1. Phoenix – Wolfgang Amadeus Phoenix
2. Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion
3. Passion Pit – Manners
4. Animal Collective – Fall Be Kind (EP)
5. Fanfarlo – Reservoir

Jack: “This morning it hit me in the shower why the Hendersons named their guest Harry. That film has layers.”

I can’t recall planning to the watch the Grammy’s in any recent years, but this year is different. Why? Radiohead of course. They are confirmed to be performing and super-secret (double probation?) intel says they have special guest(s) for the performance. Pictures of the rehearsal are on Radiohead fan websites, but I won’t tell you all in case you want to be surprised. Other confirmed performers: U2, Coldplay and Foo Fighters. All together, this lineup looks to be enough to withstand the self-important speechs of most awards show.

Federer just recently finished up his 4th round match at the Australian Open.  He barely beat Tomas Berdych in a 5-set match, coming back from 2 sets to love down.  The tide turned though at 3-3 in the 3rd set where Berdych was serving after trading breaks with Federer the past 3 games.  In what could only be described as Reggie Miller-like choking, Berdych made 3 horrendous unforced errors: a pushed shot wide, a pushed volley wide and, the worst of all, an easy overheard that Berdych bounced on his own side before the ball eventually hit the net.  Some might even say he Jamesed it.

From that point on it was Federer’s match to lose.  There were a few more highly contested games, such as the final game of 4th set where Berdych threatened to stretch Federer to another tiebreaker.  But, it wasn’t to be and after taking the 4th set, he cruised to a 6-2 5th set and the win.  The match was surprisingly short at 3hr 28m for a 5-setter with scores of 4-6, 6-7, 6-4, 6-4, 6-2.

But there are bigger fish to fry than this one match.  I’m looking at you ESPN and your in-match scoring interface.  As the new home of all 4 grand slams this year, ESPN also gets to format the in-match scoring however it pleases, but it does not please me.  ESPN have brought their highly annoying website layout practices to tennis now and hopefully they will take the 4 months between the Australian open and the French open to redesign their scoring template.

Exhibit ESPN 1:

-from the iphone

Exhibit ESPN 2:

now the server has changed, so has the order

Exhibit NBC:

Thanks to http://www.daleisphere.com/

The problems with ESPN’s layout and formatting:

1) As with all ESPN content, the philosophy seems to be: more is better.  Here I get the players named twice, first horizontally with the game score, next to the vertically layed-out match score.  Compare with NBC’s example, where all the scores, match and game, are in one box, with the players’ names listed once next to the match score and the text below indicating the game score based on the server (arrowed).

2) The arrow. Technically, with both ESPN and NBC the arrow indicates the server, but ESPN’s arrow never moves.  From exhibits ESPN 1 to ESPN 2, you can see that the server has changed, but so has the order of the players, yet the arrow remains stationary.  This becomes annoying and confusing, especially during tiebreakers.  For example, the 2nd set of tonight’s Federer/Berdych match went to a tiebreaker and since the server changes after the 1st point and then after every 2 points in the tiebreaker, the player’s names and their tiebreaker score is constantly flipping back and forth.  If you look away you’ll think you missed a point, until you see that the score is reversed, or is it?!?

3) The placement, the clutter, the horror.  With ESPN, not only are there 2 scores (game and match) stretched across the screen, but the tennis scores are directly above more scores from all others sports. ESPN is well-known for this global ticker, but to place the in-match tennis scores so close to so many other, unrelated scores is number overload.  Why not place the tennis scores at the top, like NBC, far away from content unrelated to the match.  Now NBC doesn’t have a sports ticker to deal with at all, so they could put their box score anywhere, but that’s no excuse for ESPN who should be prepared to design around their ever-present ticker already.

In short, list the game and match score together, with the players’ names listed vertically and all scores in a row, the Australian Open website does:

http://www.australianopen.com/en_AU/index.html

If you really wanted to differentiate the match score from the game score you could highlight the game score, even though the differentiation is already done with numbers.  There’s no 30-30 set scores people, C’MON! This eliminates the arrow and/or order confusion since the players’ names won’t be flip-flopping, horizontally or vertically and the arrow can move to indicate the server.  Finally, put the score box in the upper-right or upper-left.  There’s plenty of screen real estate, especially in HD and you’re going to eat up  space for the in-match score anyways, so pick a spot away from other content, and scrolling (marquee reminiscent), unrelated content at that.

I’ve already told a few people this story, but I thought it was worth blogging.

As most know, Friday, July 11 was the 1st day that the new iPhone 3g became available for retail sale.

