pitchleague

it didn't prompt me to log in. It had me click the "buy now" button in order to log in. I already had re-upped my subscription last month. After a bit of frustration, I got in though. Nice start, Sharpie . . . .

why shouldn't every customer be treated the same? If I am such a good and loyal customer to DirecTV, as they say I am, then why aren't I entitled to the same thing/offers/deals that other customers are getting? Are there different tiers/levels of loyalty that their corporation doesn't tell you? Is casey and my friend John both "platinum" customers and I'm only at the "gold" level?

don't quote me on this, but I do believe that they fixed this issue during the winter of 2007-2008 (prior to the 2008 season). I know it's been good to go for at least 2 seasons.

thanks, Casey. I can use this information in my case against Directv. When I changed over to all the HD stuff 2 weeks ago, they charged me for everything. I was not happy, to say the least. I've been casually writing up my letter to the company using instances and examples that I've found on the internet and from testimonials from friends who also have received free upgrade stuff. Don't worry, I won't use your name or anything.

We stayed at a hotel on the south end of Denver when we went a few years ago. I think it was a Hampton Inn. Only took us 10 minutes to get there after the game. I don't know if that's "cheap" enough for you, but I'm sure there are Motel 6's around or cheaper still.

I watched and enjoyed but it was edited. I wonder how much they edited out.

have one for me, everyone! Have fun and be safe, too!

congrats to Butler! I was excited about either team winning but was surprised that K-State just showed no urgency or good team play in the entire final minute of the game. I always love it when mid-majors/non big-time teams make the Final Four. NCAA tournament always rocks. Except that one year that all four #1's made it to the finals. Snooze.

I got a bunch of adapters, 2 refurbed sansa players (they work great), and some backpacks. I seem to recall their being a piece of cheap jewelry in mine, too. Oh, and about 140 of those giant air-filled plastic cushion thingies. That's the only BOC I've ever got.

If only CBS would kick Jim Nantz to the curb for the Final Four and let him prepare for Masters Week instead. Gus Johnson doing the Final Four would be sweet music to my ears. Although, I'm sure that some could argue that he was great at first but is not starting to dip a bit into the Dick Vitale pool of over-exuberance. I'm not in that crowd but I can see how some would.

Tonight's episode? Number one for me this year. Funny moments--- Jim? --check Pam? --check Michael? --check Kevin? -- check Creed? -- check Ryan? --check Dwight? --check Angela? --check Oscar? -- check Darryl? --check Stanley? --check Erin? --check Seriously, I think EVERYONE had a funny line or moment in this episode. I laughed the whole time. The only time I cringed was when "Date Mike" made his appearance and ruined things. They always write stuff for Michael that is just too absurd. Luckily, it worked out for him--it usually doesn't. And, for once, it was gosh darn funny.

I'd like to wait until a bit closer to Opening Day, but I'll throw my guess out there now and edit it later if I feel like it (or remember to.) 84-78 sounds about right to me. Gallardo makes his first all-star team but struggles in the 2nd half. Weeks has a great year but gets hurt in August. Prince and Braun battle it out all season among the leaderboards. Escobar hits about .275 with about 25 steals. Wolf wins 13 games. Hoffman saves 36 games. McGehee regresses and hits about .230 with 10 hr. Hart doesn't improve much, only to about .270 with 14 hr. Gomez hits better than expected but not enough although he does steal 20 bases and leads the team with 17 bunt singles. Bush and Parra combine for only 9 wins.

my "favorite" part of last night was the gun fight at the river. They went to commercial with them barricaded by the SUV at around 4:10 am or so. Then they did 20 minutes of stuff at CTU. Then they returned to the river area with them still barracaded in before Jack had the idea to use the armor plates. I know the truck was "loaded" with gear and guns but for 20 minutes that's all they did was shoot bullets? Don't you think they'd have run out or come close to it by then? I know, you're supposed to take the "real-time" presentation like a grain of salt but that still bugged me and I thought they could have done it better. Oh, not to mention that Renee easily picked guys off with her handgun from 100 yards away without batting an eyelash while guys with SMG's couldn't do it for the last 20 minutes.

yeah, I'd have to second AVG free. Works well. Their pay program is pretty darn good too and provides the whole shabang when it comes to internet security. I have it running on my wife's computer.

