Month: February 2008

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NASCAR: 2008 Daytona 500

I thought the 2008 Daytona 500 was one of the better Daytona races I’ve seen in a while. Even the Nationwide race was pretty good.

I think NASCAR has a good combination with the COT and the plate at Daytona, and I hope they don’t mess with it before Talladega. Cars could actually pass one another for a change; some were even able to pass without drafting help. The number of passes on the track for the lead really made the race exciting to watch.

I have to question NASCAR’s issuance of penalties for cars that are going through inspection for the first time. Robby Gordon’s penalty seems pretty harsh. NASCAR caught the nose and they fixed it; they didn’t race with it. Same is true for the #30 truck in the Craftsman Series; they corrected the problem before qualifying.

Maybe NASCAR’s rationale is that they might miss one of these infractions and the car will end up qualifying or racing with the infraction. If that’s the case, that’s when you slap a 100 point penalty and suspend crew chiefs and drivers. But if they don’t even qualify with the problem, then why penalize them later?

California Speedway has sold the naming rights to the track. I’ll be glad to start calling it by the sponsor’s name just as soon as my check arrives.

NASCAR is going to let the GOGH (go or go home) drivers qualify together at California. It’s a start. What I don’t understand is why they use points from last year. I mean, there are cars that finished in the top 10 or 15 in the Daytona 500 that don’t have one of those 35 provisionals. Imagine the scenario where the Daytona 500 was won by a new team, one that didn’t have any owners points from the previous year. That team could conceivably miss the next race if they had a bad qualifying run. Is that what NASCAR wants? Since the Daytona 500 has such a screwed up way to get into the race, just let the starting field be determined by who races their way in. Then in the second race of the year, go by the top 35 points in the current season. If not that, then at least go by the last 36 races, which would mean that the previous season’s Daytona 500 would not be counted, and instead count the current season’s 500 when calculating the 35 provisionals.

I was surprised (but I shouldn’t have been) at how late the Daytona 500 started. There’s absolutely no reason for the 500 to end in the dark.

NASCAR’s doing another Saturday night race, this time with the Nationwide Series. At least it’s before the local racing season starts.

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Webb Gives Me A Shoutout

I took a group of folks to 3rd & Lindsley Saturday night to see Webb Wilder. We were celebrating my birthday (which was actually last Thursday). I’d requested, via the Webb Board, that Webb play TCB Yodel #9. That’s the first Webb Wilder song I ever heard him play. It was on a local late night comedy show on Channel 4 back in the late ’80s. He and Shane Caldwell were on the show, and he sang that song and I thought it was the funniest thing I’d ever heard.

Anyway, he did sing it, and kychopperfamily on the Webb Board recorded it and posted it on YouTube. Here it is in all its glory:

He also sang, at Brenda’s request, Miss Missy From Old Hong Kong. Here it is:

All in all, it was a great show. George Bradfute played along with Tony Bowles on guitar, and their synergy is amazing.

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Comcast, there’s a bug in my DVR.

Ah, the joys of having a DVR: You can watch TV when it’s convenient and skip those pesky commercials. When Comcast started offering the DVR’s here in Nashville, I couldn’t wait to get one.  I actually drove out to their office on Lebanon Road to pick one up.

So, we’ve had it for a couple of years now. I’ve probably run into the same bugs as everyone else: the “queue” bug (which Comcast says is going to be fixed this month), the mute bug, and maybe one or two others.

But apparently I have a bug that no one has seen. Here’s how to recreate it:

  1. Set up a series recording on a series that has shows that repeat at midnight (like something on Discovery).
  2. Set up another series recording (or a single recording) at the same time as the first run of the show in #1.
  3. Now you discover that there’s a third show you want to watch, but it comes on at the same time as the shows in #1 and #2. Go into the “scheduled recordings” menu, pick the show in #1, and tell it to not record that one episode of the show.
  4. Create a single show recording of the midnight (and it has to be midnight) showing of the show in#1.
  5. Stand back as the midnight recording will record until you stop it.

Yes, the midnight show will NOT stop at 1:00 am (or 12:30 am or whenever it’s supposed to). It’ll keep recording, and if it needs space, it’ll erase the older shows (that you probably either haven’t watched or were keeping for a reason).

This happened again to me on Tuesday night/Wednesday morning. I’d set up a series recording for Parking Wars. It ended up conflicting with a couple of other shows at 9:00 pm that I wanted to watch/record, so I set it to record the midnight show. When I got up and looked at the DVR on Wednesday morning, the recording light was still on. I realized that nothing was scheduled to record at 7 am, so I looked, and sure enough, Parking Wars was still recording!

There was something a little different this time though. Instead of having a 72+ minute recording, I had page after page of “interupted” recordings of “Parking Wars”. Obviously, only the first recording had Parking Wars. The others had infomercials and other overnight programming.

So I decided to finally call Comcast about it. I pretty much described the problem as I have above. They said they’d send a technician out. Told them I was just reporting a bug, didn’t need a technician. So he came out this morning.

I again described the problem to him. He didn’t get it after several explanations. Kept trying to tell me it was the way I’d set up the recordings. I finally gave up. At the end, he said that the ticket had been written up as a chargeable ticket, but that he wasn’t going to charge me. HUH? I just wanted to report a bug with their stupid DVR; I didn’t need anyone coming out anyway.

So, I’m going to recreate the problem, then call the technician on his cell phone. I’m going to take digital pictures of what I do (or maybe video it), so they can understand what’s going on. Then if they don’t do anything, I’m going to post it on YouTube. I just have to make sure we have enough room left on the disk before doing this.

If you’ve had this problem, leave me a comment. I’d like to find out how widespread this is.