The Quitter

Last weekend I picked up a copy of The Quitter , Harvey Pekar's new graphic novel. As a fan of American Splendor , I expected to enjoy it, and I wasn't disappointed. The Quitter is about Harvey's experience growing up, and covers a period in his life earlier than that presented in American Splendor. The title refers to Harvey's tendency to quit activities (football team, college, the Navy) due to his insecurity and fear of failure. Like most of Harvey's work, it's "just a story" about ordinary people and ordinary events, without much effort to make it fit any particular mold or moral. But, as any fan of American Splendor knows, "ordinary life is pretty complex stuff," and Harvey has a talent for making it interesting and exciting.

If you are at all a fan of American Splendor, or even graphic novels in general, then you can't go wrong with The Quitter.

Comcast Still Sucks

We all know that the basic service levels provided by big, government-backed monopolies (e.g., cable and telephone companies) are terrible. If you call their customer support number, you will wait on hold for an hour before you get to talk to an unhelpful miscreant, and so on. Comcast fits this bill in every respect.

Still, sometimes these companies do cool things unexpectedly. For example, Comcast has upgraded the speed of my Internet connection twice this year, first from 3 Mbps to 4 Mbps, and then from 4 Mbps to 6 Mbps. So, after reading an article about Comcast last week, I was a little bit excited about a new service being offered, and gave Comcast the benefit of the doubt. That was wrong.

Last Thursday, the Wall Street Journal ran a front page article entitled, To Ward Off New Competitors, Comcast Builds a Mini Internet . The article talks about Comcast's efforts to beef up its On Demand service in order to compete with Internet video sources and phone company backed IPTV rollouts. The article didn't say much that I didn't already know, and generally gives Comcast much more credit than they deserve. One line did interest me, though: "In sports, it has NFL Replay, which shows highlights from football games played any given week." As a dislocated Cleveland Browns fan, the ability to watch the highlights of their games each week had appeal. So, this week I decided to try it out.

My first attempt to use NFL Replay was Sunday night around midnight. There were no games available. Comcast's website indicated that the games weren't available until Monday morning. So, tonight (Monday) after dinner, I decided to try again. This time I was greeted by a message that said "NFL Replay Blackout" with a 1 minute video clip attached. The video clip spent about 50 seconds explaining how awesome NFL Replay is, and how I should thank my lucky stars that I am a Comcast subscriber. The final 10 seconds of the video rapidly explained that while any NFL content is being televised on any channel, you can't use NFL Replay.

What. the. %$^@. I can't watch the highlights from the Browns game yesterday because the Monday Night Football pre-game show is on?! That's unbelievably lame. Comcast claims that they are offering services like NFL Replay to compete with Internet video sources. Well, guess what, Comcast? People like Internet video sources because they can watch what they like, when they like, and they don't have to put up with petty, bullshit restrictions like this. I look forward to watching you have your lunch eaten by the Internet over the next decade.

Trip to Boston

Last weekend I took a trip to Boston for Startup School . I drove home on Thursday night and on Friday flew to Boston from Akron-Canton on AirTran, since it was significantly less expensive than any flight out of Pittsburgh. (Damn you, US Airways !) My flight was delayed for about an hour due to bad weather in Boston, so I ended up arriving just before Jason . I met up with Jason at the baggage claim, and we headed outside to get a shuttle to the hotel . It was raining, and would continue to rain continuously for the next 24 hours.

We met Josh at the hotel, dropped our bags off in our room, and immediately headed to Harvard Square via the T . Our destination was a reception at Y Combinator 's offices in Cambridge. We got lost in Harvard Square (a problem compounded by the cold, driving rain), but eventually made it to the reception. It was extremely crowded, which made me a little uncomfortable, but after a few minutes I settled in and met a number of interesting people. Among them: a student who interned at SigmaTel (maker of the chipset used in the iPod shuffle), the creator and owner of the successful site LibraryThing.com , one of the early players at Spyglass , and an employee of OpsWare (one of Marc Andreesen's erstwhile companies).

After the reception, we headed back to the T station (in the pouring rain), went back to the hotel, walked over to the pizza place next to the hotel to get some dinner (in the pouring rain), and finally got to bed around 2 AM.

We were up bright and early on Saturday in order to get to Harvard by 9 AM for Startup School. The speakers were, overall, very engaging and informative. I'm not going to discuss the content of the presentations here, since I think that warrants another complete post. I will note, however, that I really enjoyed the "psychic energy" of being around so many like-minded people.

After Startup School was over, I went out to dinner at John Harvard's with a large group (~20) of attendees. We had a good conversation during dinner, so we decided to continue with coffee and tea at Cafe Algiers . Amazingly enough, it had finally stopped raining during dinner, and we were able to walk to the cafe without getting wet.

On Sunday we slept in a little, then took the T to Central Square to have lunch with Josh's friend (and Case alum) Amy Chan . After that we headed to the Prudential Center to take a Duck Tour . Unfortunately, it was extremely windy on Sunday, so the ducks were not allowed on the water. We still got to take the land-based part of the tour, and we got half of our money refunded, but it was disappointing not to go out on the Charles River. After the tour, we were all really tired, so we went back to the hotel for a nap. When we woke up, I recommended Legal Seafoods for dinner. We hopped the T to Kendall Square and ate there. I had clam chowder, crab cakes, and shrimp, which were all really good. Sated, we headed back to the hotel to take it easy.

Monday morning, we checked out of the hotel and headed to Faneuil Hall/Quincy Marketplace for lunch. Josh, Jason, and I all had clam chowder in a bread bowl. (Whoever invented the bread bowl is a genius.) Jason had to get to the airport, so he left us after lunch, and Josh and I proceeded to hike around the Freedom Trail . After awhile we ventured off the trail, and our journey took us through Chinatown, Boston Common, and all the way over to Fenway Park. By that time we had walked 4-5 miles, and I had to get to the airport, so I left Josh and hightailed it back to the hotel to catch the shuttle.

My flight back to CAK was mostly uneventful. For the second consecutive time, I was selected for a complete screening at the airport security checkpoint, since 23 year-old males traveling alone are dangerous. My parents brought my car to me, and I drove straight home from Canton.

It was great to see Jason and Josh again, especially in the context of Startup School and exploring Boston. I like Boston, since I think it's big enough to give you the benefits of a New York City, without smelling like New York City. Hopefully I'll see Jason and Josh again soon, and hopefully it won't be too long before I get back to Boston.

(Note: I didn't take any photos, since I'm lazy, but you can see Josh's photos on Flickr .)