One, Two, Three Strikes, You're Out

That's kinda how I'm feeling right now.

I signed up for MLB.TV (http://mlb.mlb.com/index.jsp)for the season so I could watch many of the Seattle Mariner's games this year. It means watching them on the comfort of the wide screen of my laptop, but hey! Baseball is baseball and at least I get to watch it.

The package cost about $100 US. I know, kinda steep, but when you look at what I would spend on tickets, parking, swill, and hotdogs, it's cheap. It's like a season ticket with a great view. Sounds like fun, right?

Well, through Spring Training (the month of March, basically) it was. I could watch live games (if I chose to stay up that late - since they're broadcast mostly from the west coast of the US). Usually, I watched the delayed or 'archived' games as they called them at a more leisurely and sedate time period - like about three hours before bedtime. Which meant usually starting the game around 4:30 or 5:00 PM.

On through Spring Training it worked reasonably well. Oh, sure. There were the occasional  glitches, but overall, quite enjoyable.

I was looking forward to Monday, April 5th - Opening Day for the regular baseball season. The M's were playing the Oakland Athletics in Oakland for the season opener. Oakland is the arch-rivals of the Mariners, so opening day should seem like the opening shot of the World Series. It's that serious a rivalry.

Seeing as how I had gotten into the habit of delaying when I watched the games, I planned to watch the opener Tuesday morning, roughly 10:00 AM, or so. MLB.TV even offers a choice to show or hide game scores before you watch delayed games. Of course I had checked that feature. I wanted my games to be pristine, even if they were delayed.

I thought something was fishy, Tuesday morning when I logged on to MLB.TV... I saw the score (M's won 5-3 over the A's). Ok, I can live with that - just don't make a habit of it. Now to the game.

I found the archive and clicked on the game, which brings up your account log in. We went through that without a problem and it looked like the game was loading up. I settled back with some Fritos and an early beer and waited for the game to finish loading up... and waited... and waited... and waited.

Not a particularly good start to the regular baseball season (other than the M's winning the opener, of course). I tried several more times Tuesday to get the game running to no avail. I also tried today to bring that same game up. Again, nothing doing.

I happened to log onto the Support Forum for MLB.TV. Whooeee! I sure wasn't the only fan not watching the delayed game of my choice. Unfortunately, all Admin seemed able to say was, "We're looking into it."
I posted one entry to the forum, asking them to maybe stop just looking into it and perhaps "FIX IT."

So,  I'm at 'the old ball game', with a blank screen that continues to say "You're game is loading."

It's going to be a long, long season.

It Must Be the Rally Fries!

Through the miracle of satellite technology, I'm sitting here in our living room (Dianna went to bed) and I'm watching the Seattle Mariners playing the Detroit Tigers at Safeco Field. With Ichiro in right field and Junior (Ken Griffey, Jr.) back with the M's after a long stint in, where was it, Cincinnati or somewhere, everything just seems right with the universe.

The M's just rallied in the 5th inning, down 3-0, to take a 5-3 lead. Woohoo!

Still with the miracle of satellite technology, I'm still sitting here watching the game, but I'm also writing this for the blog. As soon as I hit [Publish Post], zing, away it goes over the ether, to travel around the world to appear on your PC.

With luck, I'll be able to catch a few of the M's games this year. Even with the satellite system and it's menu, it seems I still have a hard time catching their games. Well, that's not entirely true. What is true, sometimes I do find their games, but I have a hard time staying awake long enough to watch them. Like tonight. The only reason I'm up watching this game, is I took a nap this afternoon before we went to Gail and Earl's for a fun party for their daughter and her friend, both visiting from Canada, eh.

I just heard from Perry. He got into town this afternoon (well, Consejo), after a trip through Mexico. H left me a message saying that he was able to pick up some bits for me for the antenna. Hopefully, I'll be able to meet up with him fairly soon.

We're getting near ready to start work on the waterfall for the swimming pool. I lined up an angle-grinder from Jim. It's air-powered, and he as a compressor. So, with a bit of luck, I'll soon have the notch in place for the waterfall. Hooking up the plumbing should go pretty easily. The hard bit will be installing the mosaic under the waterfall.

Oh, my God. The announcer for the game just said the temperature at the ball park had dropped down to 50° (f). I couldn't stand that anymore. The lowest the temp got here this last winter was 58° (f) and we froze!

It is really nice seeing Junior in a Mariner's uniform again, facing the pitcher and locking in with his eyes... and getting a base hit. It was also neat seeing him, late in the game, still able at 39 (I think), to charge around the bases from 1st and score.

Oh, yes. Before I forget, the"rally fries" - seems to be the catch phrase for Mariner's fans this year. Especially since the Safe has such great food. I love that ball park.

The Mariners just won! And the Angels lost tonight too, giving the M's a 3 1/2 game lead. M's are in first place! This could be the year...

It's 10:37 PM... Way past my bedtime, nap or no nap. I'm going to bed.

Cheers,
Dave