FREE HDTV!!!

In this part of Ohio, we have Buckeye Cable and I love our cable TV service! Dad and I endured the agony of Direct TV for a year when Mom got mad at the cable company when she bought her HDTV and switched, she was the stubborn holdout and it took 2 months before she was apologizing like crazy for contracting us into the satellite TV nightmare for a year.

That was some 7 years ago. HDTV has been growing and it’s going to be the norm very soon, especially with the great deals cable TV offers! If you’re lucky enough to be in a Charter Cable service area, you have the opportunity to win an HDTV!

It’s true! Every day in April, Charter will award a 22” HDTV in their HDTV A Day Sweepstakes. They are also offering a grand prize of a 52” LCD flat screen HDTV, home theater system and a free year of Charter cable with HD programming. This great sweepstakes is available to all new AND upgrading customers. Have cable and want high speed internet? Upgrade and maybe win a new HDTV! Maybe you want better phone with unlimited local and long distance added to your Internet and TV. Upgrade and you’re entered in the sweepstakes too! Of course, if you are tired of that metal spaghetti bowl on the side of your house that goes on the fritz when it snows, offers only the national updates on the weather channel and just as much local as they absolutely have to, join charter for better TV and maybe even A better TV!

Go to Charter.com to start building the bundle that’s right for you. You’ll be entered into the sweepstakes, but you’ll also be giving yourself the best entertainment and communications package you can get for the money. “Times are tough.” Makes you think of another cliché, like beating a dead horse? But almost everyone has that glue factory in their backyard. Charter is doing what they can to ease that pain!

Charter is doing some very customer conscious work in reaction of some negative light that’s been shined on Cable TV Companies, but think about it. Where have you heard negative stories about your cable TV company? From the satellite competitors who aren’t even local! Cable TV wants you back, Charter wants you to stay! They are showing it with their customer friendly website, services and great promotions. Last year they added bonuses and fun to to the customer experience, giving away Xboxes, laptops, even hybrid cars!

Charter wants you! If you’re smart and frugal, you want Charter too!

Common Sense, Not Common!

There was an almost ten-minute delay in the bottom of the 8th inning of the Opening Day game at the venue always to be known to me as Sky Dome, in Toronto. The Detroit Tigers were playing the Blue Jays last night and I had watched part of the game, but the Tigers were getting beat in a much more capable and hearty fashion than the Reds game had been, so after finishing dinner, I went to my office to finish up some things I’d started before Cold Squad and then the Tigers game.

David worked a kinda late day, middle shift, and came home around ten. He asked me if I new why the game was in delay. I told him I’d quit watching because the Tigers weren’t looking like they were going to pull it out and I couldn’t bear watching both my number ones lose on Opening Day. We turned on FSN Detroit.

Sure enough the field was empty. The score was 12-5, worse than when I’d turned off the game. It had been 9-1. At least Detroit had scored a few more but they were down 7 with only three offensive outs left and Toronto was still up, er, nobody was. The teams were off the field but the inning wasn’t over.

The umpires cleared the players off the field because fans were throwing things at players. It started as paper airplanes thrown at Maglio Ordonez, then a golf ball near Curtis Granderson and then actual baseballs from the stands at the players. One nearly hit Josh Anderson in left field. When the umps saw another one come even closer to Anderson, they suspended the game. The public address announcer had to tell the idiots that were throwing things that not only could they be arrested for it, but it could result in the Blue Jays forfeiting the game.

That’s what gets me. Your team is ahead, way ahead, and it’s almost the end of the game. What could you POSSIBLY be wanting to be such a violently poor sport about and why would anyone be so stupid as to risk losing a game your home team has almost in bag? Lots of people have been blaming the higher alcohol content in Canadian beer, and yes, drunkenness can cause some really bad judgment, but we’re talking total absence of brain here. Personally, I think it sounds more like gamblers than drunks. If you have money on the home team losing, that late in the game causing a forfeit may be your only chance.

No, I’m not really making the gambling accusation. But it bugs me that some people really are wasting oxygen that people with brains could be putting to better use.

Jim Leyland and Cito Gaston truly represented a meeting of classier minds, and cooler heads, waiting for the field to be safe for the players again rather than allow injury to any players or any tempers to flare with any blame on the field. No one wants to win or lose a game because of a few jerks with a bravado rating of 200 and an IQ of ten.

I’d love to see real fans with the guts to tell the jerks to stop or turn them in to security before the game on the field has to do crowd control. The best way to deter the bully on the playground mentality is to let the child minds in grownup, or almost grownup, bodies know we’re not amused and not tolerating them anymore. Play nice or go home, without a refund.

Monday Mug Shot

Cincinnati, Ohio

Yes, there is going to be some baseball talk about this mug, but I’m not going to talk about the game today except to say that I watched the first and last three innings on TV. I kept the mlb.com box open on my screen while I got a little work done. It was a great game, even if the wrong team won. I’m still confident that my team looks REALLY GOOD this year! Hey, if we take this series, we’ll be playing .667 ball waiting for the Pirates to get into town!