I think that I have read around the net (or maybe it was here) that backing up your most important, can't-live-without files on an external drive of some sort is a great start and then wipe the laptop's drive with a fresh install. Of course, that means re-installing all your programs (not to mention the drivers for all your drives, video cards, etc.) but it's a good thing to do every now and then, from what I've read.

Spero Dedes, the PBP guy in the Murray St-Vandy game has got to go. Just a ho-hum delivery the entire game. Even the winning basket by Murray St. evoked little emotion from this guy. I've never heard of him and I hope I never hear from him again. Awful. How can you promote "March Madness" with a PBP guy that you expect to go into promotional ads mode as soon as the final horn sounds as if it's some pre-season game or something. Just atrocious. It completely ruined the ending of that game for me.

ah, yes, the "cotton candy" game. Although the game was great to listen to on the radio--Prince's first career walk-off if I recall correctly--the middle innings were a great listen because Uecker got on a major tangent about cotton candy and had Powell and probably most of his listeners rolling. I think I've still got excerpts somewhere on my computer--the best being Uecker stuffing his face with cotton candy and then speaking into the microphone, "People say it's hard to talk with this, but it's not." Although it came out more like, "Perowp sag ith hrdt to tarrk wigh thsie, brt it's not." Anyways, on topic, I'll miss Derrick being around the game. He had one glorious season, which is more than the most players can say and became a "rock star" as a result. I'm glad he did it in a Milwaukee uniform. Now we just need an BF.net interview with the guy.

ewizabeth is right on. It seems to be at the discretion of the individual manager. I also used price matching. Although they only do it with local retailers (i.e. not online prices), you can use the online prices to haggle a bit. I got my TV reduced another $200 yesterday by using this tactic and talking to the manager about my "shipping" options that I discussed earlier in the thread. I'm mildly happy that it worked out. But yesterday's manager even said that under most circumstances they can not and will not make concessions. Bummer.

I kind of figured that was the situation. I tried to explain to my wife and sister-in-law why Lofgren was pitching today. It was the only way that I could come up, with my "vast" (read: not as good as others on this site) knowledge about the Rule V draft and its rules.

Best Buy. This weekend we are taking the HDTV plunge. But we also have to upgrade a few other things. Where we live in Arizona, Best Buy will not ship/deliver large items. So, the television set and tv stand that we have picked out we have to go get ourselves. Of course, neither will fit in our mid-sized SUV. The only way we can get them home is by renting a small moving truck one-way. Anyways, tonight, we stopped to get the AV receiver that I need to upgrade our system. My old one will not support HDMI or even component cables so the upgrade was necessary. I'm usually pretty good at haggling prices and I even had several examples of lower prices that I found online for the model that I wanted. However, the manager was a real nincompoop about the whole ordeal. He wouldn't let me haggle at all. When I complained that I've read that many people are able to do this, he kept giving me the run around. I finally got him to say, "It's usually up to . . . well, I can't do it." I interrupted, saying, "It's usually up to what?" His response: "It's usually up to the individual manager if they want to give a discount or not." So I blew up at him, although I kept my cool, saying, "So you're choosing not to give me a discount? Why is that?" He refused to respond and walked away saying, "I'm sorry, sir." Several people in that section of the store heard a good portion of the conversation and you could tell that their decision processes were also affected by it. Needless to say, I still bought the thing, because, as I said earlier, I had no choice since they wouldn't deliver it to my home. Luckily, I had some 10% off coupons and Rewards certificates that I could use to lower the price a bit. But still, I found the guy incredibly rude. I'll probably write a letter/email to customer service/corporate about the experience and how some managers will haggle and others will refuse and you're at the whim of the individual manager. Long story, I know. Tomorrow will be interesting, too. We get the truck and go to a different Phoenix area Best Buy to get the tv and stand that I've got on hold for me. I plan on seeing if I can can get some sort of discount to off-set the price of the moving truck since they won't deliver and I have to take care of it myself. Here's hoping I have a much more enjoyable experience!

