As the Storm Approaches

• As much as I advocate the use and proliferation of RSS, I’m starting to feel that it’s being abused. My chief complaint is the newish trend of submitting design elements along with the data. The most nefarious offender I encounter is Xbox Live’s Major Nelson who sends enough extraneous data to rebuild his entire post (including comments) with each entry. Listen to me: You’re doing it wrong and you’re missing the point. I was okay when RSS feeds started having a single image accompanying them and I let it slide when ads started being sent with feed content (I understand the economics of blogging and content creation) but this is over the line. My other complaint is sort of the flip side of that which is feeds that include a headline and nothing else but a link to the full story on the site itself, as seen with ESPN’s NHL feed. No. Give me at least a bit of teaser text so I know if the link is worth following. That’s the point of RSS: To have content that interests me delivered the way I want it. I don’t need a “new post notification” tool.
• In related griping: I loathe Netvibes Ginger. It’s buggy, it’s got useless “features” and it takes four stupid clicks to add a new RSS feed to a page. What? No. You’re doing it wrong. I’d use iGoogle instead except it doesn’t have a read/unread feature for its feed displays, which I find invaluable based on the sheer volume of feeds I subscribe to.
• I’ve tried to avoid posting about the Sharks. I do it every playoffs and all it really accomplishes is raising my blood pressure. But you know what? Heck with it. Something has to be said. Here it is:
• What made me crazy watching last night’s game (other than the fact that it wasn’t in HD and the “Comcast Sports Net” SD feed looks like it’s filmed on a consumer-priced VHS camcorder from the early 80s) was the interview with Tim Hunter prior to the third period. At this point the Sharks are down by two goals and have played miserable, abysmal hockey for forty minutes. So they ask, “What do you guys need to do?” Tim Hunter acts like they got a couple of bad breaks and says they need to win a few more one-on-one battles and do a little more hitting. No. I’m tired of Wilson and company standing over there like wax sculptures while the most talented team in hockey plays like they’re at an off-season exhibition fan meet-n-greet. We know the Sharks are good. There’s no excuses this time: The run to the playoffs is what the Sharks are capable of. This entire series has been a crushing disappointment and the coaches act like they’re some team of destiny. There. Are. No. Teams. Of. Destiny. Wake those fools up. Bench Thornton. Healthy scratch Michalek. Drop McLaren off in downtown Oakland and drive away. I don’t care. The fact that the Sharks are still in the playoffs is a miracle I can’t fully explain but if anyone in that organization actually wants a Stanley Cup they’re going to have to play like they did for the last two minutes of game five from here on out. Period. Personally, I’m sick of wanting the team to win more than the coaches and players actually do.

Page 2 of 3 | Previous page | Next page