Archive for April, 2007

 

YouTube Tuesday Twelve

Tuesday, April 24th, 2007

There are a lot of “T”s in that title, so it’s probably a good time for a YouTube Tuesday Two-fer.

With a tip of the cap to my love for advertising, here is a pair of two great Gatorade commercials. Instead of bastardizing classics, agencies should be giving us more like these. Fittingly, both spots are featuring players that need to start shouldering more of the load. Quick.

Boris Yeltsin 1931-2007

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Have you ever seen Boris Yeltsin and Don Nelson in the same room? Cause I haven’t.

A five-guard lineup? Reeks of Boris’ handywork to me…


Boris Yeltsin


Don Nelson

Who said the NHL wasn’t fun?

Monday, April 23rd, 2007

Do you remember the “There goes the population in Convenville!” mystery? Well it turns out new RUWT? user jtlynchjr has the answer:

The reference is to Sabres second-year winger Jason Pominville. The running joke with the PBP team is that whenever he scores the population of “Pominville” increases.

And the play-by-play guy that rocked my world is named Rick Jeanneret, the longest-tenured announcer clocking in at 36 years straight broadcasting the Sabres. But don’t think Rick is a one trick pony—no, no, check out some more choice calls care of Wikipedia.

“Top shelf, where Momma hides the cookies!” most famous recurring call

“There have been more cheap shots in this game than in a Mexican Cantina during Happy Hour!” 2001 Eastern Conference Quarterfinals

“Pominville better open a Planned Parenthood ’cause it’s population is out of control!” reaction to Jason Pominville scoring two goals in a period

And since it’s a NHL lovefest today, the best sign of the playoffs so far.

Alerts à la carte

Thursday, April 19th, 2007

I’ve done some more digging into the Buerhle Blunder, and fittingly it seems that the code to make alerts better for everyone kept anyone from catching the no-no. I’m pretty annoyed that RUWTbot wasn’t able to pick up the lefty’s gem, but I’m still excited about this update.

Tonight’s site update has two main pieces (not including the no-no code fix). There are updates almost every night, but this pair has been in the works for a while.

  • Updated Root Rating – Scoring was pretty spot on for College Basketball and College Football, but over the past couple weeks it seems that a few sports needed tweaking. Going forward you will see higher scores for some sports, specifically the NBA and NHL. But what if you hate the NBA and NHL? Keep reading.
  • Alerts For Just The Sports You Want – Love Football but can’t stand Baseball? Love Baseball but you’re sick of Hockey? Along with choosing what level of Roots your want alerts for, you can now choose which sports you get alerts for, and ditch the ones you don’t care about.

Buehrle, Buehrle, Buehrle

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

Buehrle pitched a no-hitter tonight. And we missed it.

We’ve processed 21,328 games thus far, but this was the first no-hitter. There was a bad assumption in the code, and RUWTbot never picked up on what was going on. Worst of all? I could have watched it on my TV.

The whole point of RUWT? is to catch the big games, but tonight we blew it.

FanNation: We’ll be right back…

Wednesday, April 18th, 2007

The first mention I saw of a FanNation retooling was a
random comment on a TechCrunch article
, but the predicted relaunch on the 16th never materialized. If you visit FanNation today, you’ll see a splash screen explaining that they’ll be down until the 23rd.

Anyone that knows me well knows I have pretty strong feelings about FanNation, so I’m extremely curious to see what the site will look like on Monday.

Duncan v. Crawford v. Stern, YTT11

Tuesday, April 17th, 2007

I’m not really sure why seeing Crawford eject Timmy made me so angry on Saturday, but not being able to send the NBA feedback through their website without creating an account pissed me off even more.

I thought Crawford definitely needed to be suspended for a game and kept from officiating any Spurs playoff games, but I was shocked when Stern pimp-slapped Crawford into next season. And to hear Stern say on Pardon the Interruption today that Crawford may never ref in the NBA again? Kinda stunning.

About.com hearts the RUWT? Toolbar

Saturday, April 14th, 2007

Hey folks, the RUWT? Toolbar got a great review from Scott Ogera over at About.com. 4½ stars out of 5? I’ll try and stop slacking.

However, I was also somewhat skeptical about this so-called “game watching robot” as well as the participation of the RUWT? community. As the days passed, my skepticism quickly morphed into a healthy mix of optimism and excitement as I began to see how well this add-on did its job. The features are definitely as advertised, and the steady growth of the community makes the RUWT? Bleachers a good place to chat up a game or race. A lot of toolbars and add-ons can give you the latest scores, but this one does so much more. more…

Use Firefox or Flock? Get the RUWT? Toolbar now!

Hockey Playoffs? I look forward to reading about them.

Tuesday, April 10th, 2007

Everybody ready? The regular season is over, and it’s time for the NHL playoffs. With the NBA playoffs starting just a week later, this is actually a pretty underrated sports time of year.

Unfortunately, I won’t get to watch much playoff hockey (the only hockey I watch) because I don’t get Versus. There’ll be an occasional game on NBC, but for the most part, most of us will miss out. Keep an eye on the Video page for the most recent NHL recaps.

For YouTube Tuesday this week, here’s a playoff appetizer as the Islanders squeeze into the playoffs in their final game.

Where’s my flying car?

Saturday, April 7th, 2007

And along with that, where’s my multi-million dollar payout?

The following post is in response to the Trash TechCrunch post on techcrunch.com

Okay, it’s the 21st Century. As a child born in the 70s I was promised flying cars, hovering skateboards, and my own personal robot by now. So the scorecard 28 years in? Flying car? My Alma mater is pretty close. Hovering skateboard? Eh, my knees are bad. Personal Robot? Had to make my own. The list needed a 7 year grace period, but all in all, not a bad showing.

Okay, it’s April 2007. As a bootstrapped startup less than a year old, I was promised to have millions of dollars, my picture on the cover of magazines, and invited to speak at tons of conferences by now. So the score card after 7 months? Nada. Squadoosh. Even with a 30-day grace period, there is no reason why I shouldn’t have gotten my fat stacks of cash by now.

Sure, it takes Web 2.0 sites like Dodge•ball, Mee•boo, Face•book, Flick•r, Blog•lines, and Net•vibes a good year to get some duckets, but are•you•watch•ing•this is Web 5.0. A buyout should happen the day I leave alpha!

The one sliver of good news is that I plan to poetically sue the ambulance-chaser who is responsible for this travesty. That’s right, the blog you love to hate: TechCrunch. I freakin’ hand-wrapped my invitation to a life of geek groupies and an off-shore bank account, when I suggested they put “Digg” somewhere in the title of my review (cause people can’t get enough Digg-inspired sites), and they still somehow jacked this up. To keep this simple, let me lay out the facts for you:

  1. I got a review on TechCrunch
  2. I have not been bought out for millions of dollars

Do you see the discrepancy here?

This is an open and shut case.

I’m gonna sue his ass back to Web 1.0.