But this is Opening Day 2009. The date on that mug is 6/94. The game was against the San Diego Padres and not only was Barry Larkin still a Red, but Tony Gwynn was a Padre!

It was Sunday June 26, 1994. No, I don’t remember THAT many details! I checked the saved ticket stub! I keep all my baseball ticket stubs. They’re in chronological order in an envelope on my desk. Mom and I were finishing a long weekend that started the Wednesday before. We had two plans for Sunday. We wanted to stop at the train zoo in Covington and see a baseball game.

On this trip through Louisville and then home up through Cincinnati, we’d been on a dinner train, a tourist train with vintage cars and we really wanted to check out some more old trains. Well, okay, I wanted to see more trains. We had also gone on a riverboat ride for Mom! But the baseball, game was for us both!

It was my second game ever that wasn’t at Tiger Stadium. I saw Al Kaline play in person before he retired and I was raised on baseball games at his park, this was getting to see hallowed ground ground where Pete Rose, my other childhood baseball idol had played. I was pretty geeked about that. I was getting to see Pete’s home with the woman who planted that baseball infection deep in my heart when I was two. Mom was there for my first ever game at Tiger Stadium too, so it seemed fitting since the baseball obsession is all her fault anyway!

It was raining off and on that morning. But real baseball fans go to the game and expect it to be played no matter what! We had stayed at the Embassy Suites across the Ohio River in Covington, Kentucky where I could see Riverfront Stadium from our window. The clerk at the front desk old us it was easier and a lot cheaper to just walk across the blue bridge to go to the game rather than paying to park at Riverfront. Since parking was validated for guests, a LOT cheaper! So, we started across the bridge. It was my first time walking from one state to another!

The skies were dark and dreary, but there were holes of blue. We marched across the river with a modest crown of fans in various Reds garb. We crossed over ti the ground level at Riverfront to take the escalators up to the concourse and the gates. As we were just getting off the escalators, it started to rain.

We got inside and went up to the top concourse to go to our red section seats. Red section, you know, the top deck, where they squeeze out-of-towners in? Remember that in 1994 the Reds were doing well. That stayed that way after the strike when they were in the NLCS in 1995 against the Braves. That was a tough series for me. I had fallen in love with the Braves as last place losers in the late 80s and was ready to make them my home team by then, but they were playing the beloved team of my childhood. Of course, you know that table has turned back now and the Braves are number two again. Hey, I ended up in Ohio, not Georgia! But in 1994, before the strike was really looming, the Reds were selling pretty well.

So we went to the opening into the uncovered seating area. The usher told us where our seats were but suggested we come back after the rain calms down because the tarps were still on the field.

Now, it was time for my first rain delay!

As memory serves, the game was delayed for a couple of hours. Mom and I investigated the whole park, the souvenir stands and discovered one dollar hot dogs. ONE DOLLAR at a baseball game?? We decided we really liked lunch at Riverfront!

The game finally did get started, late, and with a few light showers during the early to middle innings, but it did clear up and it was definitely not disappointing! The Reds shellacked the Padres 12-4. What’s getting a little wet when you are watching a game with your Mom, munching on a one dollar hot-dog and watching the team you loved and never got to see as a kid win big?

A Good Way To Get Wired!

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This is a company with pride and confidence in their work. The webpage details the best way to find the right electrician, directing readers to outside places to get references and confident you’ll be back, they have an online form for requesting additional information by email or phone, the way YOU want it. If you need a St. Louis electrician, this is a great first stop!

Nani News Briefs

Believe it or not, our top story tonight on this holiday eve is not about the holiday! There is MAJOR cat news! Kaline scratched on the post!!! YAY KALINE!!!


It was catnip induced to begin with. She was playing with her sock-puppet, a pair of old tights triple-lining dried wild catnip, but she squiggled over and was playing with her sock puppet around the base of the post. Her claws got into it by accident and she liked it! Now when I come downstairs, she runs to the post instead of the love seat to claw her hello!


Now onto the holiday scoop!


My adopted rookie from last year, Joey Votto, is scheduled to start the 2009 season tomorrow in the number 3 spot in the lineup for Cincinnati! My prediction, honest prediction, the Reds will make it to the playoffs this year. The chemistry was already starting to make things sizzle at the end of last year!

I’m going to make an effort to get any work that’s getting dine early tomorrow so I can celebrate the holiday! It’s OPENING DAY!!!!

In the first ESPN party of the the year tonight, Atlanta is doing a bit of showing the World Champion Phillies that this is a new season! The home run fest in the first two innings included Jordan Schafer’s fist Major League at-bat and his first Major League home run! He’s only the fourth player in Braves history to do that!


Weather Report -

It’s raining. I mean, it’s really raining and that rain is scheduled to turn into an inch or two of wet snow tomorrow. I’m not at all happy about that! But, it’s supposed to be getting warmer again by the end of the week.

More important, in Cincinnati tomorrow, there’s a 60% chance of rain. As I recall, last year’s game started very late for a rain delay too! They lost it to Arizona, but they weren’t destined to make the playoffs last year either. Tomorrow will be a different outcome against the victims from New York!!


Okay, back to the party now! Happy Opening Day Eve everyone!