Cap’n Ken’s Homespun Wisdom

The FCC thinks cable and satellite companies should be pressured to offer ala carte purchases of cable networks rather than forcing customers to buy broad packages of channels.

Consumer choice is a good thing, but apart from the simple economics that make this idea unworkable (CourtTV estimates I”d have to pay them $5 a month in an ala carte world? No thanks), it”s an idea rooted in a world that is quickly fading away.

Who gives a damn about a “network” anymore? Back in the days before remote controls, 40+ channels and on-screen programming guides, people might have parked their set on one channel and just watched what was on, but does anybody today really watch “[insert network name] TV” just because they like the network?

Maybe that”s the case for chicks who dig Lifetime or granola types who like Outdoor Life Network, but personally, I care exactly not at all about what network a program comes on. It”s like how I don”t care, and often don”t know, what time a show comes on since the DVR handles all the tuning and recording for me.

In The Wisdom household, we tend to watch a bunch of stuff from A&E (Mythbusters, Flip This House, The First 48, Airline, etc.), but I don”t watch any single show because it”s on A&E. I simply want to watch shows that I like.

The model for the future will be pay-per-view programs, not pay-per-subscribe networks. If I could pay a couple of bucks for a season pass of Mythbusters, that might be be worth something to me. Of course, I”d still want to have corporate America underwriting the cost by buying commercials I don”t watch … but that”s another story.

The wife and I ventured down to New Orleans the Saturday after Thanksgiving, primarily to try to spend some money with businesses that are open, but we ended up on a rambling tour of the city.

I haven”t had the time to write my opus on the trip, but as it turns out, Daniella was there the same day and wrote a piece that captures my thoughts and amplifies them as only a New Orleans native could.

Read Daniella”s piece here.

One thing I”d like to note:

The French Quarter looks near normal, and there were plenty of tourists around. I doubt, however, that too many of those tourists realize the city isn”t back to normal and just a few miles away it”s a vacant and destroyed wasteland.

This came into sharp focus as I was standing outside an art store in the Quarter talking to my friend Dave on the phone. While tourists waited for horse-carriage rides at Jackson Square and ate beignets across the street at Cafe Du Monde, Dave was back at his house in Lakeview, trying to finish up salvaging what he and his wife could and throwing the rest of the crap into a trash heap on the sidewalk. Something about having their house demolished with their (ruined) stuff still inside just seems wrong to them.

I”d like to propose that all cabs coming from the airport be required to take a route through Lakeview so the tourists can see what the city is really like.

I have, by the way some photos up on my Flickr site if you”re interested.

After witnessing LSU”s pathetic performance (in person) against Arkansas Friday - Fire Les Miles - I feel any talk of BCS standings is meaningless at this point. Barring 45 - 0 blowouts by UCLA and Colorado this weekend, LSU has no shot at The Rose Bowl, and we don”t deserve one.

I will note, however, that the human polls are getting closer in line with the more accurate computer rankings, as LSU lost points in both human polls and got passed by Penn State in the human Harris poll. Personally, I believe the human pollsters are looking to align their rankings with the overall BCS rather than taking a hard look at performances, but the result is the same.

LSU did move up to No. 7 in the computer rankings, which is about right when you consider we”ve beaten the teams ranked 11, 16 and 20, but those wins were for the most part sheer dumb luck.

That”s not to say we don”t have a good shot against Georgia this weekend; mostly because the Bulldogs looked about as bad as we did in the season-ended Saturday.

If we decide to play pressure defense and use a real offense, I like our chances. I”m not sure I like our chances of actually playing pressure defense and using a real offense, however.

Those of you fortunate enough to live in a decent-sized city (sorry, Baton Rouge) may be aware of the Apple retail store and it”s much-hyped “Genius Bar”. The Genius Bar is a place where Apple / iPod owners can drop in and get help and advice about their products.

I cozied up to the Genius Bar in Atlanta this morning for some help with a bum battery in my spanking-new 15″ PowerBook and quickly noticed the effect having the name “genius” in your job title/description can have on a person.

Talk about a know-it-all tool. Time with an Apple “genius” apparently comes with free attitude, and lots of it. Granted, when people come in with problems like “My Shuffle won”t play music” and “iTunes doesn”t show song titles and artist names when I import CDs” (these were the problems being had by the two losers in line before me. They were solved by trying - easily and successfully - to put a song on the Shuffle and play it and by explaining that the computer has to be on the Internet to get CD track data into iTunes, respectively), it”s got to be hard to not assume everybody”s an idiot.

But when the “genius” called my name and I told him I thought I had a bad battery, he really didn”t need to respond with “what makes you think that?” in a snide little “genius” tone. My own jackassedness - my response was “well, you can actually watch the little battery life percentage meter ticking down to zero” - seemed to at first infuriate the “genius”, as he decided to verify my claim that it loses 1% about every 20 seconds by timing it with his watch. But it didn”t take him long to figure out a) I knew what I was talking about and b) that I was right.

“Classic sign of battery failure” was his expert diagnosis. Excellent work, Kojak.

There is, however, an upside to “genius” arrogance. Since my PowerBook is the model that just came out a month ago, my machine is exactly the same age as the ones they have on display in the store. So instead of “doing things they way they”d want us to”, Mr. Genius decided to take charge and pull a good battery out of a store PowerBook and just give it to me.

