If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed. Thanks for visiting!

I’ve been spending a lovely few days in scenic Saratoga Springs, New York and the neighboring area. I had some great (and drunken) times at a bar promotion at The Local (a great new craft beer bar that had Wolaver’s Organic Brown on tap). I’ve seen my buddy Adam’s MFA Art show in Albany, where he showed off some amazing mixed media art. I’ve had my fair share of doughboys. And I’ve spent a bunch of quiet time up in Lake Sacandaga.

All in all, I’m having a nice time with my Skidmoron friends, from Sean and Dustin (aka Dusty Bottoms) to Adam to my old professors Flip and Deb.

It’s been relaxing and I’ve barely even looked at my laptop. And it’s been really easy to stay on top of what’s happening at work with my iPhone. Yes, I’ll have to catch up on some work while I’m in Frederick next week, but it certainly could have been worse.

I’m feeling replenished, this has been a great vacation.

Greetings from Baltimore Urban(?). I am just waiting until I can catch my next plain flight. I’ve been up since 5:00 in the morning. I’m headed for Albany, New York and I’m continuing on to Phoenix, Saratoga Springs to see some old college buddies. Really beautiful right now outside the airport in Baltimore. I am happy I’ve got a little bit of time to be outside and not in an airport or an airplane. It was raining in Denver when I left this morning at 5:00 AM. I hop the whether will hold up when I am in upstate New York but seriously doubt that which probably listen

Powered by Jott

I’m looking for a new job title. I had previously stated that I would be having some options for you a week ago, but that didn’t happen.

I’m still not really having the time to devote to this project, but I’ve liked what I’ve seen from reader-based suggestions. At the top of my list so far:

Vice President of Ideas - Daryl

Grand Master Graphics - Katie

Ideamonger - Katie - I’ve always enjoyed the term fishmonger (which is something Hamlet says). And to be something Shakespearean-sounding is definitely intriguing. And I guess it’s better than having Nunnery Visitor as a job title.

Head of Conception - Lori - Ladies, when you think of conception, think of me.

Visual Vigilante - Kevin - I like the alliteration.

Chief Imagineer - Carsten - Sounds like Engineer, and my nephews love trains.

I have a few that I’ve come up with, but there are more for me to discover.

Visual Viceroy - One of the fun things about Flying Dog is that our fans are the People’s Republic of Flying Dog. And with a Prime Minister of Marketing and a Baron von Marketing, a Visual Viceroy would fit into the whole awesomeness.

Level 12 Design Wizard - My kerning and leading damage points are approaching 130.

While you’re waiting to find out if you’ve won, watch this awesome Rube Goldberg video:
Crazy Rube Goldberg Device

And you should probably listen to this MP3 while you’re waiting some more. I’m still working on some, but Visual Viceroy is in the lead at this point.

Thanks to the wonders of the all-mighty DVR, I can make my hockey predictions after the games have actually started. I guarantee that I haven’t seen or heard about any hockey this round. Scout’s honor. Oh yeah, Jews generally aren’t scouts. Jew’s honor, I guess it is.

Western Conference

Avalanche vs. Red Wings: My team, the Avalanche have a tough matchup against the top-ranked Red Wings. Throw in the fact that Peter Forsberg’s groin is bothering him and won’t play tonight, and it will be that much more difficult to beat our hated rivals. Red Wings in 5 if Forsberg doesn’t do anything, Avs in 7 if he only misses this game and plays well the other 6.

Stars vs. San Jose: This will be a great series to watch, and I think that this is Joe Thornton’s year to shine in the playoffs. Marty Turco can be easily rattled and that can blow a game or two really easily. Sharks in 6, they’ll steal one in Dallas and will close out at home.

Eastern Conference

Canadiens vs. Philadelphia: The Habs looked sharp, but Philly is big and physical, which can wear a team down over a series. But Montreal looks pretty strong. I think it might come down to the better goaltender. Biron is a veteran but prone to some letdown goals. Price is young, but a solid string of games is definitely something he can do. Canadiens in 6. [update: I just saw the highlight of Patrice Brisebois getting an “own goal”. He could Paul Coffey the Habs (Coffey shot a puck in his own goal in ‘96 and was the turning point in the series. The Avs won the cup that year.]

Penguins vs. Rangers: If you can shut down Crosby, Malkin is there to bail him out. Or Hossa. Marc-Andre Fleury is becoming the goalie everyone thought he would be. The Rangers have the experience (Drury, Gomez, Jagr), but the Penguins have too much talent. Penguins in 6.

Eric Warner, Flying Dog’s “Lead Dog” wrote a great blog entry today about Earth Day, and how people should celebrate the Earth every day by making some simple lifestyle changes. Instead of taking the bus to work one day a year, people can affect change in simple ways. Here’s something I’ve changed in my life’s routine to help out this place we call home:

Recycling - I recycle aluminum, glass, plastic and paper. The shitty thing about this is that my condo building doesn’t offer recycling, so I have to schlep my recycling offsite. The city of Denver offers free curbside recycling, but only in single-family homes and apartment buildings that are 8 units or less. I think this is total bullshit, and the city needs to look at a more inclusive recycling plan. But I wait until I can completely fill up my car with cans and bottles and paper (working at a beer company, I have been getting lots more glass to recycle the last 18 months). I recycle my shit near my brother’s house, so I go play with my nephews afterwards.

The Onion has great merchandise. In college I bought this wonderful shirt commemorating the 1969 moon landing. If you’re unfamiliar with the Onion, you need to get out of your cave and read this amazing weekly newspaper. As opposed to a new t-shirt site at cnn.com that allows you to make shirts based on their recent headlines. I think this is potentially a bad idea, and I doubt the shirt site will actually survive past a month.

