ARGH sooo angry... MIKE SMASH!!! SAINTS LOSE BIG!

Dammit... Saints sucking harecore against Indy (though they were expected to lose anyway, so a guess its ok). So angry so annoyed so frustrated... At least its not here. At least I'm not in the dome watching this junk playout in person... At least I'm not in Indy.

Argh!

So I'm watching the end of the game in HD-OTA on NBC and the only thing they could fix (other than the Saints) is the annoying double sounds on some of the commercials... It got to me so much (possibly because we were playing so badly) I yelled at the TV while trying to find the remote to mute it.

Another interception!!!!!!!!!!!

For a touchdown!!!

AAAAHHHH!!! Need to go and yell at something!

DAMMIT!

Update(10:40pm CST, 8/23/07): While watching tonight's game I noticed that CW38-DT is broadcast in 480i which is the lowest quality signal available for over the air digital television. In other words we will not be seeing true HD on the local CW station anytime soon.

Tonight is yet another Saints preseason game. We will beating up on the Chiefs in Kansas City and our home town television announcers will be doing the play by play just like last week's game against the Bengals. If you're like me and don't have cable (why pay for something so expensive and get so little in return, especially since HD is free over the air) then you'll be watching the game on simulcast on New Orleans CW38 (or whatever you're local station may be). Unfortunately, although Cox Sports Television (CST) will be recording and broadcasting the game in high definition, Saints fans will not be able to see the full HD feed without paying for cable and a cable HD package. Instead we will be watching a severely scaled down broadcast. Last week's game had obvious image flaws (I think this happens when a station compresses their digital signal to much and broadcasts in lower that regular quality to punish their viewers) and extremely poor almost un-understandable sound. Luckily the game was good enough that I didn't care, but I was still extremely annoyed. Why the whine if I'm not paying for cable? I'm not asking for HD (although the NFL Network game the first week of preseason was in full HD-OTA on ABC26), I'm only asking for normal analog quality. I'm sure CST could be broadcasting in normal 480i (low quality digital signal that looks like regular TV should) instead of this YouTube quality junk that they are putting out. Although the issue might not be with CST, CW38 doesn't broadcast anything in true HD, even the normal CW made HD programs like Smallville (I yet to see any widescreen HD content on 38-1 this summer, maybe things will change when the regular season starts, but I doubt it). The least CST and CW38 could do is broadcast in regular quality, they do use the public airways to show us a team that is subsidized by our tax dollars.

I'm not holding my breath though. Regular season will be full HD-OTA at least, but with a trade off of bad commentating by national announcers that don't like to slate it towards our market. Guess I'll be setting up that radio then.

Thanks to the kindness of my father, I was able to go to Friday night's pre-season Saints game in the dome. This was the first pre-season game in New Orleans since Katrina (remember last year we started during Monday night football and trashed the Falcons). Unfortunately, since this was pre-season the first string didn't play for long and many in the city didn't think it was worth it to rush home from work to goto the game. Especially since nothing special was happening. No concerts with U2 and Green Day this year, just a laid back game that was meant to see who should be second string and who shouldn't.

The real reason you're reading this post though is to see some snapshots of around the the dome before and during the game. Up top was the Bud Bridge into the dome just ten minutes ahead of kickoff (I barely made it in after work). Next up was my view from the 600 level of the Saintsations. I think the uniforms have changed (and for the better).

It's time for the thirty-first Blogging New Orleans podcast. Each week I record a podcast about all things New Orleans on Tuesday evening and upload it for all of you to listen to on Wednesday afternoon. Comments, questions, concerns? Comment on this post or contact us via the tips link on the site. This week we'll talk web 2.0 NOLA, another possibly broken promise, Mary Landrieu's petition, and the Saints.

• Welcome
• Blogging New Orleans YouTube group
• phoned in podcast
• Blog Talk Radio
• TalkShoe
• A question of broken promises
• FWD: Senator Mary Landrieu's plea to Bush against a veto
• Saints' game this Friday will be better than Sunday's
• RisingTideNOLA
• Thanks

This podcast is almost a 'betacast' and should be treated as such. We don't have theme music yet, but in the future we hope to have that and interviews with movers and shakers from around our fair city. If you would like to be interviewed on the podcast feel free to contact us via the tips page or the comments below.

SUBSCRIBE to the Blogging New Orleans podcast in iTunes
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First off, let me say I should have 'turned down my tv and turned on WWL," but I don't have a radio in the same room as my TV so I couldn't listen (though I could have listened to the simulcast online via WWL.com, but you can't do that during the regular season) during tonight's New Orleans Saints game. As soon as the game started I should have known better, Bryant Gumble kept doing this great job with interviews and questions and real commentary that actually had to do with the game, but that moron next to him in the booth would not shut up the entire game. Ugh. Cris Collinsworth has NOTHING to contribute to a game. His commentary was endless and pointless. His interview skills are severely lacking. When Michael Irving was in the booth he would go on a long tangent and then not even ask a question (again, thank goodness Bryant Gumble was there). About halfway through the first quarter his comments turned into a monotonous drone that I tuned out. Of course I couldn't ignore the commentary the whole time because the NFL Network doesn't seem to know how to broadcast a Saints game. They kept ignoring the game and showing the idiot in the booth next to Gumble and replays from old games (which didn't bother me when they had to do with the new hall of famers, but otherwise...). As far as I know, this is the only live game on NFL Network for the Saints for the rest of the year so we won't have to suffer through another. FYI, NFL Network the preseason is more important to see because the fans will get to see what our team may look like.

More thoughts after the break.