Super Bowl Madness at All new Heights

I'm not saying that the fans have reached all new heights with "Super Bowl Madness." I'm saying that the NFL has reached new heights in it's madness!

Why?

I just read that the NFL will be charging $200 per ticket - to stand outside the stadium and watch the game on TV.

In text-speak, that reads "O - M - G."

Does the NFL even consider what sort of can of worms they're opening? By putting fans outside the stadium, standing in the weather, they may find themselves liable for every runny nose belonging to one of those poor, ripped off fans.

Here's my suggestion, and this is just if you really do feel the need to be on the stadium's grounds during the game. Load up a pickup truck. Include these items: A small generator, 52 inch TV, and antenna. Also a grill, cooler full of iced beers, plenty of brats and buns with relish, ketchup, mustard, etc. A number of cheap, folding lawn chairs. Drive to the game, park in one of the incredibly oversized parking lots - you should be able to see the stadium just about at the horizon - and set everything up. TV just under the topper, protected from the weather, so you can watch the game. Generator up by the front of the truck, so it's not too loud. Grill, nice and hot, brats, turning golden over the heat, with the buns optionally toasting on the top rack. Wearing a warm coat, a cold beer in hand, enjoy the tailgate party with any friends who were willing to come along and also spend cash on the overpriced parking. After all, this is the exact same experience the NFL is offering for 200 bucks a head, but you can get it all for the price of... what? A $50 parking fee?

Netflix Moving to Dump Snail Mail Customers

From what I've seen so far, Netflix is attempting to nudge - perhaps more like ram! - it's customers away from physical DVDs and BluRays, and more toward streaming video content. It's true that Netflix carries a number of movie titles, "on demand," but it seems that the movie selection is much more limited than what you can get on DVD; also that they don't seem to get very good streaming rights to the movies, leaving a limited window in which people have to find, queue, and watch the movie.

The customers are putting up a fit, as they learn of the changes. People like getting that Netflix envelope in the mail. They like being able to add a movie to their DVD queue quickly and easily - but Netflix is deliberately making it harder to do. They like to watch their movies on their TVs - but Netflix is limited to computers, some handheld platforms, and some gaming platforms, seriously limiting many people's ability to watch a movie with the entire family.

"But wait, there's more!"

Here in the United States, we have a pretty decent broadband internet network. It's not anywhere as speedy as, say, South Korea's, but it does us okay. The question we have to ask, is, can our (somewhat) creaky broadband network handle the kind of high-bandwidth usage that Netflix is encouraging? In this writer's opinion, just watching a TV show on Hulu is sometimes difficult enough, and that's not trying to watch at Blu-Ray Hi-Def settings, either! It seems doubtful that, if we replaced every single DVD customer with a high-speed internet customer, anyone would be able to watch much at all!

This writer lives alone, so doesn't mind watching movies on his computer, or android device, most of the time. But if I get a date for a "movie night," I'll definitely want to pop in a DVD and watch it on the TV, to share the experience.