I was just going to reply about how my MLB experience mirrored the tennis situation. I just subscribe to MLB.TV gameday audio, which broadcasts the home/away radio portion, as I've moved away from my team's broadcast range for radio signal. In between innings, when I first got the package, they would play the ambient stadium mic by default- it was tremendous. Like you were there. I really loved that. Then some genius decided- hey! Even though we are charging them for what amounts to radio, let's put ads in every half inning so we can make even more money, so they did it. They are piping in local ads, so the majority are ads for things I'll never care about (I'm not driving 1400 miles to buy a truck from Miller Ford or wherever). Then they decided- hey! Why should we play ads at normal volume? Let's put the ads at roughly twice the volume of the broadcast so our paying customers will pay more attention to the ads! I wrote to them with my complaints and an idea of paying more for the ad-less feed, which they can obviously and easily deliver, and received a similar response- well, it was more of a form letter they answer *everybody's* problem or question with on their forums. It is like $20/yr, so it isn't much, but I would pay $25/yr just to have no ads- but they'll never understand that. My critique and idea were filed in the appropriate trash bin.

I voted for my 2nd favorite gaffe, SWG, because my favorite was a glorious mix of awful PR and their first version of the PSP: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwdhg_whoKw Sony used to be a favorite of mine too..

I've always thought about it, especially driving the one-lane roads around here, and I dream about my car having the ability to switch places with the car in front of mine. I've thought of mechanical lifts, to pick up the car in front and lift it above my car, then drop it off behind like a big scoop. I've thought about doing the opposite- keeping the car in front as the center point, and lifting my car over and in front of it. I wouldn't want to damage either car, and it would have to be relatively quick. I run into dead ends either way- in option A I'm limited by variable weight (I don't think I'd ever have the leverage for a dump truck), and in option B, where the weight (my car) is usually static, for the few perilous minutes my car is lifted above and over the car in front, everything rests in the hands of the driver who's so bad I'm forced to do this maneuver in the first place. If they veer off the road because of what's going on we're both dead. Man I wish my car had that ability.

Being a small town doctor in the wild west was no joke! Jane Seymour in the mid-90s- it can't miss!

My fave was always Lexx- and not just because of the odd canadian/german collaboration, or the bizzare technology/insect fusion- maybe, just maybe it was the Rutger Hauer! Those original movies from Cinemax were unlike anything I had seen before (or since). The show wasn't so great in the last season, where they fell into the old budget/idea deficiency; Instead of creating a new world, why not bring these characters into our world?! (Hello Beastmaster 2, Masters of the Universe, I Come In Peace, etc..) Overall the quality of the show, good acting, excellent characters, and the ideas they dipped into (Mantrid's gazillion arms being more massive than a star, pulling the star through it's ring and using the raw materials to make more arms- nice!) make it my favorite.