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You are here: Home / Open Threads / And That’s How They Get Ya

And That’s How They Get Ya

by John Cole|  August 1, 20095:57 pm| 91 Comments

This post is in: Open Threads

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So my comcast internet works fine all day, so well, in fact, that I canceled the technician I ordered last night. And then, like magic, at 5ish, it shuts down. Apparently my neighbors are out, too, so maybe the area is experiencing issues. Would be really nice if any of the Comcast employees knew, but they are probably busy doing other things- like verifying that my address is the same as it was 2 minutes earlier when the other person asked me. Is this a real problem for comcast? People calling up and spoofing service calls, and so I have to go through more security hoops to find out why my internet is out than I do to check my balance at the bank?

But hey, the tv works. So it looks like another book night with the Burn Notice marathon in the background. Can’t stay in the coffee shop leeching wifi all night.

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Reader Interactions

91Comments

  1. 1.

    Uloborus

    August 1, 2009 at 6:03 pm

    I don’t have *direct* knowledge of this question, Cole, but I’m going to go with ‘yes, it is a big problem’. Specifically, stealing cable is darned near an industry, it’s such a huge problem. I would not be surprised that they really do feel like they have to verify everything at every moment to make always sure they’re dealing with exactly the person they think they’re dealing with.

    And then, of course, the corporate love of red tape pushes it to the next level.

  2. 2.

    Patrick

    August 1, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    Just a note on Comcast and MSNBC. Unlike Fox, and CNN, Comcast did not broadcast the HD version of MSNBC in this area (southwest FL). It was only on regular channel 43. Recently, and unannounced, Comcast moved MSNBC to channel 83 near some little used channels and unavailable at all to older tv’s without a Comcast cable box.

  3. 3.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 1, 2009 at 6:07 pm

    Can’t stay in the coffee shop leeching wifi all night.

    I went without for a month. Panic at first, then you remember how to get by pre-internet and a peace settles over your soul. Then you get re-connected and become a semi- lunatic all over again. don’t worry, we’ll be good while your offline..

    BWAA HAAA HHHAAAA!

  4. 4.

    GusThePrimate

    August 1, 2009 at 6:08 pm

    Cable companies are evil incarnate. Over at his blog, Doc Searls documented a problem with his provider that went on for weeks.

    One of my more illustrious recent accomlishments was, after a long period of bad service and worse tech support, actually getting a white-collar type at my cable company, Time-Warner, to send me a letter apologizing for the service and retroactively discounting my bill until the problem was fixed. Which it was, real quick.

  5. 5.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 1, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    Cable companies are evil incarnate.

    That’s what I’ve heard. Especially Comcast, a thoroughly wingnutified company. I have DSL from quest and have not a single problem or outage for two years. Though I have to watch them like a hawk for overcharging. They’re as crooked as a dogs hind leg, but they didn’t let Bush eavesdrop on us. Go figure.

  6. 6.

    eldorado

    August 1, 2009 at 6:13 pm

    fyi, there are lots of easy girls at the bookstore.

    i’m just sayin…

  7. 7.

    ruemara

    August 1, 2009 at 6:14 pm

    SOSHILIZED INTERTUBEZ! Hope your ‘nets get fixed. Is Tunch sitting on them and crushing the data?

  8. 8.

    Common Sense

    August 1, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    Open Thread?

    So apparently Obama’s mom was a porn star. Old Atlas has the rundown, with unedited pix! Seems Pam had this for a while, but was sitting on it out of decency (she found them unseemly and questioned the pictures’ relevance. According to Pammy they were taken by Frank Marshall Davis, the man she alleged is Obama’s father in a completely seemly fashion. How could she think these pictures were irrelevant to her case? Pam does not enlighten us). Now though, what with you jerks talkin’ ’bout Miss Palin, it’s time to fight fire with trash.

    Thanks guys.

  9. 9.

    Frank

    August 1, 2009 at 6:36 pm

    I hate to say this, but I’ve had Comcast cable for years, ever since they ate my previous provider, and Comcast internet for about five years, and they have both been rock-solid. And the two times I had to call for support, they performed very well.

