The Astros lost 111 games this year. Someone must pay!
Random note from the sports beat.
October 2nd, 2013Tom Clancy.
October 2nd, 2013TMQ Watch: October 1, 2013.
October 2nd, 2013We apologize for the delay in this week’s TMQ Watch. Allergies or a cold or something are still kicking our butts. It is our profound hope that, when science perfects the uploading of consciousness to machines, they choose not to emulate the human sinuses.
(Drainage!)
(On the other hand, are the sinuses necessary to fully emulate human consciousness? Is consciousness itself a chaotic system, with a sensitive dependance on initial conditions? Would leaving the sinuses out of the emulation change the nature of the emulation?)
But we digress. After the jump, this week’s TMQ…
(Worth noting before the jump: this week’s TMQ, and by implication, this week’s TMQ Watch, may contain possible spoilers for “Breaking Bad”, “Under the Dome”, and “The Bridge”.)
A day in the city, a night in bankruptcy court.
October 1st, 2013You know what New York City needs? Strict scissors control laws. I bet those were deadly assault scissors, too. At the very least, background checks for scissors purchasers would have prevented this…
And the New York City Opera has officially announced that they are shutting down. (Previously.)
(At this point, I would ordinarily nudge you, the metaphorical reader, in the metaphorical ribs and note my restraint in not making a “fat lady sings” joke. But the only reason for my restraint here is that FARK already did it.)
Go West, family man.
October 1st, 2013Have you ever heard of the Great Platte River Road Archway?
Neither had I, until I read this morning’s NYT. The Archway is intended as a monument to the Westward Expansion. It sits near the site of Fort Kearny and the intersection of three major westward trails (Oregon, Mormon, and California).
The Archway actually crosses I-80, and weighs 1,500 tons. How much did it cost to build? The NYT isn’t clear on that, but we’ll come back to it in a minute.
Buried in there is a further assumption that families still vacation by car, which makes it easier to stop at places like the Archway. But I’ve touched on that before, and there’s no reason to belabor the point.
Especially since I bet you can guess what happened next.
Thirteen years later, the Archway is flat broke.
Attendance peaked the first year at nearly 250,000 and has been falling ever since. Last year, fewer than 50,000 visitors strolled through the turnstiles. And although a bankruptcy judge recently approved a plan to relieve the Archway of its final $20 million in debt, its future remains uncertain. Archway officials say the museum could survive through the end of the year, but would need hundreds of thousands of taxpayer dollars for long-term security. And that will come only with the approval of the Kearney City Council and county board members — several of whom are skeptical.
Among other things, that new highway exit took twelve years to build.
$60 million in debt, folks. But don’t worry: “Through bankruptcy proceedings, that debt has been lifted.” And now the folks behind the Archway plan to ask the city and county governments to cough up $200,000 a year (each, so $400,000 total) for the next three years.
And again, we come back around to the same point I made earlier. I have nothing against Nebraska; one of these days, I hope that I can visit the SAC Museum. But I’m odd. I’m not sure that most families do driving vacations these days, and the Archway just doesn’t strike me as compelling enough a destination for people to fly into Lincoln or Omaha and drive halfway across the state.
Next year!
October 1st, 2013I have a cold or allergies or something. I turned in early last night and am still getting caught up with the news.
But I really think next year might just be the Chicago Cubs’ year to take it all.
After all, they just fired their manager, Dale Sveum.
Uh-huh. Pull the other one, Theo; it has bells on it.
Also, Paul Pasqualoni, head coach at the University of Connecticut, is out after starting the season 0-4.
Obit watch: September 30, 2013.
September 30th, 2013Marcella Hazan, noted cookbook author and proponent of Italian cooking.
Your loser update: week 4, 2013.
September 29th, 2013NFL teams that still have a chance to go 0-16:
Pittsburgh
Jacksonville
NY Giants
Tampa Bay
And Cleveland has won two games in a row, which foils my plan to offer them Matt Schaub for next year’s first round draft pick.
In other news, the Astros played their last game of the season this afternoon, took the Yankees to 14 innings…and lost, 5-1. Houston finishes at 51-111, with a .315 winning percentage and having lost the last 15 games in a row.
Consumer advisory: iTunes 11.1
September 29th, 2013If you have not updated to iTunes 11.1 yet, don’t.
This is a screen snapshot from my iTunes 11.1 of one of the podcasts I listen to, the Accidental Tech Podcast. Click to embiggen.
In spite of what you see in the “Plays” column, I have actually listened to every episode of ATP. I delete podcasts from iTunes as I listen to them.
When I “upgraded” to 11.1, all of these podcasts I had already listened to, and deleted from iTunes, popped back in with that little “cloud” icon under the “Unplayed” column. Apparently, Apple wants me to know that these podcasts are available in “the cloud”.
That’s great, Apple, but if I want to find an episode I’ve missed, I can go to the podcast’s page in iTunes, or to the podcast’s website. How do I turn off the display of podcasts in “the cloud”?
Surprise! According to everything I’ve been able to find on Apple’s support sites, you can’t. You can’t delete them from iTunes. You can’t get rid of them. The “Show iTunes purchases in the cloud” option does nothing for podcasts.
You can use the “My Podcasts” view to show just the podcasts you’ve downloaded and not deleted, without the “cloud” podcasts. But I have sound reasons for preferring the “List” view over “My Podcasts” – “List” shows you more information and less graphics.
