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07 April, 2010

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.

3 comments:

JRinSC said...

The only good part of your Opening Day was the score... bummer! Could you pull down other games? Just curious. I guess Murphy is alive and doing quite down in Belize just like he is in the Upstate.

On day 8 of retirement and I can't tell you just how happy I am... I don't even mind going through all the pages of my Honey Do List. (To be fair, Karol is quick to point out that I am the sole author of the list - so far.) I want to get my stuff done before starting on any of her "suggestions".

By my reckoning, your pump should be there (by US time). What's happening on Belizean time? Concerned citizens are interested...

Julian

Dave Rider said...

Hi Julian,

Pull down other games? Sometimes... but, I was really hankering to watch the opener. Oh, well.

Patience, patience, patience. The three words you learn well after moving to Belize.

No pump yet. I'm waiting for Roy and Son's to show up with it and several other things as well. It'll show up when it's supposed to and not a minute before. When's it 'supposed to', you might ask? Well, that is when it arrives - that's when it's supposed to.

Same with workers for the guesthouse... Maybe next Monday.

What were those three words again?

Cheers,
Dave

JRinSC said...

I want patience - and I want it RIGHT NOW! That's me... I'll have to mellow out a little more now that I don't punch the clock anymore.

In checking Barnacle Bill's blog there's a rumor that GOB might block the import of all cheeses. He does not have kind things to say about Belizean cheese. Looks like an opportunity to profit on your location! *grin*

Hang in there!