FRS

Better Than Being There

img_mlbtv_smWhen I went to check out the start time for last night Red Sox game on their home page I noticed a news item that said get the rest of the season of MLB.TV Premium for $19.95. I’m in, no more watching badly pixelated streams off of European servers…. The HD picture is awesome. Why bother paying all that money to actually go to a game?

Watched part of last night’s loss, but today and tomorrow I will not be able to use it the watch the FRS, seems that when the game is selected to be carried by FOX on Saturday it is unavailable for watching on MLB.TV. Even if the game you want is not being shown by your local FOX station. Sunday’s night game belongs of ESPN and the same deal applies. Luckily today’s Red Sox/Dodgers game was on my local FOX channel so I could watch it.

It seems like this thing is really geared for the fan of a team who he lives nowhere near, because there blackout restrictions to protect sports cable networks monetary interests. Fortunately I’m a fan of of a team that is a thousand miles away, because if I was an Atlanta Braves fan I’d be blacked out.

Big Papi Is Not Screening My Voicemail Anymore

We’ve decided to go ahead and keep the cheap Verizon phone we bought on vacation and just let the AT&T Pay As You Go account expire. The per minute charge is the same, so no loss there, but I did have to reenter the 70 odd contacts we had accumulated on the old phone into the new phone which took some time. At least with Verizon I could enter them offline in a CSV file and then import them in one fell swoop. Trust me, that was a huge time saver as it might have taken forever using the phone number pad.

My only real downside to the swap is I can’t find a way to get a free ringtone on the phone. With the prepaid plan you can’t add an attachment to a text message or email and you can’t use their Verizon Cloud or Backup Assistant Plus to load a media file to the phone. The only ones you can get are the ones for $3 in the Verizon store!

Though I do kind of wish I could get Big Papi’s voice back as the intro to the voice mail again (even if I could find the recording, I’m sure there would be no way to use it on the new service, if I can’t get anything but their approved ringtones on the phone.)

Straight Hat As A Metaphor For A Baseball Season?

500x386_rsnhatMy Red Sox Nation Citizenship package arrived in the mail Saturday. This year instead of the basic Starter Level package I usually purchase for $15, I doubled my investment and went for the All Star Level. For the extra dough I got some stuff that was cool, a 12″ x 18″ page full of Red Sox Fathead decals that I can stick various places and a Red Sox Yearbook. And some not so cool, a catalog of Red Sox themed merchandise to buy and a small drawstring bag made sort of like a sweatshirt or a small sweatshirt turned into a sort of drawstring bag.

But the real draw was the free hat. Regular readers who are more obsessed with my life than I am will remember that last year’s Red Sox hat only stayed in the head wear rotation until May before being donated to Goodwill because the sox were hanging crooked. This year’s RSN hat has its socks dangling at the proper angle and this season is looking good so far.

Oh Yeah, That Makes Up For It Alright

In Saturday’s mail there was a letter for me and the return address read Red Sox Nation. “Oh,” I thought, “Maybe this is a refund.”

Inside was a letter with as close as an apology as anyone would get “Thank you for being a part of the Red Sox Nation program. While it was a challenging season for all of us, the continued devotion and passion make Red Sox Nation unparalleled in sports.” Also enclosed was a Johnny Pesky replica baseball card, a 2012 Red Sox Nation sticker1 and the ability to download a couple dozen photo highlights2 from this season.

Oh yeah, that makes up for it alright.

1. There has been one of these every year until this year when it was replaced by a nifty Fenway Park 100 Years sticker.
2. Some might say that that is all the highlights they had this season.

Sunday in Aiken

A short bike 10 mile ride. Breakfast at DD. Grocery shopping at Kroger.

Lunch. Wash the Purple Whale.

Afternoon spent watching the Weather Channel and listening to the FRS on the internet. Which is more related than you think in that they are both like rubbernecking at a car accident on the Interstate, horrible to see, but you just can’t turn away.*

Evening spent blogging and surfing the web.

Try and reel in your jealousy.

*On a related note, I just got an email that offered MLB.TV on my Roku for the rest of the season for a measly $10, so that if I actually wanted to see that wreck…