I know a few people who bought the First Generation iPhone, but I wanted to wait since I thought 1) the cost was too high ($499 or $599) 2) No GPS 3) No Exchange for email 4) No 3G

These issues were solved when Apple announced the features of the iPhone 3G during a March 6 special presentation.  Along with reconciling my main 4 issues, they also included a major software update (2.0) which included an Application store for user and 3rd party-made applications.  Some would be free, others pay.  On top of all this, they made the hardware slimmer, a flush heaphone jack and dropped the initial price to $199.

That brings us to this last Friday, when I had to make a choice about where to try and buy an iPhone. Eugene doesn’t have an Apple store, we do have a Mac authorized seller, but I doubt they would have the iPhone, so I went to an AT&T store.

I’m already an AT&T customer, so I didn’t think there would be any service issues with upgrading my phone, but I assumed they would sold out.  Turns out they were sold out, so I went to leave.  Before I could leave a salesperson suggested I preorder and pick one up when a new shiment came in, I said fine and gave them my account information.

After looking up my account I was told that an iPhone would cost me $399 or $499.  I was confused since I thought the initial prices were $199 or $299, depending on the HDD size.  BUT, apparently my plan won’t be ‘upgrade eligible’ until September, so I have to buy out my old plan to upgrade now.  I guess this is just how it works in AT&T world, but it seems weird that I would be able to upgrade hardware and start my new plan from this date.  They’ll just have to content with not getting my $200 now AND having me pay less per month since I don’t have a data plan.  FOOLS!

I’m back in Oregon and I seem to have brought the weather back with me.  I arrived in Minneapolis last Friday and the tell-tale signs of Midwest were there.  Humid, check.  Hot, check.  Stale air, check.  As we drove down to DSM, and then skAnkeny, nothing had changed from my many years in Iowa.  The weather was muggy, the landscape was flat and the place ached for a healthy rain, think 1993.

We arrived in Ankeny and I ate dinner with the folks.  I proceeded to the happenin’ spot for drinking with college & high school friends, the Applebee’s.  No, Tyler Florence was not there for me to kick his ass, but the atmosphere was nothing short of middle-class boredom.  The day was long, and I was tired after 8 hours of flying and layovers and 4 hours of driving.  On the upside, quality beef is easier to come by in Iowa, so I would eat burgers and steak and nachos all weekend.  Yummy.

Saturday started off well enough, slept in til 10am.  Tried to watch Wimbledon but that damn thing’s been getting rained out.  Rented some movies with Mom, got Strangers with Candy, Children of Men and Music & Lyrics.  Can you guess which ones I chose?  At night I went up to Ames to visit more friends.  Saw Knocked Up, hilarious!  Got back online too.  I had been without internet since

Sunday, did some web work for freelance, drove around Ankeny, then went to Marshalltown to visit Grandma for her birthday.  Apparently the thing to do for your birthday in Iowa is to go to Ice Cream Socials in rural churches.  I had never been and it was interesting.  Sandwiches, beans and salad, topped off with homemade ice cream and pie.  Pretty good stuff, although the music entertainment was weird.

Monday, awoke for more Wimbledon, but more rain delays.  Serena Williams was saved by the rain.  Watched the Children of Men and then Strangers with Candy.  Children of Men was still great, and SwC was hilarious.  I first saw SwC at the Bijou and it totally pulls off the TV series to film transition.  The plot is stupid, but it doesn’t matter because the characters are awesome.  Colbert, Dinello and Sedaris, plus famous guest stars appearances by Allison Janney, Phillip Seymour Hoffman, Dan Hedaya, Ian Holm, Matthew Broderick and Sarah Jessica Parker.  Don’t forget Principal Onyx Blackman.

Tuesday, slept in, watched more Wimbledon, then went to the Jordan Creek Mall.  Oculon knows what I’m talking about.  This monstrosity has been pumping out stripmalls and one-off stores around it’s perimeter for a while now and I think only the interstate will stop it’s advances.  Went to Ocean’s 13 with mom, pretty good.  Way better than Ocean’s 12, but there were some cameos from that movie.  Not as good as Ocean’s 11, but the plot made sense even if some things were glossed over.

Wednesday, got up at the ass-crack o’ dawn, again and waited at Des Moines International Airport for my Minneapolis connection.  Aside, I think you’re airport has to be able to fly to an international location in order for you to put in ‘International’ in title.  I think Des Moines fails to fly to directly to Canada, so they’re liars.  The Minneapolis flight was delayed, so I missed my connection to Seattle.  Amazingly the airports weren’t packed on the 4th of July, so I was rebooked to Portland.  I had to layover there for 2hr50m, but it was all good, free wi-fi!

Now I’m back at work and although my vacation is over, I’m loving the internet.  Oh internet, what would I do without you?