  10. 10.

    Martin

    August 1, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    They started me jumping through the hoops last time I called and asked about the phone. I stopped them and said ‘My phone service goes through your box. I could have been calling you right now about my phone rather than my cable and you’d push some buttons over there to test if my phone line was working. Well, is it working right now? Is my phone line calling you right now?’

    That ended the hoops.

  11. 11.

    Keith G

    August 1, 2009 at 6:40 pm

    Hoorray for the glory of the American market place. It cant get telecommunications right and yet we* expect it to get healthcare right.

    Good times.

  12. 12.

    Keith G

    August 1, 2009 at 6:45 pm

    @Common Sense: Wow. Climbing out of the cesspool are we? Well that’s one link I wont be clicking.

  13. 13.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 6:46 pm

    How do you manage to post an update every time you lose internet?

  14. 14.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 6:48 pm

    Comcast sucks ass. Citcom/Emorium rules.

    Maher may be boring, but Michael Ware is So. Fucking. Interesting.

  15. 15.

    The Raven

    August 1, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    stealing cable is darned near an industry

    One generally gets better service response from good DSL providers or from the cable companies (pricey) commercial services.

  16. 16.

    JGabriel

    August 1, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    @Common Sense:

    So apparently Obama’s mom was a porn star.

    And how do we know those aren’t actually pictures of your mom?

    .

  17. 17.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 6:49 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Thank you. Seriously. I’ve been sitting here all damn day wanting to ask that but feeling really lame(r).

  18. 18.

    cmorenc

    August 1, 2009 at 6:51 pm

    You should have bought a squirrel!

  19. 19.

    shirt

    August 1, 2009 at 6:52 pm

    Me and Judge Bork are going to have something in common if my cable company keeps frakking around: we’ll both be Cox-Sackers.

  20. 20.

    cmorenc

    August 1, 2009 at 6:54 pm

    OK, so you need to have seen the 2001 movie “Rat Race” to get that last comment about the squirrel (remember the character played by Kathy Bates?)

  21. 21.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 7:02 pm

    @Laura W: If he doesn’t wanna be my friend any more, just fucking say it. No need to hide offline.

  22. 22.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 7:03 pm

    @Laura W: All I did was put an “r” in parentheses to say lame r to make fun of myself. How come it looks like “lame” is a registered trademark associated with my name now?

    This site SUCKS.

  23. 23.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 7:04 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Stop personalizing!
    Have you invited him to view yer Facebook yearbook photos? That’ll win him back pronto, Dude.

  24. 24.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 7:05 pm

    @Laura W: Hahaha. No no no. You don’t go there.

  25. 25.

    Demo Woman

    August 1, 2009 at 7:06 pm

    @Laura W: I think that he’s been going to a coffee shop. That’s why his posting is erratic.
    I just turned on CNN and they are talking about the three Americans being detained in Iran. They were hiking in Iraq and crossed the border into Iran by mistake. If Iraq is safe enough for hiking, why do we still have troops there?

  26. 26.

    Comrade Kevin

    August 1, 2009 at 7:10 pm

    Lame(r) is a registered trademark o Laura W.

  27. 27.

    Mark S.

    August 1, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    @cmorenc:

    I don’t think anybody saw Rat Race.

  28. 28.

    asiangrrlMN

    August 1, 2009 at 7:12 pm

    Cole, I really can’t take this on-again/off-again relationship of ours. It’s wearing down my nerves. I need a pic of the Tunchinator to feel better about it all.

  29. 29.

    donr

    August 1, 2009 at 7:14 pm

    Comcast service went down here a few months ago. I didn’t have any problems with them wanting to verify addresses or anything like that. And they didn’t soon forget me – I called them every hour to grill them on the problem and the progress they were making. At the end of the day, service was restored and I got a nice little rebate as a goodwill gesture.

  30. 30.