By the time I left with my replacement battery, there were about a half-dozen Apple owners lined up to worship at the feet of the resident “genius”. I”m sure he felt quite superior by the time he walked down to Orange Julius for lunch.

[editor"s note: Yes, the Cap"n now has a PowerBook, which is the replacement machine for his stolen work laptop. It makes him happy.]

Well, that”s what I get for assuming things about humans.

The new BCS rankings are out, and not only did LSU not pass Penn State; we are now even farther behind them, and Virginia Tech is hot on our heels.

So what happened? LSU didn”t gain any ground in the computer rankings, as we fell in three of the six rankings and gained in one. We”re still ranked 8 in the computers, but lost .020 points.

But the big shift came in the human polls. With Miami losing, it was time to shuffle points between Penn State, LSU and Virginia Tech (the three one-loss teams remaining at the top of the polls). Virginia Tech gained a huge 168 points in the human Harris poll and 109 in the human USA Today poll. Hard to argue with that after they rolled up a decent Virginia team 52-14.

So I got no beef with the humans thinking more of Virginia Tech after this weekend. But let”s look at how the humans view Penn State and LSU.

To recap the weekend:

- Penn State beat 5-6 Michigan State 31-22, thanks in large part to Michigan State throwing four interceptions (MSU out-gained Penn State by nearly 100 yards).

- LSU beat 3-7 Ole Miss 40-7 in a evenly-played game (two turnovers by both teams). LSU held Ole Miss to 150 total yards (including a total of 7 yards rushing) while rolling up 374 yards of offense.

LSU had a better win against a worse team. In my mind, the two games should be more or less a wash.

The human polls, however, see things differently. In the human Harris poll, Penn State picked up 152 points of the void left by Miami”s loss. LSU picked up 87. In the human USA Today poll, Penn State picked up 93 points and LSU picked up 52.

I”ll grant that it didn”t help having Tennessee (the only team to beat LSU this year) lose to Vanderbilt the same day. But I think what”s really at work is a little handjob for Joe Pa (if, in fact, the old man can still benefit from such a thing).

The human voters appear to be swept up in the love of the reborn Paterno and are determined to help push him toward whatever glory he can attain this year before - hopefully - drifting off to a nursing home somewhere next year.

And LSU is caught in an AARP bias.

With Penn State on the sidelines (since they don”t play in a real conference), LSU needs to take things into their own hand - control their own destiny, as it were - and rip the asses off of Arkansas and then Georgia if we want to have any chance of stepping in if and when USC or Texas falls in the next couple of weeks.

Stupid humans.

[editor"s note: Despite his contempt for and eagerness to deride the human polls, Cap"n Ken still does not believe LSU deserves to be the No. 3 team in the country. He is more in agreement with the BCS computers, which place LSU at No. 8. However, he"d take another national championship shot, whether deserved or not.]

It was seriously inconsiderate for Fresno State to keep me up until 2:30 a.m. and then blow their shot at beating USC last night. Had they played just a little less dumb, things would all of a sudden be fairly interesting in BCS land.

But no.

For those of you who don”t care about college football but are still reading this (which is probably nobody) Georgia Tech beat BCS No. 3 Miami, which is good news for LSU. But it”s good news on par with getting your annual mortgage escrow statement and finding out they over-withheld $10; a check for which is enclosed.

As of this week, LSU sat at No. 5 in the BCS, so we needed an improbable amount of help to have any shot at Pasadena this late in the season. Miami is gone now, but that still leaves USC, Texas and Penn State ahead of us. So let”s reset the situation:

- USC has only to play UCLA Dec. 3 when the real conferences are playing their championship games. In normal circumstances, one could assume a loss there would drop them in the human polls behind Texas, Penn State and LSU, since humans typically only look at what happens week to week. But I predict that if USC were to lose in their faux championship game, they would fall only to No. 2 in the human polls, which would be a very rare example of human pollsters applying logic. It would take 35 straight wins for human pollsters to understand this, but obviously USC would be the best of the one-loss teams. So book the Trojans a cross-town bus ticket now.

- Texas still has their A&M game plus the Big 12 Championship game, and any hopes of a BCS shakeup lie with the Longhorns screwing up one of those games. They would not get the same courtesy of logic by the human pollsters, especially if they were to lose their conference title game. Human pollsters still remember Oklahoma in 2003. Maybe the refs will let Colorado play with five downs again in the title game.

- Penn State is done; and I don”t just mean their schedule. Here”s a bit of BCS Wisdom: LSU may well pass Penn State for the No.3 spot this week and will surely do so if the Tigers win the SEC title game. On the logical and more accurate computer side, Penn State sat at No. 3 and LSU at No. 8 this past week. Obviously, Penn State has topped out on the computer side, but thanks to Miami”s loss (they sat at No. 5 in the computers), LSU will likely move up a spot despite playing a weak Ole Miss yesterday.

LSU trailed Penn State by .0296 points in last week”s BCS, and one spot in the computer rankings is worth between .0400 and .0500 points. So it”s likely LSU will pass Penn State based solely on Miami”s loss, and by the time a necessary win over UGA is factored in, LSU should climb in the computer rankings and settle in at a strong No. 3.

It”s also likely that Texas will again pass USC in tomorrow”s BCS ranking, thanks to the human polls swinging just a bit away from the Trojans after their near-loss last night.

So like Smoove, I”ll be pulling hard for A&M next week, and I”ll be a Buffs fan Dec. 3. But it”s a longshot for sure.