Untitled Midweek Post

Sometimes you just need to unwind…sometimes you just need to vent..that’s the thought behind this bi-weekly series of posts.

Mid-Week Mindless Vent:

They advertise it everywhere, even in Miller Park. They advertise it as “Watch Your Team from Any Computer”. They say you can “Catch out of Market Games”. And while these advertisements are going on, they are showing the home team on MLB.tv. This is a load of crap! I fell for it, but I’m hoping no one else in Wisconsin will fall for it again.

What happened was this: I signed up quickly for MLB.tv because I’m going to have a busy summer, probably going to move, and I was sick of Charter raising their prices (It started out at about $80/Month, it was about $120/month in less than two years). So I remember all last year hearing ads for MLB.tv, the online service that lets you watch baseball on your computer. It also said that it had HD capabilities this year, which I felt was even better because I have this HD monitor that came with my computer, but I have no HDTV yet.

Finally, the big day came. Opening day! My girlfriend was all ready to watch the big game at home while I was at work, but I get this message saying it’s been blacked out. Well, that sucks, right? I figured it was just opening day, so I did some research and I found the horrifying news. MLB.tv BLOCKS OUT ALL HOME MARKET GAMES BASED ON YOUR BILLING AND/OR IP ADDRESS. Even those more technologically saavy than I am have posted that they also block connection to those who use proxies. I looked on MLB.tv’s website and found this statement that I must have overlooked and/or misconstrued: Regular Season Local Live Blackout: All live games on MLB.TV are subject to local blackouts. Such live games will be blacked out in each applicable Club’s home television territory (except for certain home television territories for which MLB.com may offer in-market subscription services). If a game is blacked out in an area, it is not available for live game viewing. Each game will be available 45 minutes after the conclusion of the game as an archived game (archived games are blackout free).

I’m sorry, I didn’t realize “subject to” meant all games were blacked out. I called the customer service number and they wouldn’t let me discuss my unhappiness. They just took down my info and told me I’d receive my money back in a week. The problem is, in a week I received an email saying I wasn’t going to be given a refund.

It’s bad enough being out 100 bucks, but they are having problems with their detection software or something (I’m not sure) and NOW I have to call customer service because I’m being blocked out of every game! The icing on the cake is that they still say “Watch your favorite team from any computer” at Miller Park, even though if you live in Wisconsin, you are blocked out of Brewer games and depending on where you live, Twins and Cubs games too. MLB, you need to call your service what it is: “Watch all your favorite teams that are way out of your market” and “Watch out of market games” instead of the current advertising. I know many of you will read this and say “He’s an idiot for not reading it over and I don’t feel bad for him”. I’m not asking for pity, I’m hoping that this tale keeps others from rushing and making the same mistake I did.

Mid-Week Fake Headlines

Milwaukee’s Best turns “Beast”
Company officials from Milwaukee’s Best have sent a press release saying that they are changing the name of their brand to “Milwaukee’s Beast”. “Well, now that Schlitz is back, we can’t really call ourselves the “Best” anymore.” Company heads have finally decided to embrace the moniker given to the beer by college students all over the midwest. The company is excited to move forward and have even started looking for a mascot that resembles this:

ESPN Changes Catchy, but Overused Phrase
ESPN has told the rest of the sports world that the term “Manny being Manny” is being changed to “Manny being Barry”. While ESPN expressed sadness for no longer being able to overuse this phrase, they are reportedly very excited about overusing the new phrase.

Mid-Week Cartoon