ALL like the other. It's a matter of logistics. The world cup will run from June through mid-July. During that period of time, they'll have maybe one game a week, one SOCCER game a week played on the field. There were SEVEN games at Giants stadium during the 1994 world cup, and the field held up okay. To my recollection, they didn't schedule any football games, concerts, or Monster Truck events when they were trying to keep that grass in good shape for the event. Grass can't hold up to a regular year at MetLife. Here are 41 events that will happen in MetLife stadium in 2023: (It looks like there are also multiple high school football games during the fall, but it's difficult for me to find a good list. I would assume at least 4 more football games can be added to the list, but it might be materially more.) 04/22 Supercross 05/13 Monster Jam 05/26 Taylor Swift 05/27 Taylor Swift 05/28 Taylor Swift 06/10 Ed Sheeran 06/11 Ed Sheeran 07/06 TWICE 07/29 Beyonce 07/30 Beyonce 08/04 Metallica 08/06 Metallica 08/11 Blackpink 08/12 Blackpink 08/15 Guns N' Roses 08/18 Giants 08/19 Jets 08/26 Giants/Jets 08/30 Springsteen 09/01 Springsteen 09/03 Springsteen (He's getting old. When I saw him in 1986 he did 8 straight nights.) 09/07 Karol G's "Manana Sera Bonito" tour 09/08 Karol G's "Manana Sera Bonito" tour 09/10 Giants 09/11 Jets 09/16 College Football 09/24 Jets 10/01 Jets 10/02 Giants 10/15 Jets 10/22 Giants 10/29 Giants 11/06 Jets 11/24 Jets 11/26 Giants 12/03 Jets 12/10 Jets 12/11 Giants 12/24 Jets 12/31 Giants 01/07 Giants

Maintaining a grass field in Met Life stadium has a 0.0% chance of being a safer than the current field turf. Grass would be torn apart by the number of games and other events held there. They messed around with trays in the past, and it just got torn up. Players would be slipping and stepping in holes and then the weather gets nasty in late fall into winter which would make it even worse. The latest and greatest artificial turf IS the safest option for Met Life. The only way to get a nice safe grass field for the Jets and Giants would be to have one stadium for each team and a third stadium for all of the other games and events.

Kind of in the same ballpark as feeling too good to go to work, I'm finding that occasionally it's super helpful to work a remote-work day into my schedule. Where I'm at, the office workers in most departments are set up to have 3 days in office and 2 days remote. Others have fewer remote days, and others are 1 week in, three weeks remote. My role is defined in the policy as "We expect JTMacc99 to be in the office every day." Not officially written but as enforced, my role and my peers are are totally okay to work from home when necessary. So I'll do remote when I have things like somebody coming to the house to do work, or if I have to run somebody to a doctor's appointment after school, or other reasons where I'll simply get more work done by being at home than I would in the office. I'll also occasionally just decide that I'm going to work from home today just to give myself a break from commuting, and to bang out a bunch of independent work that is harder to accomplish in office. It's amazing how much a single day working from home can recharge one's battery.

Bluey would have been a welcome addition to the TV rotation back in the days I had to suffer through the Disney Jr. days. It's super cute and much less repetitive and loud-talky than other shows in that range. It was a big moment in time when we moved out of the Junior versions and into regular Disney and Nickelodeon. Waiting for me there was SpongeBob and Phineas & Ferb and other shows that had really smart jokes buried in all the silliness. For example, there was an episode playing in the family room as I was in the kitchen. The gang somehow all got themselves locked in a room... Mr. Krabs: I've spent a lifetime in this restaurant, and I know there's only one way out of here. Patrick: A high school diploma? Me:

Miami has to play games against the Jets, Bills, Patriots, Eagles, Cowboys... At least one of those teams is going to smack around Tua the way that the Cowboys beat the crap out of Daniel Jones on Sunday, and that will be what will likely be the reason Miami won't win 12-13 games. (I mean, it doesn't have to be that way, but history points towards that being a possibility.) I think the AFC East story has a lot of chapters still to go before we can figure out how it's going to end up.

One wise guy on the internet posted the highlight of that catch with the quote: "Incredible angle of Garret Wilson picking off a Zach Wilson interception." Heh. I have never for one minute disliked the Jets. For a few years I was a Jets well-wisher for reasons I explained back in April. I feel absolutely terrible for Rodgers, and man do I hope that Wilson can simply keep it together enough where the fans don't take out all of their frustration on him. I take absolutely no responsibility for noting that the Jets were founded in the Bermuda Triangle. And I'm assuming that he won't call it quits due to this injury. I mean, he needs to rehab it fully anyway so he can keep playing golf (he's a really good golfer), so he might as well come back and play football again next year. He's also highly competitive, and it doesn't feel like he's going to be okay with THAT being the way his NFL career ends.

^^^ Me on the day Rogers met the media after the trade. Jets things happen. They always happen. Don’t let your kids grow up to be Jets fans.

We, as a group, saw one thing that gave us pause: The "upgrades" to the offensive line from last year were adding in a rookie center, expecting last year's rookie right tackle to be better in year two, and that the guards will be adequate. I think Jones got sacked seven times and hit twice that many times. The poor kid at center had a bad snap on that opening drive and then several more during the night. The RT once again struggled against the Dallas pass rush, and all of the twists and stunts Dallas runs just killed the OL. So no, we generally expected that this team added a bunch of stuff to get better over last year would have done a lot better than what they did last night. (They better kick the crap out of Arizona this week.) Hell, in the second game against Dallas last year, the Giants started 11 players (started) who were either street free agents or on a practice squad at the start of the season due to injuries. And that version of the Giants was leading at halftime. This game just got out of control really early, and they couldn't get anything going. Fun fact: The Giants offense drove inside the Cowboys 15 yard line twice last night and were outscored 6-0 on those two drives. Heh.

Based on what my team brought to the table last night, maybe I'll root for the Bucs this year.

I just really liked their offensive coordinator hire. His coaching is all over some of Wilson’s best years in Seattle and Geno Smith’s year last year. A guy like that is exact what Bowles and Baker need. I mean, I’m not putting them in the playoffs, but I don’t see them being materially different than the rest of the nfc south

@mojoween do you have the RedZone? It’s the BEST when your team is in prime time or on a bye. I had RedZone in today except for a little bit of watching the Niners smack around the Steelers. Where are my Tampa fans today? I told you that I thought predictions of an all time bad season was an overreaction. Big win for their confidence.