John T. Reed’s news blog
Pandora is free; SXM is expensive and not as good
Posted by John Reed on
I cancelled my SXM today. I think. .I paid by annual check. $23 a month!.Last time we paid, they turned it off demanding a late fee..A late fee? They cannot turn it off for being late AND demand a late charge. What are they going to do—turn it back on retroactively?.My last bill from them demanded $38.83..When I contacted them to cancel it and get a refund of my check payment, they said they would turn it back on and keep my check..What part of “cancel” do they not understand?.After about 20 minutes of arguing and offering to cut the...
The West Point Class of the Gulf of Tonkin
Posted by John Reed on
This is an article I contributed to my West Point class of 1968 40th reunion memory book in 2008..The Class of the Gulf of TonkinJack ReedIn this book and at West Point in September, 2008, we commemorate our graduation 40 years ago. We do, indeed, have thousands of shared memories from the common experience of being cadets. But in a spiritual sense, we are probably more united today by another day four years earlier than our graduation. On July 1st, 1964, we did a magnificent and noble thing. We entered West Point.On that day, we all had the same goals:...
New Harvard coach loses first Ivy game for lack of my clock book. Prior Harvard coach had it.
Posted by John Reed on
The new Harvard coach lost his first Ivy game this season. Brown scored the winning points in the last seconds of the game. The Harvard coach apologized to his players, “There shouldn’t have been any time left on that clock for [Brown] to go down and score. That’s on me.” . He also had a bad long snap on a FG which recover of which by Brown set up the winning score. I strongly suspect that the catch does not know that long snappers need at least 1,200 practice snaps before the first game. This was the second game of...
Bills did not lose to Texans due to clock management mistakes.
Posted by John Reed on
My Ranger buddy-best Man wants to know if today’ Bills-Texans game was a clock management screw-up. . Tie game with :32 left. Bills three incompletions in a row—which stops the clock after each. They then punted out of their own end zone. Texans then took over with :07 left and kicked the game-winning field goal. . First I look to the first quarter to see if the Texas scored late in the second quarter against a leading Bills team. . https://www.espn.com/nfl/playbyplay/_/gameId/401671859 . No, The Bills only led at 6:27 left in the first quarter. They should not have have managed...
Cal lost to #8 Miami with :26 left in the game because of clock-management mistakes.
Posted by John Reed on
Cal could have easily defeated #8 Miami last night. But they violated my clock rule that says when your win probability exceeds 50%, you should be in a maximum slowdown. That means wait until :01 left on the play clock to snap the ball when the game clock is running and to stay inbounds. Don't call timeout, but if you must, do so when the play clock gets down to :01. And other correct actions or inactions..Miami took the lead at :26 left in the game. You can run :25 off the clock between the whistle and the snap on every play...