When I realized that both the Oregon State and Oregon football games today only were being shown on the Pac-12 Network, I leaned toward spending my weekend cursing DirecTV.
After all, DISH has come to terms with the Pac-12 Network, along with most cable outfits. This is the second football season I've been irritated, annoyed, and otherwise pissed-off at DirecTV (see previous blog post blasts here and here).
My first thought was to come up with more creative curses to direct at DirecTV. Yiddish tradition has some pretty good ones that I could embellish. (Though I was thinking along more obscene lines.) For example:
May you get passage out of the old village safely, and when you settle, may you fall into the outhouse just as a regiment of Ukrainians is finishing a prune stew and twelve barrels of beer.
I could easily picture DirecTV executives in that crappy position, since they've condemned me to miss several Oregon/Oregon State football games that I really wanted to watch this season. The U of O vs. California game starts in about half an hour, I'm unpleasantly reminded by the Oregonian sports page:
Time: 7:30 tonight
Lines: Oregon by 37
On air: TV on Pac-12 Networks (Comcast 420; no DirecTV); radio on KXTG 750
But, hey, I try to have a positive outlook on life. Even when idiot DirecTV executives or politicians give me every reason to be negative.
So this afternoon I sucked it up and forced myself to re-read the previously annoying "Pac 12 update" page on the DirecTV web site. As I remembered, it was still irritating. Had to admit, though, that some of the DirecTV spin makes sense.
Indeed, the Pac-12 Network should allow cable/satellite television providers to offer the network on an individual subscription basis. Why can't I pay extra for the Pac-12 Network while other DirecTV customers don't, because they aren't interested in it?
It seems stupid for the Pac-12 Network to require that it be bundled into a DirecTV package. I already watch only a handful of the stations that I pay for on the HD package my wife and I get. I'd rather not pay for the Cartoon Network and many others I don't care about.
Likewise, many (if not most) DirecTV subscribers don't give a rip about the Pac-12 Network. I agree with DirecTV that ideally the network should be offered as an individual option, an extra add-on for a reasonable price.
Plus, I realize -- as DirecTV points out -- that the really important Oregon/Oregon State games will be shown on something other than the Pac-12 Network. And that the other games tend to be blowouts, like the Oregon State game was today, with them beating Colorado 44-17.
I still enjoy blowouts, though. If it is Oregon or Oregon State doing the blowing out. Thus I'll continue to curse DIrecTV every time I look at the sports page and see that damn "no DirecTV".
That said, this afternoon I fired up my way-back mental machine and tried to put myself in my high school era frame of mind, when I habitually listened to SF Giants baseball games on the radio while doing homework.
I loved listening to the games. There wasn't any choice. No TV. So I found an online radio stream of today's Oregon State-Colorado game and did my best to recreate my teenage years at my age of 64. It sort of worked.
I enjoyed the announcers. I enjoyed the play-by-play action. It was much better than reading game updates on the Oregonian web site, or wherever. But still nowhere near as good as watching on our big screen TV in HD.
So get your act together, DirecTV and Pac-12 Network. You're both acting like bozos. Get a deal done. There's plenty of Yiddish curses left for you guys. Like...
May your tapeworm develop constipation while trolley cars run through your intestine as thieves camp out in your belly and steal your guts one by one.
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