Wednesday, June 28, 2006

CNN.com

Hey CNN: nice one. Give this guy a platform to equate same-sex marriage with the slave trade. The problem with people like James Dobson is that they get TOO MUCH press, not too little.

Admit it: you wouldn't publish this sort of crap if Dobson were writing about mixed-race marriages — because the poll numbers don't support it (40 years ago it was different).

But once a critical mass of the population endorses a form of bigotry, the bigots get a CNN forum so they can parade their numbers. Humph — I suppose the social responsibility of the press ends where the ratings begin. But that's always been the case: it's why you show so little of the civilian casualties in the Iraq War. You wouldn't want to introduce a conflict for the patriotic right-to-lifers, because they'll just change the channel to Fox.

Next time someone like Dobson wants to gag up some hatred from the back of "God's" throat, he should do it on his own dime.

[Phutatorius]

Monday, June 19, 2006

Major League Baseball Advanced Media

Re: Gameday Audio Broadcasts

I wrote you about this issue before and received a message stating that you had a backlog of complaints, and you'd get to me in time.

You never did.

I'm still having the same problem, so here I am again:

I've logged in twice tonight, and your backward Gameday Audio software crashed my browser both times. I had to quit out of the browser on both occasions, then reopen the browser.

On the third try, I entered my password and was told that I had logged in too many times recently, and I should "try again later."

This is completely unacceptable. I understand that you need to build in a defense against free-riders who pay for one login, then distribute the password to multiple users. Fine.

But in my case, I'm just trying to log in ONCE, so I can listen to the baseball game broadcast that I HAVE PAID FOR. And I would be able to listen to that broadcast if you didn't diddle around with the software every year and, with your "enhancements," make the games inaccessible to paying customers.

On a prior occasion I called your toll-free hotline and waited no less than forty minutes for my call to be taken "by the next available operator," before I finally gave up.

I don't have that kind of time to waste on you tonight. I certainly don't have the patience to listen to more than a minute of your hold music. That cover of "Me and Bobby McGee" by LeeAnn Rimes was godawful, and I wouldn't inflict it on my worst enemy, much less my beloved (and already aggrieved) subscribership.

You really need to do a better job on this, or else return the audio rights to the flagship stations, which are more than capable of streaming the games online without mucking everything up.

I have been a customer for probably five years now — because I don't live within range of my home team's radio broadcasts. If I could, I would pay twice as much to listen to the games somewhere else, just to bypass your technical failures and empty gestures at customer service. But I can't, so I'm stuck forking money over to you every year for this product of yours, the delivery of which is spotty at best.

[Phutatorius]