patrickdaley.com

So how does this work, is it stupid metric or stupid English?

My Sony LCD has 6mm threads on the back of it, which is generally fine since 6mm bolts aren’t hard to find. The problem is that I need 6mm eye bolts so I can run a chain between the tv and the wall. The tv is on a stand; I’m not trying to mount it, just to save it from a crash to the floor. (Bucky is obsessed with trying to climb behind the tv and took out my front right speaker when he tried to jump on top of it, sending the speaker and its stand crashing to the floor). I tried Menard’s and the world famous Seven Corners Hardware with no luck. I could order some online of course, but that’s pretty frustrating when you already have your tools out and a mess on the floor. Looks like I’ll be grinding down some 1/4 inch eye bolts with my dremel…

I’m spending some quality time with my good buddy, Snow, this weekend before he heads north for the summer. Today I went skiing at Afton (the finest skiing the Twin Cities has to offer) and tomorrow I plan on starting my day with a snowshoe along the Mississippi River. I love my winter sports; I think I’m destined to live in the mountains.

Don’t worry taxpayer, I’m posting this over lunch on my iPhone. The Brewers play their first spring game today against Oakland! Baseball is here!

Vince of ShamWow fame is back and this time he’s pushing the Slap Chop.  I have to say, I think it actually looks like it would be pretty useful, for example when I’m making a giant pot of chili and have tons of stuff to slap chop up.  The commercials he’s in never cease to crack me up.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pPKtBM99kAc

So it looks like I’m running with a streaming theme lately.  (This will be my last post on the topic for a while, I promise).  As a Wisconsin sports fan living in the Twin Cities watching my teams can be a challenge.  (Big Ten Network has been a godsend).  As I previously posted, MLB has made huge steps to get their games online, which allows someone like me to watch as much Brewers as I want at home or on the road without tacking something onto my cable subscription.

Now it’s your turn NFL.

If MLB can stream thousands of games per season and has found out in relatively short time how to overlay and synch the radio feeds with the video feeds, why can’t the NFL do the same?  At any rate I hope the NFL is watching what MLB is doing and that by the time the first ball is kicked off this fall that I’m able to stream it onto my laptop as I enjoy one of the last nice days out by the pool.

On Valentine’s Day Cindy and I streamed Casablanca on the HTPC out in the living room and I have to say I was very impressed.  I use that box for streaming frequently, but this was the first Netflix streaming I had tried.  The movie did stutter a for a few seconds at a few different points, but for the most part it was very smooth and looked great.  I think this was a very good test of Netflix’s streaming capabilities because I’m sure Casablanca was in high demand that night.  The more interesting test would be a highly detailed modern DVD with a lot of movement and color; maybe something like Revenge of the Sith.  It’s very exciting that we’re at a point where you can get most of the content you want online.  (See my MLB.TV post from yesterday).  If Netflix had their entire catalogue online there would really be no reason to ever rent a physical disc again.  Someday…

Tonight marked the Simpsons jump to HD.  I’d say the biggest advantage is that it’s now in widescreen; the animation doesn’t benefit all that much from HD because it’s a lot of solid color swaths.  I did notice a few scenes that had small details placed in the background, such as text, that could easily be distinguished.  The beginning of the show was new, too, which was kind of neat.  It made me think about Bart vs. The Space Mutants on NES.  Supposedly South Park is going to be in HD this coming season although I don’t know when Comedy Central HD is going to land on Comcast here in the Twin Cities.  Cartoon Network HD would be great, too.  I picked up my HD box back in August and I don’t think any new HD content has been added in that six month span.  Time to get to work Comcast Twin Cities!

First off, just let me say that I absolutely love Bob Uecker.  I think he is simply one of the best to listen to in all of baseball.  It’s February and I get goosebumps just thinking about hearing his voice those first few games in April.  For me hearing Bob Uecker’s voice is synonomous with summer, whether I’m listening outside by the pool, the couch as I doze in and out of consciousness, or in the car.  (If you listen to FSN do yourself a favor by muting the TV and putting on the radio).

As great as Uecker is he still needs a competent wingman.  So, what should the Brewers and the fans be looking for?  For me it would be a huge plus if they could find someone with ties to Wisconsin or the Brewers; I don’t want someone who will just use this as a springboard to a bigger market.  Maybe the prerequisite should be that all candidates need to have a mortgage in Wisconsin.  What makes Uecker so special is that he’s a Milwaukee guy through and through and you can tell.  The apparent leading candidate, Cory Provus, currently works for the Cubs, is from a Chicago suburb, and attended Syracuse.  NEXT!

What would be really cool is if the Brewers just held an open casting call for a replacement.  The Vince Papale of the radio world could be out there somewhere.

I came across some exciting news that will remedy the biggest complaint I’ve had with MLB.TV, the introduction of Audio Sync.  I’m sure I was one of many, but I did bring this up to the MLB.TV folks last season so I’d like to think I’m a little bit responsible for getting this new feature implemented.  So what is it you ask?  Audio Sync is going to allow you to overlay the radio feed for a game on top of the MLB.TV video feed.  For me this is huge because I would generally rather listen to Uecker with no video than watch video with no Uecker.  Now I can get Uecker with the video.  Add in the fact that you can access MLB.TV from any computer, more importantly the one I have hooked up to my 46 inch HDTV, and it’s a no-brainer.  Now all we need is a MLB.TV iPhone app.

I came across this the other day when I was trying to remember what my website looked like years ago.  I have some backups, of course, but not of every little CSS color change I made here and there.  Anyway, it’s kind of fun to plug in websites you frequent to see what they looked like way back when.

http://www.archive.org/index.php

WordPress has been launched!
Ok, great, what does that mean?  It means that things are a lot easier to manage for me and you.  You see, for the past eight years my website has been largely static; in order to update anything I had to log into a server, open up the file I wanted to change, and save it back to the server.  In short it was very clunky and time consuming, which is why my blog entries were at times few and far between.  That’s all changed.  People can leave comments now and I can blog from anywhere as long as I have a web browser and an Internet connection.  It only takes a few clicks now to create new pages or posts.  I can even post blog entries from my iPhone, which will come in handy in Europe during our honeymoon.  I was already using a great dynamic piece of software, Gallery, to handle my pictures and videos.  Gallery integrates with WordPress beautifully, which is why I’m able to display a random picture to your left.  I’m really excited about the changes so I hope you’ll stick around to check out my ramblings, pictures, videos, and other content.  This is just the beginning!