I'm going to watch the first episode tonight in my hotel room before I go to bed. I don't subscribe to HBO at home, though, so it'll be the only episode that I'll watch until I get the box set at some point. I love WWII history so I'm sure that I'll see it at some point. Band of Brothers was excellent and I watch it about once every other year.

I had this game when I was a kid. It had the cardboard stadium that you built by folding and tabbing it together. Great game for a 12-year old kid! I've got the cards somewhere at home but I couldn't tell you where. Thanks for the memory, though!

Lofgren pitched the 9th inning in today's win over the Giants, for what it's worth.

Just got back from today's game. Here are my comments: 1) The National Anthem girl did indeed butcher the song. In fact, she started the song over after getting through the first 4 lines. Many people near me were looking around at each other. The consensus was that she was lip-syncing and the CD track skipped on her. 2) Soup was getting hit hard throughout the game. It didn't look pretty. 3) Jonathan Sanchez flew through the first inning and then completely fell apart with his control in the 2nd & 3rd. 4) Thanks for the heads-up on the Costas thing. I've got gameday audio so I'll have to take a listen when I get home. What inning(s) was he in the booth? 5) Doug Melvin sat up in our left field line bleachers in the top row not more than 20 feet from me prior to the game to eat his lunch and do some light reading. I didn't bug the man because, well, it was his lunchtime. I chose to respect his privacy. But I did find it peculiar that way up on the top row of the aluminum bleachers was his choice of location. 6) Willie Mays, Gaylord Perry, Vida Blue, Lee Smith, and somebody else (can't remember who) were in the house signing autographs. Willie was promoting his book; the others just doing a signing. I didn't have money for that so I walked by, took a look, and moved on. 7) I was impressed with Scottsdale Stadium as a structure. I was NOT impressed by the crowd interactiveness. I realize that it's just Spring Training but I heard little clapping/cheering for the home team using the canned muzak ("charge!", etc.) nor did they really cheer all that much for any of the 4 Giants home runs. But I couldn't believe how downplayed the 7th inning stretch was. Sure, people stood up, but NOBODY was singing along. And it was over just as non-descript as it had begun. Wow. THE most boring game I've ever been to as per crowd interaction in the game. 8) The Garlic fries are awesome. 9) Totally separate from the game, I ran into an old buddy of mine who moved away to Texas about 7 years ago. He's a Giants fan and was at the game. But I didn't run into him at the game. Nope, we ran into him at Ray's Pizza in North Scottsdale a few hours after the game--about 10 miles from the ballpark. It's indeed a small world when I don't see him at the game but, of all the possible choices in Phoenix, he just happens to pick the same restaurant that we did. It was great to catch up! That's it for my Spring Training for the year. Back to the 3-hour drive home tomorrow for a Spring Break week off from work. Of course, my cousin is visiting so it'll be 4 days of staying up late, playing video games, acting juvenile, drinking a bit, and just blowing off some steam. Good times.

I, too, was at the game. That Cain at-bat was epic. Quite entertaining and fun to watch. Definitely would have been one of those standing ovation at-bats if it was at Miller Park--both during the at-bat and especially afterward. Overall, the day was good. I thought Parra looked pretty sharp--he had Seth Smith completely baffled his first time up. I'll agree that Axford looked semi-lost during the inning, despite the final numbers. Schoeneweis still can't get righties out. That was hard to watch. That was also probably the longest 7th inning (home and away) I've ever sat through, time-wise.