Happy Halloween Wednesday!

H-A-Double-L-O-Double-You-Double-E-And-N Spells Halloween!

PurpAnd/WVU Football/Pittsburgh

Here's PurpAnd (my wife's cousin from Sacramento) drinking a Fishbowl at Mario's Fishbowl in Morgantown. He was extremely amused by the Fishbowl patron's cheers and "eat sh!t Pitt" chants directed towards people who walked through the front door. I guess it's a long-standing Fishbowl tradition on game weekends.

Here's our mini-tailgate. I was a little sick during the middle of the week and we didn't want to make our regular tailgate friends uncomfortable by showing up. We tailgated on our own and had a swell time!

Here's my wife and PurpAnd at the game. WVU won 28-24. Almost exactly one week to the day, UCONN's starting cornerback Jasper Howard was murdered in front of his student union in Hartford. WVU honored him with a memorable moment of silence before the game. By the way, PurpAnd, you're allowed to come back since WVU won.
After WVU handled UCONN, PurpAnd, my wife and I all headed to Pittsburgh. Our first stop was Primanti Bros.
PurpAnd and I both had a Pittsburgher. It was a cheesesteak topped with slaw, fries and provolone cheese then thrown between two slices of Italian bread. Adam Richman from Man vs. Food stopped in for one of these sandwiches during a recent episode.

The next morning we headed to breakfast with my wife's parents at the Grand Concourse at Station Square in downtown Pittsburgh.


And we finished it off with a trip to the top of Mount Washington for a few snapshots of the city. Swell time, PurpAnd. Come back next year and we'll do it again.

That Whacky Oprah...

Isn't that cool?

DIRECTV Vent Session

Tonight I decided I was going to sit down and watch the Pittsburgh Penguins take on the St. Louis Blues. I first tuned in to Fox Sports Pittsburgh. The game wasn't on there. The next logical choice was the Versus network. They showed a tremendous amount of NHL games last year and almost every Penguins playoff game that wasn't on Fox Sport Pittsburgh in 2009. Needless to say, Versus is a must have for a hockey enthusiast.

As I tuned in to Versus this evening, the following message was waiting for me:

Unfortunately Versus is no longer available on DIRECTV. DIRECTV understands how important NHL is to our customers and we apologize for the inconvenience. Comcast, our largest competitor, has forced us to pull down this channel. Comcast charges us fees to air Versus, and they are now demanding an unfair and outrageous increase in those fees. In these difficult economic times, we do not want to pass this increase on to you, our valued customer, se we are standing firm in the negotiations on your behalf. For more information go to http://directv.com/versus.

I would give DIRECTV the benefit of the doubt in regards to their poorly written statement, but I've been a customer who's called in with too many problems. Let me just name a few... The day DIRECTV was to be installed in our new house the technician showed up 8 hours late. He didn't finish the job for three days. He brought his wife and kids with him to finish the job on the third day. His kids terrorized our cats. He didn't properly install our dish and we got crappy signal strength the first month we had DIRECTV. We were not informed that DIRECTV did not have our locals (FOX, NBC, CBS and ABC) in HD and we were not allowed to tap into the national feed. That meant no Super Bowl, NHL Finals, NBA Finals, NCAA Tournament or NCAA BCS bowl games in HD. The worst part about it was that nobody knew when they'd be available in HD. I called once a month for an entire year and even had a guy use the F-bomb on me while telling me he didn't have a clue when we'd get locals in HD and that nobody in the entire organization knew either. Last Sunday I called to cancel my NFL Sunday Ticket (it shows every NFL game in HD every Sunday) and was informed that I was unable to do so. I would instead have to continue paying for it. However, when I asked if I didn't have NFL Sunday ticket and wanted to purchase it midway through the season, I would be able to. I've had to have one of our receivers replaced and would have had to pay for it if I didn't pay an extra five dollars a month for receiver insurance. When that receiver crashed, so did all of our dvr'd programs.

So, needless to say, we've had our problems with DIRECTV and that's why I don't believe them when the above message portrays empathy towards their customers. Like any large technical service company DIRECTV lacks personal accountability. You all know what I'm talking about. It's the, "I'm sorry sir or madam, I certainly understand your frustration, but we here at XYZ company are unable to change our policy on your matter" bull crap. DIRECTV has perfected it and should teach a class on how to be the most unempathetic bunch of azzholes this side of the Equator.

So, when I see DIRECTV use words like "unfair" and "valued customer" I have to laugh. If DIRECTV had any empathy for their customers they'd get this Versus problem remedied immediately and stop using us as pawns. However, I have a feeling that will not be the case. DIRECTV will continue to play the victim while Versus and DIRECTV customers lose out.

I can't wait for the day our DIRECTV contract ends.

Vent session over. :)

One Word Wednesday

Whoa.

WVU vs Marshall

Marshall University, located in always sunny Huntington, WV, is a 45 minute drive from our house in West Virginia's Capital City. Most people call them the Thundering Herd. WVU fans, however, often refer to them as the Blundering Turd or Moo U. and I don't understand why.

WVU fans have no reason to degrade their little brother to the south. Marshall has never beaten WVU in football and has an anything but impressive record against the Mountaineers in basketball. In the overall scheme of WVU athletics, Marshall is nothing but a blip on the radar. They're Miami of Ohio in green. They're a below average Conference USA team that continuously struggles for identity. They're absolutely harmless.

We're not going to lose to Marshall this Saturday. We never have and we probably won't anytime in the near future. Don't waste your time hating or even disliking Marshall, WVU fans. We have one rival and one rival only. They reside in Pittsburgh and call themselves the Panthers. The Thundering Herd is the Little Engine that Hasn't. If they ever do, perhaps then you'll read some disdain for Marshall from The Little Cat. Until then...

WVU - 45

Miami of Ohio in Green - 17

One Word Wednesday

PRACTICE!

Syracuse

I know, I know... the video quality is terrible. It's more like a slideshow than a video, but any true Mountaineer fan will be able to tell you exactly what they're seeing. That's the 1992 WVU - Syracuse brawl. Late in the 4th quarter Syracuse trailed WVU by a score of 17-13. Syracuse QB Marvin Graves (#5) turned an option play up the right sideline and eventually out-of-bounds. WVU defensive back Tommy Orr (#24) hit him after he'd left the field of play. Marvin Graves wasn't happy with Orr's little bump and fired the football off the back of Orr's helmet. A brawl ensued. Orr and two other WVU defensive starters were ejected from the game and the Mountaineers were penalized an ungodly amount of yards. Syracuse, however, had one player ejected... a back-up offensive lineman (rolling my eyes). Anyway, Marvin Graves remained in the game and led Syracuse to the game winning score against WVU's depleted defense only minutes later. WVU lost the game 20-17. That was a serious pisser.

Syracuse has struggled recently and WVU has beaten them 7 straight years. Sometimes I begin to feel sorry for these guys and then I think of Marvin Graves. That's why I won't feel bad for Syracuse this Saturday. I hope WVU wipes the floor with these guys and wins by 70.

Hopefully Marvin Graves will be watching as the Mountaineers squeeze the pulp out of his precious Orange.

I'm not bitter or anything.