Standard Carriage Fees

So, Spectrum is a terrible company. I'm sure some people are happy with whatever particular service they are into them for (wireless, cable television, home internet, urinary tract infections...), but by and large they are still operating under an industry model that was created in the late 1970s that carves areas up as monopoly zones for companies like this (Spectrum fka Charter Cable here where I live, Cox in Orange County next door...) which gives them zero incentive to devote time or funds to improving customer experience, either in the use of their contracted service or in talking to customer service representatives. I will say, every time I've called customer service, the individuals working there have all been super nice and seemed genuinely interested in helping, but 100% of the time, I get directed to the wrong department at least twice and no one immediately knows how to help with my actual problem. Their reps seem to be largely based in the South, so you get your apology for having to recite your issue for the third time in a very sweet drawl. It doesn't get you any closer to your goal, but at least your ears got a show.

I was thrilled to have mostly cut ties with Spectrum when I dropped my TV package with them two years ago (I'm GenX, leave me alone about cord-cutting, I got there, goddammit). I couldn't do that with my cable internet unfortunately as the only other option is (and I'm not kidding) AT&T DSL, which works at about 6 MBps (vs. 400 for the cable internet). I've gotten so tired of waiting for ANYONE to extend fiber optic cable to my on-the-edge-of-rural subdivision, but apparently digging trenching into a road up 700 feet of elevation into an area where the coyotes outnumber the people 3:1, suddenly it's not "cost effective." If we can get these coyotes into something online like sports betting, we might have a better chance. How do we get Jamie Foxx on this?

If I'd wanted to do my own sports betting on the LA Angels, my baseball team of geographically-destined choice, I'd have had to do it blindly all year as our local, asphyxiating regional sports network has exclusive rights to their games and only appears on old-type systems, like cable (Spectrum) and I think DirecTV, if that's still around? If you get a bundled Hulu-Disney+ deal, that's far too advanced an idea. It turns out Disney has enough money, they don't need to bend to the extortionate demands of live-sports pirates. People will just hand their money over in steadily increasing amounts from one of their hundreds of other revenue streams, without the unknowable increase in subscriber numbers carrying the Angels, Clippers, Kings and Ducks might bring. It could be in the low dozens!

All of this is to say I haven't followed much baseball this year. And I don't feel as though I've missed out on too much as my team has been, without exaggeration, the worst it has ever been over its 60-plus years of existence. I've had to endure articles at my favorite workers-collective sports blog about how, yes, the Chicago White Sox flirted with being the worst team of all time this year, but somehow it still feels worse to be an Angels fan. This is a journalistic service I pay for. I guess there is a whole segment of the service economy out there for men who want to have their genitals stepped on by a woman in high-heeled shoes, this isn't that far off.

All that said, I have been intrigued enough to dip in to some of the playoff baseball this year. I've never felt a single second of shame for being motivated just as much by schadenfruede as I am by passion for my own team, so the easiest, most obvious ins for me are to root lustily and heartily for whomever happens to be playing either the Yankees or the Dodgers. That can only last as long as either are still in the tournament, so picking up a team in a more positive sense has more legs. As such, I've semi-adopted the San Diego Padres (I was just down in SD a week ago, having a great time with good company, even walked by the empty stadium while wandering the Gaslamp Quarter, close enough!) and the Detroit Tigers, the team my dead dad rooted for. On the one hand, my dad and I weren't especially close, but on the other hand, I do already have a Tigers hat. Typically its on my head more than my hand, but you're going to make this really difficult if you insist on reading this all so literally.

Essentially at maximum I have four teams to potentially root for (Tigers, Padres, Yankee opponent and Dodgers opponent), but that's down three since the Padres and Dodgers are playing each other. I will confess those ones are harder to watch as they include my ex-TV-boyfriend Shohei Ohtani, who continues to be charismatic and astounding. This is the first time I've seen much of him since we broke up last winter. When I see him, I tell him he looks good, I just wish he dressed better.

Let's not get crazy though, when I say I'm watching baseball, I've probably seen about 6 total innings of all the games played so far. But as a comparative percentage, I'm up about 600% from last year.