I LOVE LIVING IN COLORADO. There, I said it. Ok, this isn’t new news.

This week is a perfect example. Monday and Tuesday were 80 degree perfect days. Wednesday, it snowed. All day. Colorado is great for shit like that. Spring pops its head out for a few days in early April, and then you get some snow. Today (Thursday) it’s sunny and 50. Variable weather conditions is part of living here. It can snow in Vail

Looking back at my flickr photostream, most every year we get some snow in mid to late April.

April 23, 2004 - I had just returned from Lawrence, Kansas (Kevin and I went to see Yonder because I had just been fired from the Vail Daily and thought it’d be fun to take a 2 day road trip). This was taken about 40 minutes outside Denver. Incidentally, it more or less blizzarded in Vail on the last day of April, my last day of living up there. I went to the bars at 5PM to get wasted (mission accomplished) and had sandals on, then had to walk a few blocks from the bus stop in 5″ of snow at 2:15AM. My toes turned blue. I was so cold. Fucking freezing.

April 10, 2005 - More April snow, this time in Denver.

Well, that’s all I have, but it snows late here. And people just need to accept that. When I used to go to camp on the side of Mount Evans, the camp was at 10,200 feet (and still is, in fact). We used to get snow all the time, including on July 4 a few times. I love the snow, so it’s no big deal.

I’m looking for a better job title. Anyone have any ideas? Right now I’m the Creative Manager, and that job title serves fine but it’s not fun enough. We have fun at Flying Dog and I don’t want my job title to seem stuffy. How could you not have fun if you can drink a beer on the job for inspiration?

I’m considering any and all suggestions you have. If I pick your job title to use, you’ll win some rad Flying Dog stuff, like a set of new Flying Dog pint glasses we just got in. If I decide to go in another direction and pick my own job title, I’ll give the best other option some free shit. And who doesn’t love free shit?

One idea to get you started - We already have a Prime Minister of Marketing, and a Baron von Marketing. So something artificially inflated maybe is good. Or perhaps something Government-related.

I’ll have some options for you this weekend.

I’ve been neck deep in iPhone applications the last few days and am working on a post about why you need to finally get an iPhone, but for now here’s an amazing video of the Super Mario Bros. theme song being played with an RC car and hundreds of wine bottles.

Mario Theme Played with RC Car and Bottles - Watch more free videos

This is a pretty amazing technical video about the Super Mario theme song. Do you guys have any favorite Mario theme song videos? There are a few others that I’m a fan of:

Go the distance. Yes, that was ripped off of Field of Dreams (as was the title). But it’s an important thing in the world of Customer Service. Take today, where an expected bad customer service experience has turned into a really nice customer service experience.

I am a hockey nut. I love hockey. Anything to do with hockey. It’s time for the NHL playoffs, and in this round all out-of-market games are being broadcast on Versus. On Denver’s Comcast, Versus shares their HD channel with the Golf Network. So they sort of trade off on the programming, sometimes it’s Golf and sometimes it’s Versus’ programming (hockey, ultimate fighting, cycling, fishing, etc.).

Therein lies the programming dilemma. Not only is this the first bit of games in the NHL, this week is also The Masters, a golf major championship.

So the program listing on Comcast says that there’s a recurring show called “Live from the Masters”. The problem is that this is not actually live coverage of the golf, it’s just analysis. And it’s being repeated like 4 times tonight. When there are live broadcasts of playoff hockey we want to watch, it’s annoying.

So I called Versus, which is actually owned by Comcast cable (which I just found out today). They were not helpful so much, as there was nothing on their talking points sheet for the day which would explain this.

I then called Comcast, and after a decently lengthy wait time, I was redirected to a phone number that nobody ever picked up - 407-363-4653 - not really sure what that was all about.

In my research of this problem, I came across a press release from Versus’ about the creation of the Versus HD channel on Comcast. A little more research showed me that a guy from the press release named Marc Fein is now Versus’ Executive Vice President of Programming, Production and Business Operations. I couldn’t find an email address for him, so I poked around on Google to see how other people at Versus had their email addresses.

And then I emailed him:

I noticed you were quoted in a press release when the Versus/Golf HD
channel was brought to Comcast. As you know, Versus and the Golf Channel
share an HD channel. I live in Denver and have Comcast HD cable.

The regular SD Versus channel today 2 hockey games tonight and the
program listing says that they’re also available in HD. When I go to
channel 672 (your HD channel), there is a repeating “Live from the
Masters” program all evening. Since people can only play golf during the
day, this is appears to be a repeating highlights show or something.

The problem I have with this programming is that the hockey tonight is
LIVE TELEVISION, but someone has apparently decided to show 6 hours of
reruns instead.

Why would the hockey not be broadcast live in HD tonight? Please
explain. I’m annoyed by this move by the Versus/Golf HD channel and it
makes me sad to know that Versus isn’t giving hockey consumers the HD
broadcasts on this channel.

If you are not the correct person to be contacting about this, please
refer me to the appropriate person.

Josh Mishell

Ten minutes later I had a response from someone at Versus (the Director of Scheduling and Program Planning), telling me that the games are actually going to be broadcast on the Versus HD channel, apparently through a last-minute deal with the Golf Channel.

This tells me one of two things:
1.Versus actually cares about their hockey customers, and even though I was wasting some people’s time (including an Executive VP) they were happy to help me out.
2. Nobody watches hockey, so I was the first person to complain about it.

Either way, I’m happy that Versus was able to help me out and I like them a lot more than I used to, especially after this AWESOME customer service experience. Well, I’m off to watch some hockey in HD. Thanks, Versus!

Photo from flickr user brianpoulsen.