    KG

    August 1, 2009 at 7:16 pm

    Martin – there’s an interesting post over at the Great Orange Satan about that poll we were talking about last night. Apparently, it was intentionally worded poorly in order to prove a point, or something.

    And with that, I’m off to play cards.

  31. 31.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 7:17 pm

    @Comrade Kevin: Well, ya know, upon further reflection, it’s nice to be known for something.

    @Demo Woman: That’s just pathetic. Where was that thread with Punchy fighting with that other guy about the definition of “addiction” as pertains to pot and fruit roll ups and astronaut bars?
    We are John’s “Ennis”?

    @JSF: If you don’t wanna be my g-friend anymore, just say it. No need to hide when I CAN SEE YOUR GREEN DOT IS ON! At least have the decency to go invisible like I do, you g-tease.

  32. 32.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 7:21 pm

    @Laura W: You might wanna check it from 40 minutes ago.

  33. 33.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 7:23 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead: Oopsy Doodle!

  34. 34.

    mai naem

    August 1, 2009 at 7:25 pm

    I think they were in Kurdistan not in real Iraq and I don’t understand why somebody would go hiking in Kurdistan. I was talking to a friend today. He’s not a lefty by any means and he thinks they were American spies. When you have regular Americans thinking like that you have a problem.

  35. 35.

    Ripley

    August 1, 2009 at 7:27 pm

    Here in southern New Mexico, Comcast vies with Qwest to see who can provide the most expensive/least reliable service. I went with Comcast ’cause their office was closer to my place; in getting my service started, they informed me that the duplex I live in doesn’t exist. After a week of wrangling over that, they told me the guy who lived here before left a huge unpaid bill (in this place that doesn’t exist), so I’d have to do a security deposit. Two weeks later, they sent someone out to connect the service – a guy in a beater pickup, his own, with a Comcast emblem applied to the driver’s-side door with packing tape.

    Works well enough. They did some repair last month that was necessitated by their original shoddy work, and charged me a repair and trip charge.

    Our internet traditions are myriad, and deep.

  36. 36.

    Demo Woman

    August 1, 2009 at 7:28 pm

    @Laura W: The discussion on pot started at comment 55
    https://balloon-juice.com/?p=24821#comments. It was smiley who seems to have done some professional work with addiction and a political blogger. Quite interesting but I had to run some errands so I missed the rest of the discussion.

    Am I the only person curious about why three Americans would be hiking on the Iraq – Iran border?

  37. 37.

    Max

    August 1, 2009 at 7:30 pm

    I think I am having a mid-life crisis. Cut bangs into my hair on Thursday, today I got a new tattoo (cherry blossoms on my inner wrist).

    Man, I’d love to quit my job and do something else. Damn you sucky economy!

  38. 38.

    Demo Woman

    August 1, 2009 at 7:31 pm

    @mai naem: Ah thanks.
    Last night I watched “Into the Wild” so it is possible that they were just hiking. It’s unusual though.

  39. 39.

    T. Scheisskopf

    August 1, 2009 at 7:32 pm

    Ok, John, it is time for a lesson in Comcast network topology and why your “High Speed” Internet connection goes away:

    Unlike DSL, which has a whole different network model, Comcast and other cable companies have their subscribers on “nodes”. And what is a node? A huge loop of cable, that each subscriber is tied into. Think: Token Ring.

    The problem is that most cable companies, being cheap bastards, and Comcast might just be the worst offenders, oversell these nodes, putting far too many subscribers on the copper loops that hook into fiber trunks.

    So, your service goes away about 5:00PM, huh? Well, this is the sort of thing that happens a LOT on cable internet. Why? Because right about then, people start hitting their computers(Think: kids) and they start playing online games and downloading or seeding torrents. So what happens then? Your Internet goes away, because all the shared bandwidth on that loop is used up.

    Now, in DSL, you can get the same sort of thing. It is called “exhaust”. Thing is that it is a lot more rare and caused by not enough fiber capacity connected to the DSLAM and Redback(Don’t ask. It will give you a sinus headache…). Not the same as overselling the node.

