Eric, notice the Matuse wetsuit. Classy.

Due to an extreme lack of surf, I decided to bust out the Liquid Image Explorer blahblahblah snorkel this weekend.  Eric from my softball team and I charged down to Hammond’s to see what we could see.  The answer: not much.  I did however see a pretty big bat ray that I swam right over the top of, visions of Steve Irwin dancing through my head.  I was in about 7 or 8 feet of water and visibility was about five feet so of course I didn’t see the ray until it was about 4 feet from me (what fishologists call THE KILL ZONE) and of course I screamed like a little girl.  Luckily I was underwater so there was nobody to laugh at me.

The camera itself is sort of a mixed bag.  First of all taking a picture when the camera itself isn’t eye level is a challenge–there’s a semi-complicated double-X viewfinder that you see out of the mask that theoretically allows you to line up your shots so they’re at least sort of centered but most of the images I ended up with were just fuzzyass blurs, which isn’t too dissimilar from my normal point-and-shoot pics, so maybe there’s a lot of operator error involved.  Probably.  Anyway, with visibility the best it had been in months (but still less than ideal) only about half the shots came out which probably isn’t a terrible success rate for a first time user (unless you count the Blythe River Trip, but I’m not sure I do).  No, I didn’t get any pics of the Bat Ray but it wasn’t cos I was a girl and flipped out and swallowed a whole mouth full of water but because I was out of storage on the internal card…I think I was able to get about 45 images before the FULL indicator popped on.  You can add in a memory card which boosts the capacity to probably like a million photos or somewhere in that neighborhood (this also does video but I’m saving that for a future review).

Also as an aside I cut the sleeves (well, half the sleeves) off of an old full suit to make myself one of those cool half-sleeves that all the kidz tell me are the rage these days.  I am working on sewing a dirty seam or two with some nylon thread for this weekend’s project but that is a boring story now that I realize what I am typing.

Sea Monster's Eye View

Here is where you pick which game you want to watch

Did I tell you guys I bought a new TV a while ago?  I was one of the last people around to finally upgrade and get a flat screen, blah blah blah TV with blah blah blah resolution and blah blah blah hertz.  Sounds awesome, right?  Right.  Anywayz, getting a new TV is nice and all but the big problem is you’re still stuck with the same old crappy programming, right?  Of course you are.  You could upgrade to digital cable but that would involve a phone call and someone coming out to your house to hook up your new digital cable and the people at Cox iz dummies so that’s out.  Too bad you can’t watch out of market games on your new TV without upgrading to the MLB package!  OMGosh but with the Roku box you totally can!  Let’s investigate!

Here is how you get a Roku box: you have your new roommate move in and he brings it with him.  Then you tell him to set it up and he does.  Then you turn on your TV and your computer.  Then you sign into your MLB account (which you have to buy or you have to have your dad buy it and then you take his password).  Then through the magic of the internetz your Roku talks to your TV and then you can watch all of the out of market games (except for the Saturday day games which are all blacked out because MLB was founded after the Civil War and they were scared the Pony Express would disseminate the accounts and descriptions of the game of Base Ball without the express written consent of Kenesaw Mountain Landis and George Washington).

Sadly we did not pitch Clay Buchholtz in our fantasy league today

So where was we?  The Roku…the TV…oh yeah so see that little box there to the lower left of the TV?  That’s the Roku.  My favorite aspects of the Roku are the following: you can chose between home and away broadcasts, virtually every station is in HD and the picture quality is amazing.  And did I mention you get to watch Yankee-Red Sox games whenever you want?  Look, I know we iz West Coast Bias and we’re all about the West Coast but try watching a Yanks-Sox tilt and then flip over and watch the Dodgers play the Padres.  I mean I love the Dodgers and all but it’s like watching Romper Room compared to the ball those two juggernauts are rolling out there.  And don’t even get me started on the Rays…that team is so fast and those pitchers are nasty.  Flipping between channels isn’t as easy as it would be on your regular TV (takes maybe 30 seconds to go from game to game) so that’s a bit of a downer but to go from the Roku to your regular TV feed (and back again) is just a matter of hitting the input button your remote, so you could easily go back and forth between an out of market game and your local team without missing much at all.

