Sunday, July 30, 2006

Motherload Victory!

Well, I destroyed my previous high score and bested Marc. That's 73.8 million in motherload. And with that, I'm announcing my permanent retirement from the game.

Motherload2.bmp

Wednesday, July 26, 2006

The Struggles of Eric Chavez

I'm clearly late to the "Eric Chavez is hurt and struggling" party. But the table below is an interesting look at this year compared to last for Chavez. Both lines are the ten-game rolling OPS for Chavez throughout the season. Last year, he started slow, got extremely hot in early June and then played decent ball the rest of the way, save a little untimely hiccup in early September.

This year, he started hot and has essentially gotten worse every day. July has been rock bottom. Chavez has to get healthy and return to something like his normal self if the A's are going to have any real shot at the postseason. None of this is new, but like I said, it's an interesting way to look at the data.

ChavezOPS.JPG

Damn You Marc!

Yesterday, Marc emailed me a link for Motherload. It's a fun little game that you can really sink some time into.

I played for a while last night, staying up well past the witching hour. I took a little screenshot of my progress before I called it quits:

Motherload

I thought my score of 1.2mm was respectable, until marc emailed me his high score: 53 million! Good lord, that's dedication.

Monday, July 17, 2006

Great Experience with JetBlue

Over the last few years, I’ve flown JetBlue a lot - their direct flight from JFK to hometown Oakland has been a personal favorite of mine. I love the TVs, the service and the fact that they’re smart. They get it.

JetBlue used to board their planes from back to front. People sitting in the back rows would be called to board the plane before the people in front of them, etc. That always seemed to me like the most efficient way to board the plane. But instead of merely resting on their laurels, JetBlue actually tested that idea. In the last few months, JetBlue has changed - calling everyone to board the plane all at once.

The first time I saw this new method, I thought they had just screwed up. The second time, I thought they were losing their edge – that they didn’t care about their customers anymore. The third time, my wife and I asked a flight attendant what was going on. Turns out that JetBlue tested the two different boarding methods and the “Every Man for Himself” method of boarding the plane is actually faster.

Kudos, JetBlue, for working hard to make things better.

Wednesday, July 12, 2006

TBS - Good News or Bad News?

Fox, TBS lead baseball's new 7-year TV deal

"Turner Broadcasting System also will televise 26 regular-season Sunday games in 2008 while eventually cutting back on its nationwide Atlanta Braves coverage."

I've got the MLB extra innings package, which gives me access to just about all of the MLB games on TV. The exceptions are for Fox's national broadcasts. The current blackout rules say, "due to the national exclusivity of both FOX and ESPN, there are no games available for distribution via this package on Saturday day or Sunday night, respectively."

So, the question is - will TBS' Sunday games prevent us from enjoying the rest of the Sunday games? And if they eliminate yet another day of the week from the MLB Extra Innings package (going from 6 days each week to only 5), will they also cut the price of the package by 16%?

(Of course they won't, but a guy can dream.)