The above image, while humerous, does remind us that even the simplest user interface can be interpreted in ways we don’t intend…

Bonds launches number 740

Last week at a barbeque with friends we talked about taking our families to see a baseball game, four adults and three children (ages 4 and 2.) One of our friends works at a large, San Francisco corporation which maintains a luxury box at PacBell, no, that’s not it. SBC no, that’s not it. ATT park, yes, that’s it, this year.

So yesterday we packed up the kids and headed to the park. Now if you haven’t been in one of the “new” baseball stadiums, you are missing out. The park is beautiful, it’s easy to get into and out of, the food is good (if expensive,) and the atmosphere is great. This is a far cry from my experience watching baseball on bleachers in Riverfront Stadium during the days of the “Big Red Machine.” I still have fond memories of that and hope my daughter does of this event too.

A word about luxury boxes, think of a small hotel room with comfy furniture, a refrigerator, sink, and room service. Then take the wall that faces the field and make it glass with a door in the middle, then put 16 individual seats outside, under the a roof, with expansive and unblocked views of the field. It’s certainly not the bleachers!

The next time we go, we’ll take CalTrain. Driving and parking weren’t great. $30 to park! Also, while the food was good, $5 for a hotdog is a bit outrageous, so we’ll take a few snacks too. All in all, a very fun day. Oh yeah, the game. It was a pitchers duel. The Giants won 2-1 with Bonds hitting his 740th homerun. He’s now 15 short of tying Hank Aaron’s record.

As previously announced, the energy content normally posted on this site has a new home at Montara Energy Ventures. As a community service, here is a digest that summarizes the content posted on the MeV site. As a reminder, you can easily subscribe to content on the MeV site as well as the content from this site, Musings from the Coast.

• Southern California Edison inks PPA with Calpine
• Mechanical Ocean Harvest in practice
• Drilling continues at Blue Mountain
• While waiting for Calpine’s announcement
• Raser acquires yet another lease
• Concentrated Solar Power: Pragmatic way to harvest the sun?
• Leading with the light bulb

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Could this be worse than the notorious Google riddle questions?

While all of the mainstream media attention has been focused on Imus and his asinine comments, another radio talk show scandal which includes the actual commission of a crime has skated by largely unnoticed.

Colin Cowherd, an ESPN Radio host, has had a long running beef with sports bloggers. Enough so I would characterize it as a love/hate relationship, enough love to lift material from these sites and enough hate to suggest mounting a denial-of-service attack to his listeners on a specific site, The Big Lead.

Earlier this month, that’s exactly what happened. Rather than describing it, listen to Cowherd’s own words.

The listeners responded, bringing The Big Lead down for 48 hours. The sports blogosphere rallied to The Big Lead’s defense and newly appointed ESPN Ombudsman, Le Anne Schreiber’s mailbox was filled up with messages about this incident. Schreiber’s response was fast and direct.

Cowherd apologized on air and escaped further discipline over the act (after all, he didn’t do it, he incited others to do it and ESPN had, at the time, no policy against promoting denial-of-service attacks.) To me, Cowherd’s incitement of the attack is orders of magnitude more serious than a notorious “shock jock” doing what he does, make stupid comments in public. If Imus can be fired for that act, Cowherd ought to face something more serious than a forced apology on air.

This does highlight a growing tension between traditional media and sports bloggers, you’ve got to wonder how it’s all going to shake out.