Weather forecast for Tuesday night/Wednesday morning potentially calls for another ice storm. Wonder how my buddies at PSNH (which continues to Suck and be a blight upon New Hampshire) are preparing for this one? Probably drinking toddies and enjoying themselves. Can’t imagine they’d have the foresight to publicize some planning insights on their website or through the media…Oh well, if worse comes to worst, I’ll happily resume my hobby of publicly ridiculing and vilifying these incompetent jerks on behalf of the powerless everywhere. I’ll never let this die until I get a satisfactory explanation of how their communications processes will change during future power outages. I continue to hope that an investigation of these practices by the NH PUCO will result in some sort of fine, reprimand, and mandatory change in business practices. I fear however, that this is just a going-through-the-motions to mollify those of us who screamed loudly enough to cause our elected officials to take notice, however briefly. We’ll keep our fingers crossed that meaty penalties are coming.

I’ll never buy a movie from iTunes or Amazon in digital form. Unless I can create a DVD for my own consumption, I’m not about to be tied to some hard drive somewhere unless I were able to download it multiple times and have assurance that if I lost it, I’d be able to recover it. I don’t understand the difference assigned to video in the discussion/handling of digital media. If I purchase and download music from iTunes, even the protected stuff, I can burn myself a CD which I can then play in my car. See, my car has a CD player, hell, just about all of ’em do. It does not however come equipped with the ability to play an iPod or other MP3 player (or read a hard disk) – I have to purchase that as a separate option. Apple, and the recording companies seem to get this, and allow me to burn playlists to CD – there are limitations with Apple’s DRM, but by burning and ripping, you can get around it. I’m not about piracy, but I want a similar acknowledgement of my investment/comfort with movies. I own a DVD player, it’s connected to my TV. I even taught my wife how to use it. I put a DVD in, punch some buttons on the remote, and in a couple minutes I’m watching a movie. I’ve gone through the setup and expense, and this works for me. I don’t want to configure an Apple TV, or some other desktop box to play digital media, and I refuse to do so. I’m sad that others have allowed the industry (and Apple is culpable here as well), to allow this to become the standard of digital video delivery. Until I have a guaranteed backup/recovery and the ability to play seamlessly with my giant 32-inch CRT TV and Bose DVD system, I’ll continue to purchase DVD’s from Amazon.

Amazon’s MP3 download service is far superior to iTunes. It ain’t as well integrated to Mac OSX, but it’s still damned convenient, and, it gets rid of the foolishness of iTunes DRM. Unfortunately, I still find myself purchasing music from iTunes because it’s so convenient and I forget to head up to Amazon and search for the tune(s) I want. I’m getting better however, and you’d be surprised how much content is available on Amazon now. Pretty soon it’ll become my first stop for any digital media; I’m hoping that others see this as well and start to put more pressure on Apple and the music industry to do away with DRM entirely. If the studios are too goddamned concerned about piracy to agree to DRM-less distribution, forget about ’em. Let them see how much they sell without Amazon/Apple to front them. And, let ’em see that piracy only increases with a restrictive licensing policy, while revenue falls like a stone. I can pretty much guarantee they’ll get with the program before long.

The iTunes user interface leaves a lot to be desired. I hate the fact that I can’t have tabbed displays of different items I’m interested in and browsing. Seems downright idiotic that this isn’t available, and I can’t imagine it’s hard to do – you already have the rendering engine. Make this happen. Similarly, dragging a large (> 100) number of songs from a Finder window into iTunes doesn’t seem to always do a complete import. Seems like pretty basic functionality if you ask me, but I’ve had trouble with this multiple times.

Why would the idiotic Cleveland Browns settle for a coach, Eric Mangini, that hasn’t done Jack-shit and that nobody else wants? Compare the records of Mangini and Crennel:

Mangini:

Year Age Tm Lg G W L T W-L% G plyf W plyf L plyf W-L% Rank Notes

2006 35 New York Jets NFL 16 10 6 0 .625 1 0 1 .000 2

2007 36 New York Jets NFL 16 4 12 0 .250 3

2008 37 New York Jets NFL 16 9 7 0 .563 3

3 yrs 48 23 25 0 .479 1 0 1 .000 2.7 Avg Finish

Crennel:

Year Age Tm Lg G W L T W-L% G plyf W plyf L plyf W-L% Rank Notes

2005 58 Cleveland Browns NFL 16 6 10 0 .375 3

2006 59 Cleveland Browns NFL 16 4 12 0 .250 4

2007 60 Cleveland Browns NFL 16 10 6 0 .625 1

2008 61 Cleveland Browns NFL 16 4 12 0 .250 4

4 yrs 64 24 40 0 .375 0 0 0 3.0 Avg Finish

Admittedly, Romeo boasts a terrifying .375 win percentage, but it’s not like Mangini was the second coming of Bill Walsh. His career percentage with the Jets is, at .479, still below .500. So I ask, is this really the best we can do? Why not go after Marty Schottenheimer or Mike Shanahan? Why not go after a good high-school coach for one year till Cowher decides he’s ready to coach again? How are you improving the organization with another Belichick retread? I just don’t get it. Add to all of this the fact that apparently he (Mangini) is a bit of a prick to the players – veterans didn’t really like him at all – and I wonder what the mystique is. I mean, I understand bringing in a disciplinarian – by all rights we haven’t done squat under so-called players coaches, but still, wouldn’t you be looking for someone with a pedigree? What about Brian Billick? I mean, I didn’t particularly like the guy, but didn’t he win a Superbowl with the dog-assed Ravens?