    Now, if this is a common event out there, you can bet that Comcast gets a LOT of calls from everyone else on the node and know they have it oversold. But Comcast is cheap. It hates to split nodes. Notorious for hating to split nodes, which is a capital investment, which Comcast hates to do. They would rather save all that money they are sitting upon(and they have a mountain of it…) to do things like try to buy Disney. Which they tried.

    So they know what is going on. Take it from me, they know you have problems. They just aren’t interested. I would suggest that if WV has a board of Public Utilities, complain to them. Not that it might do any good, but it will make a change from Comcast.

    And look into the availability of DSL in your area.

  40. 40.

    Bill H

    August 1, 2009 at 7:39 pm

    Upgraded to HDTV at the Best Buy store, so the Cox rep puts me on the phone with a person who demands to know what my favorite food is. I say I have no idea, and acknowledge that the question is probably a security question to which I purportedly provided the answer at some distant date in the past, but that I do not recall doing so and do not know the answer. I tell her she will have to come up with some other method of verifying my identity. She says no, that I will have to tell her my favorite food. I repeat that I cannot answer her question. She says, and this is a direct quote, “If you’re not answering my questions we’re not doing business here.” I tell her that I will be delighted not to do business with her and hang up.

    I realize this is not internet, but it’s Cox, and I also have their internet. Anyway, the Cox guy in the store calls a supervisor and gets the order placed without me having to talk to anybody, tells them he looked at my driver’s license and my credit card.

    The next day I call their service department over something and am stymied with the same “favorite food” thing again. The guy acknowledges that he can see by caller id that I am calling from my home phone, but still requires that I tell him my favorite food. Apparently he is concerned that someone is breaking into my house and using my phone to call in and get questions answered for some nefarious purpose.

    So I drive to the Cox office and show my driver’s license and credit card and am told that my favorite food is pizza. I would never have guessed that in a million years. I hate pizza. I ask how my favorite food came to be pizza and he says that I told them that. Fat chance.

  41. 41.

    Polish the Guillotines

    August 1, 2009 at 7:42 pm

    @John Cole:

    Apparently my neighbors are out, too, so maybe the area is experiencing issues.

    One year, after a round of particularly bad storms, my Comcast internet went spotty but the analog cable was fine.
    From their end, they couldn’t see my modem, but otherwise they couldn’t detect any problems. I swapped modems but it remained intermittant — sometimes it worked, sometimes it didn’t.

    By pure happenstance, I noticed a Comcast truck down the street that week and went to talk to the guys. Other neighbors had called to complain about losing some digital channels. Apparently the storm flooded the box and screwed with some upper spectrum digital channels — which also happened to carry the internet signal. Once they fixed things at the neighborhood box, everything worked.

    Call them and tell them to roll a truck to check the neigborhood junction box.

  42. 42.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 1, 2009 at 7:45 pm

    . They just aren’t interested

    I node it.

  43. 43.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 7:47 pm

    @Bill H:

    So I drive to the Cox office and show my driver’s license and credit card and am told that my favorite food is pizza. I would never have guessed that in a million years. I hate pizza. I ask how my favorite food came to be pizza and he says that I told them that. Fat chance.

    I swear I remember a thread where you were carrying on about how much you love pizza. Maybe Laura can find it.

  44. 44.

    El Cid

    August 1, 2009 at 7:49 pm

    I’m assuming that you’ve checked all the connections you can physically get to inside & outside the house to make sure all connections are tight and no cables are bent too much.

  45. 45.

    Anne Laurie

    August 1, 2009 at 7:50 pm

    I was talking to a friend today. He’s not a lefty by any means and he thinks they were American spies. When you have regular Americans thinking like that you have a problem.

