What a waste of the fiber optics.

Dang it!!

Internet service - We had a Comcast cable modem before, which was fairly reliable, although it did go out 3 or 4 times in 2 years, usually for a couple of days at a time. The FIOS service started out a bit shaky. We lost service a couple times for a few hours, but this was within weeks of Verizon running fiber in our neighborhood, so we weren’t terribly surprised or concerned. It has become a very steady service. I’d say I’ve only seen the service drop a couple of times for less than an hour each time in the last nine months. And it’s happening less often. I think our last down-time was last fall some time, again it was just for about 30 minutes.

TV service - it’s good, but we only have standard def TVs, so I can’t say anything about high res quality. The standard def signals are much cleaner than at my wife’s parents’ home, which is just a couple miles away. They’re on DirectTV. And they always seem to lose service when it rains hard, which isn’t that uncommon here in Florida. We have had a couple of drop outs when it got really windy and rainy, but since this is all linked together with internet service, they go down together, and as I said above .. .the reliability has been improving steadily.

DVR - As a new user, of course we are very happy to have a DVR vs. not having one. As many have said, it changes the way you watch TV. We got the central home DVR with two remote boxes, so we can watch recorded shows from any of them. This has been a great feature. I’m a bit appalled at how much space HD shows take up on the DVRs drive, especially since we don’t even have an HD set. The DVR interface is fairly intuitive, and not unattractive, although some functions are rather clumsy, such as finding a show that’s not on in the next couple hours that you want to record. If it’s in the shortterm guide, it’s easy to start a recording. But if you have to go out and search the listings, it can be a bit daunting. The only real problem we’ve had with the DVR involves the playback controls, as has been mentioned. FF/REW don’t always register on the box. And sometimes it seems to cache a bunch of key presses and performs all of them in a row. This actually brings up the biggest problem with the DVR. Several times since we’ve had it in the house, it has gone all ‘unresponsive’. It seems to lock up in firmware somehow. The shows are still available, but it won’t register change channel commands or menu commands. This has happened about 5 or 6 times since we got the DVR. But the most annoying thing is trying to FF or REW in a recorded show. Several times I’ve missed a scene due to a phone call or some other distraction (like our toddler attempting to iron the dog, for instance), but pressing RW at first does nothing . . then it just restarts the recording from the beginning . . .infuriating if you’re at minute 50 in an hour long show. And then when I tried to FF to the point where I was watching previously, the interface just locked up completely. I had to restart the central DVR box to regain access. Annoying! I’m actually very reluctant to use the FF or REW buttons while watching a recorded show now, which does kind of limit the usefulness of the DVR a bit.

Service - We’ve been long time Verizon phone customers, and briefly Verizon Wireless customers. Verizon phone support has been responsive and reliable . . .mostly. They are a bit draconian when it comes to billing questions. We’ve called on Verizon FIOS service a couple times, and have been very satisfied. A thunderstorm last Fall seemed to “confuse” our service modem, and this confused the TV boxes. That got straightened out very quickly, but I could tell this was a local service tech. I bet the responsiveness on the internet stuff is a very localized phenomenon. If you get a good local team, you’ll get great service, otherwise . . . maybe not. Oh, and Verizon Wireless support is horrible. Great phone coverage here south of Tampa Bay. But their phone people are rude and can’t seem to fix anything.

My wish list? A bigger HD for the DVR. A way to send video to our home PC. A media center application for Macs. And the DVR interface needs about 5 more ‘evolutions’ to get to the point where the other DVRs seem to be. (At least, as far as I’ve heard.)

http://www.jmdesignco.com

I completely agree with you on your post. I still do not see them being able to hang with ANY team that knows how to slow the game down to a half-court game and prevail.

http://tommybloggingbaseball.blogspot.com/

The trouble is that after the offensive rebound, they had no set play and the team on the floor wasn’t able to take advantage of the open men (as you point out well) due to the lack of a playmaker. It appears that they simply went back to an attempt to run the same play over again.

Kidd would have helped after the miss, but you don’t plan for a miss, you plan for getting the best shot possible. It is arguable, but I think they got a great match up with Parker on Nowitzki.

The real issue here is that after the initial play failed, the Mavs weren’t prepared for the second possession after the offensive rebound and failed to call timeout. They may or may not have put Kidd into the game at that point, but they certainly needed to have better execution over those final seconds no matter who was on the floor.