And yeah, Roku will stream some of your netflix and some other stuff too but the MLB has got to be the selling point, right?  Right.

Final verdict: 2 thumbs and 1 renob up.

Here’s the Jim Nantz spot: funny stuff, right?  Only thing he doesn’t tell you is that FLO TV *doesn’t* have the rights to the NFL–so the big game you’d like to watch?  Not going to happen.  No Monday Night Football.  No Sunday Night Football.  They can’t even show The Pro Bowl (not that anybody would want to watch, but still).  Not only that–when ESPN News or PTI talks about results from Sunday’s slate of NFL games or the latest in NFL Free Agents, the draft, Brett Favre, or anything NFL related they can’t show game clips.  Sadly for all of us Sprint has the rights to the NFL so if you’ve got an AT&T or Verizon phone and want to watch the NFL you’re completely and hopelessly out of luck.

Now for the good news of those of us like myself who sit at their desks all day: the 2010 World Cup will be shown on FLO TV, at least according to Customer Care Specialist Joshua here.  If our friends at google have steered me right the footy matches from South Africa will be shown around 10am PST and 1pm PST which means those of us stuck at our god forsaken desks all day will miss out on all of the action.  Unless of course you’ve got your TV rocking (or have a cool job where you can just stream stuff all day at your desk).

My bottom line recommendations for FLO TV: If you don’t like sports it’s totally crap.  During the late fall/early winter you might as well cancel your subscription for a few months because there’s nothing on that’s even remotely appealing anyway.  Reactivate your deal in the Spring for The Masters, a good amount of MLB, and then the World Cup.  And that’s all I have to say about that.

Cuba v Mexico

You hate work, I hate work, we all hate work.  Nobody wants to be there and of course those of us with a job should be thankful we have one but try telling yourself that while you’re sitting at your desk and missing out on all of the Thursday/Friday March Madness games.  It’s a total crock.  Well, because this is America and here in America we fix things (except for Iraq, health care, and the Education and Banking systems) AT&T and Verizon now proudly offer FLO TV, a semi-reliable source for sports and entertainment, sent right to your phone.  And your boss thought the internet was a time waster.

First of all, the bad: you’re watching on your freaking phone, so the screen is obviously going to be small.  I can read the ticker on ESPN’s site but it’s tough to tell if a pitcher was painting the black or if the home plate umpire was just being generous.  Also bad: no NFL.  I’m not sure why Qualcomm doesn’t have an agreement but forget about even seeing a clip of an NFL game, no highlights, no Monday Night Football, no nothing.  It’s a real downer.  Equally bad: most of the channels aren’t so sweet; if you’re like me you don’t have much need for either MTV or Nickelodeon.

Now, the good stuff: ESPN.  While not always insynch with the TV station, there’s still bound to be either a college game, an NBA game or a MLB game on at some point during the day, surrounded by Score Center (not to be confused with Sports Center) and various other programming.  Major college conferences are represented on other channels but the only California team to get any play was USC during the football season.  There’s also some sort of alternative sports channel that used to show skateboarding, surfing and (sadly) moto-x but now that seems to be replaced by a new channel that just has the 2009 Mavericks surf contest on an endless loop.  I guess that’s cool?  Is it?  I don’t even know.  Watching a 30 foot wave on a 2 inch screen is only like 12% awesome I would say.  If there was a way to get videocasts of ASP events, now that might be worth something.  FLO TV’s crowning achievement so far in 2009 is sure to be their dedicated NCAA basketball channel…seriously, I shouldn’t have to pimp it any more than that.  No more futzing with some crappy broadband feed at my desk this year, my friends.

The verdict: A must have.  At $15/month it’s not going to break the bank and baseball fans will for sure want this during the playoffs.  If you’re one of those weirdos that ONLY likes football then you can skip this until the No Fun League gets an agreement worked out.  Now if you’ll excuse me I’ve got some phone to watch.