    That’s the problem — the Darth Cheney administration’s flagrant disregard for “silly legalisms” like the Geneva Convention put the finishing touches on the OSS/CIA/NSA’s long history of letting the Bohemian Grove Boyz act out their pulp-fiction fantasies on other peoples’ lands and lives. Now any American nitwit with a camera and a taste for “adventure tourism” is presumed to be a possible spy. Given the frequency with which outdoors enthusiasts manage to strand themselves in quite small wildnerness areas right here within our own national boundaries (but they have GPSs! and cell phones! So they’re not really ‘lost’, they’re just in need of having survival professionals rescue their well-meaning arses, usually at great cost & sometimes at the risk of their own lives), it’s certainly quite possible that any three Americans fit enough to get themselves up a mountain in Kurdistan could wander across a national border without intending to do so. But the “Trust Us, Just Us” administrations have so perverted the concept of the “Innocent Abroad” that even these guys’ friends are going to wonder if they didn’t actually cross the line on purpose…

  46. 46.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 7:51 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Maybe Laura can find it.

    How ’bout I find the thread where you called out Letterman’s stalker?
    I loved that one.

  47. 47.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 7:55 pm

    @Anne Laurie: The least you can do since you’re here and have front page access is post a Saturday Night Lonely Pom’s Club Open Thread or something so John doesn’t have to get his ass up off the couch/futon and drive to a Java Hut to entertain the BJ losers on yet another Saturday Night.
    (Are they ever gonna teach you how to post photos and embed videos and links?)

  48. 48.

    birthmarker

    August 1, 2009 at 7:59 pm

    re: Leverage in the previous thread-get Netflix. Best $10 a month bargain out there. Sorry if someone already said this–I didn’t read the other comments.

  49. 49.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 1, 2009 at 8:01 pm

    @ Laura W / 7:03 pm

    Laura, don’t blame the site necessarily for the fact that putting R in parentheses produces a registered trademeark (R in the circle). It seems to be a keyboard default in a lot of applications and I’ve never figured out how to get around it. In my job I do a lot of political reporting so I have many occasions to identify candidates or elected officials as either an R or a D — in parentheses after their names. Over the years I’ve trained myself to use square brackets whenever I need to show party affiliation.

  50. 50.

    jl

    August 1, 2009 at 8:02 pm

    Or, Cole could just put up a pic of Tunch and Lily, with some recipe right now. That would be enough material to last an evening.

    Has Tunch noticed Lily’s existence again, since that Tunch-Lily futon pic posted here a few weeks ago?

  51. 51.

    Allen

    August 1, 2009 at 8:06 pm

    I never had a problem with Comcast, TV or Internet, in the many years I had them in two different counties in Maryland. I think one reason is that the previous county I lived in had Comcast long before most other areas of the country, so a lot of kinks were worked out. That said, I switched to Verizon FIOS because the prices are much better. So far I haven’t had any problems with them, and I’m getting faster internet, and all the movie channels (whereas with Comcast I only had HBO and Showtime) for $30 less than Comcast.

  52. 52.

    steve s

    August 1, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    You always want to keep some books and magazines around for those stressful times when the connection’s down. Here in N. Fla I have dsl through Bell South. Although the Comcast office in Lake City is about 5 miles away and they’re always concern trolling my mailbox with their ads.

  53. 53.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 8:12 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    Laura, don’t blame the site necessarily for the fact that putting R in parentheses produces a registered trademeark (R in the circle).

    LOLWUT?
    I blame the site, and by association, John Cole, for everything wrong in my life.
    I really don’t see why that’s not reasonable.

  54. 54.

    CaseyL

    August 1, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    My ISP is Earthlink, via DSL, and I’ve only had to call customer support twice.

    The first time, my old Dystopia modem had finally gone to that big Cable Truck in the sky, and they sent a replacement tout suite.

    The second time – I still don’t know what was wrong, but it seems to have fixed itself because the rep had no idea what I was talking about – nor did she seem to have a good handle on what *she* was talking about! Talking to their customer service reps is awful. They’re all in Mumbai, and they all follow the pre-set script even if the script makes no sense in the context of the actual problem.