Bad job, Apple. May the person who decided on this develop a case of painful rectal itch.
You’re (not) watching CSN.
September 29th, 2013Longer story from the HouChron about the Comcast SportsNet Houston dispute I touched on yesterday.
As best as I can tell, here’s the deal:
- CSN Houston is run by a four member board. Two members represent Comcast/NBCU, one represents the Astros, and one represents the Houston Rockets (who are also carried on CSN Houston).
- The board has to agree unanimously on any carriage agreement or retransmission deal.
- The board doesn’t agree.
-
- As long as the board doesn’t agree, they can’t make carriage agreements.
- Or, apparently, pay their bills. CSN Houston admits they owe the Astros three months of broadcast fees.
- Thus, the involuntary Chapter 11 petition.
Memos from the Sports Desk.
September 29th, 2013It is kind of early for a Sunday morning – I haven’t had breakfast yet, or even coffee – but I wanted to get these up before I wandered out in the rain (Yes! Actual rain!) in search of both.
Lane Kiffin out as USC football coach. USC lost 62-41 to Arizona State yesterday; if other reports are to be believed, Kiffin was fired before the plane even got back to LA.
Kiffin was 28-15 overall. So far this year, the team is 3-2 and 0-2 in conference.
And the Astros have hit the 110 loss mark with one game left in the season. Right now, the team is at .317. .300 is sort of the bar for Wikipedia’s “List of worst Major League Baseball season records”, so the 2013 Astros won’t make that list. But I do still find this achievement refreshing.
Your Houston Astros, ladies and gentlemen.
September 28th, 2013But wait, it gets better!
Comcast SportsNet Houston, the cable network that carries the Astros games – the cable network that recorded a 0.0 Nielsen rating for last Sunday’s Astros game – is in a nasty dispute with various affiliates and with the Astros. According to the HouChron, CSN hasn’t paid rights fees to the Astros for the past five months three months. (Edited to add 9/29: I swear the article said “five months” when I read it Saturday morning, but everyone says “three months” now. I’m not sure if the HouChron got it wrong and corrected it, or if I misread the article originally.) The affiliates are unhappy because they believe “structural issues” are keeping CSN from expanding.
And thus, the Comcast/NBC Universal affiliates have filed an involuntary Chapter 11 bankruptcy petition against CSN, apparently in an attempt to address these “structural issues”.
It just hasn’t been a good year for the Astros. Good thing I didn’t bet on them to win the World Series.
The Night They Drove Old Tosca Down…
September 27th, 2013Barring a miracle, it appears the New York City Opera will file for bankruptcy next week and begin winding down operations.
The NYCO has been trying to raise $7 million before the end of September. So far, according to the NYT, they’ve managed to raise $1.5 million. They even have a Kickstarter: the goal is $1 million, but they’ve raised $194,549 (at this writing) with three days to go.
How did they get to this point? And how can New York City not be able to support two major opera companies?
The company cut back from “115 performances of 17 different operas” a decade ago to “16 performances of 4 operas” last year. The smaller number of performances has, in turn, resulted in a smaller number of patrons, and a smaller number of potential donors.
Apparently, the NYCO was in Lincoln Center up until 2011; then they moved out, and are now “an itinerant troupe at theaters across the city”. This may also have something to do with their problems. (I was confused about why NYCO was in Lincoln Center if the NYST was their home; if I understand Wikipedia correctly, NYST is actually part of Lincoln Center.)
And because they raided the endowment, the annual income from that source is now less than $200,000 a year – “less than City Opera makes from its Thrift Shop on East 23rd Street in Manhattan”. (If you try going to the Thrift Shop website, you’re confronted with an uncloseable fundraising appeal that completely obscures the rest of the content. Oh, wait; I hit the back button a couple of times and managed to close the fundraising appeal. Would you like to buy a piano? That’s a trick question: nobody wants to buy a piano.)
(O.M.G. Okay, I have to purchase this. If only as a gift.)
The back and forth in the NYT comments section is interesting, to the extent that any web comments section is interesting. Some folks complain about the unwillingness of the wealthy to step up and bail out the opera, others complain that of course the opera is failing because they present crap like “Anna Nicole” (while others point out that “Anna Nicole” is a critically acclaimed modern opera), and there’s a lot of blame for the management and board of NYCO.
There’s not really much more I can say about this, though I do find it interesting. I would be sad to see an opera company close down, in much the same way I’d be sad if a local restaurant that I liked closed their doors. On the other hand, it seems like the closure is the result of ten years of poor decision making, and there’s nobody to blame but NYCO itself.
You spin me right round baby right round…
September 26th, 2013The Astros have broken their team record, and are now at 108 losses.
The team is off tonight, and starts their final series against the Yankees on Friday. Remember, the Astros have to win 2 out of 3 in order to avoid 110 losses.
And by the way, the Yankees won’t be playing in the post-season. I note this here just because it will make this guy unhappy.
And as the sun sinks slowly in the AL West…
September 25th, 2013…the Astros have tied the franchise record of 107 losses.
There are four games left, so the team has to go .500 to avoid the magic 110 loss mark. The Astros play at the Rangers tonight, then play the Yankees at home for the final three games. Cool Standings is projecting 109.5 losses; I’m thinking the Astros should at least break their loss record, and 110 losses is definitely in play.