The big day started with breakfast and some light US Open watching with J and V, then off to the church where sitting around commenced/wedding pictures.  There’s no worse place to idle about than church pews in a tuxedo, but once that finally ended we got onto a very quick ceremony, especially compared to the 1st rehearsal.

The wedding party loaded into the Escalade limo and commenced with puttering around DSM while drinking a variety of wine, beer (Fat Tire!) and cheeses as the reception hall filled up:

The reception had a chocolate fountain and open bar, very nice, so I only made it until about 10pm.  I don’t even think I got a taste of the cake.  Still managed to embarass myself since the groomsmen sang “A Whole New World” (see Aladdin) to the bride on the dancefloor, lyrics provided thank goodness.

Overall, a fun time that celebrated a great couple’s future.  I wish you guys the best!  now go and make pancakes with that gridle.

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.

Since August I’ve got a few new toys.  #1 is the iPhone 3g.  I had to wait a couple months for my old AT&T/Cingular/AT&T phone to become upgrade eligible, but when it did I promptly got the 16GB version.  I recently got a case for it as well since it’s in my pocket all day and I was wary of scratching from my car keys.  The iPhone became especially usual when getting directions across northern Indiana over Thanksgiving weekend.  While visiting family and eating turkey we had to go into town (South Bend, home of Notre Dame) and it was definitely reassuring to have GPS tracking us across rural roads.  #2 is an HD LCD Tv.  It’s my Christmas present to myself and yes, I did deserve it.

Now I’m back in Eugene and back to the grind.  I should be able to finish a major IT project this month, along with usual PC and server maintenance.  Throw in some holidays and before you know it the year will be over.

In other news, it’s been a very busy two weeks.  Work has been filled with setting up new computers, going into the ceiling to wire cat5e cables to rooms and moving other employees computers and desks in a massive office shuffle.  It’s all in preparation for 3 new employees starting over the next 2 weeks.

When I get home there’s no shortage of sporting options.  There’s the Olympics, NFL preseason, MLB baseball, EPL soccer, etc.  It’s been particularly disappointing to see the US Track & Field team underperform after watching them at the Trials here in Eugene. Phelps was quite exciting, even though the west coast never gets to watch anything live.  So, I had to avoid all media outlets during Phelps’ 8th gold medal try and then watch the 3 hour tape dealy on NBC.

The fantasy baseball playoffs are approaching fast.  There’s only one more week fo the regular season and I’ve been holding 5th place for quite some time.  The top 6 make the playoffs, but i wouldn’t mind slipping into 6th so that I could avoid the 1st place team, who I’m losing to this week, if I make it to the 2nd round/semifinal.

3 weeks ago was Lollapalooza and it was a great weekend to be in Chicago.  Great weather and great music, what more do you need?  Radiohead were that Friday night’s headliner, playing all the new songs and other classics from In Rainbows and providing a great light show throughout.  Saturday night was Wilco,  who played a very nice set while tricking out their suits with Hello Kitty patches and lots of other stuff.  Sunday night was NiN, who I had never seen before.  They had a great rock show and a very cool stage setup that included a screen that comes down in front of them that Reznor can manipulate with lights.  Their bassist is JMJ, aka Beck’s bassist, and he definitely added a lot to the set.  All in all, great headliners choices so that made it easier to avoid Kanye and Rage Against the Machine. A few other great shows during the days were: Girl Talk, Explosions in the Sky, The National, The Foals, Bloc Party and The Black Keys.

The weekend also gave me the opportunity to see TDK at the Navy Pier IMAX late in the morning on Sunday.  It was fantastic and IMAX really helped the action scenes.  I’ve now seen the movie twice and it is easily the best movie I have seen this year.  I really noticed some of the screenplay subtleties the second time around that gave hints to things that would happen later on.  Ledger’s Joker is truly great with so many memorable scenes: the bank robbery, the pencil trick, the Nurse uniform, the interrogation, it’s goes on.

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!

The Dutch have been the hottest team of the tournament so far, easily winning all 3 group stages matches in the brutal “Group of Death” (France, Italy, Romania).  Russia secured a place in the Quaters after finishing 2nd in Group D, behind Spain, by handily beating Sweden on Wednesday.

It’s the 41′ and the play has been fairly even.  Each side have had a few scoring chance.  Russia has had the most chances, although some have been long range shots (30-35 yards).

Since starting to type, the Netherlands had an edge-of-the-box chance but the shot was straight at the Russian keeper.  It looks to go into the half drawn at nil-nil.  I see at least two goals during the second half, and hopefully it won’t end in penalty kicks like yesterday’s match Croatia-Turkey match.