    I refuse to consolidate my phone, TV and internet providers. It seems like such a self-evidently bad idea I’m amazed people do it (the “savings” seem pretty paltry, after all – less than 10% of the non-combined price – and if one service goes out, so do the other two). So I still have Qwest for my phone and Comcast for my cable.

  55. 55.

    Chuck Butcher

    August 1, 2009 at 8:14 pm

    I’ve only ever used Comcast in motels, but everyone I know considers it the total suck. MSNBC got on their shit list, for some reason, and they made it nearly impossible to watch it – at least from a motel.

  56. 56.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 1, 2009 at 8:16 pm

    @jl:

    He can’t hear you Jl. He’s Stuck as it were, in the real world, and left his flock in the ethers to fend for themselves.

    Now who can link to the best porn??

  57. 57.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 8:19 pm

    @steve s:

    and they’re always concern trolling my mailbox with their ads.

    I know no one here thinks you’re funny with your concern trolling marathon, but fwiw, I do.
    But then, I think BOB is funny, so consider the source with a grain of kosher salt, or whatever.
    (I think a lot of stoopid stuff is funny when I have cheap Pinot Grigio in me, so please factor that into the equation too.)

  58. 58.

    Litlebritdifrnt

    August 1, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    One saturday everything went down, my phone, my cable and my internet (I get them all from Time Warner, yeah I know whatever), I called them (on my cellphone) and they told me that my check for the months bill had arrived like two nano seconds late to be credited to my account that day so they disconnected me the next day despite the fact that I was paid in full. I explained to them, in words pretty much of four letters that disconnecting someone from THE INTERNET, CABLE and TELEPHONE was not a good thing ONE FUCKING HOUR PRIOR TO A HURRICANE HITTING and the inability to access information while being paid up in full might just be grounds for a lawsuit say one’s house get damaged! Strangely enough I was back on within minutes of that phone call.

  59. 59.

    geg6

    August 1, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    Comcast is evil, evil, evil. Had them forever, don’t have much choice. But they suck in every way. Their customer service is the worst on the planet.

  60. 60.

    Robertdsc-iphone

    August 1, 2009 at 8:20 pm

    How about getting Silly Lily on tape? We know Tunch is a huge (in more ways than one, heh) star, but when does Lily get her moment in the spotlight?

  61. 61.

    General Winfield Stuck

    August 1, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    A Golden Oldie for your enjoyment.

  62. 62.

    bystander

    August 1, 2009 at 8:25 pm

    What T. Scheisskopf said.

    Also, recall that Comcast is the outfit the FCC sanctioned for blocking peer-to-peer file sharing.

    The Federal Communications Commission has ordered U.S. cable giant Comcast to end discriminatory network management policies (PDF) and sanctioned the company for “secretly degrading” the performance of peer-to-peer sharing applications like BitTorrent and Gnutella. The order requires Comcast to stop blocking P2P applications and fully disclose the details of its networking management techniques by the end of 2008.

    Apologies in advance for tag screw ups. I do miss the ability to preview.

  63. 63.

    geg6

    August 1, 2009 at 8:30 pm

    I am feeling fat and happy despite our host’s technical woes. My John made me gyros for dinner and we are sipping ouzo on ice. It is balmy and I can hear the water trickling from the fountain into the pond from my seat on the deck. We have four doggies flopped down at our feet (we’re dog sitting his daughter’s chihuahua and boxer, along with Henry and Otis). Got some Atlantic and Motown soul playing. This is when I love summer.

  64. 64.

    trollhattan

    August 1, 2009 at 8:33 pm

    Seconded, thirded, infinitied on the absolute suque that is Comcast. Some places, of course, they’re the only show in town. Gahhh.

  65. 65.

    PeakVT

    August 1, 2009 at 8:45 pm

    The stupid, it burns: Tancredo edition.

  66. 66.

    Glocksman

    August 1, 2009 at 8:46 pm

    I’ve had two cable companies as ISP’s, and frankly Insight Communications beats the everloving shit out WOW! hands down.

    It seemed to me that WOW! would go down more often than Monica Lewinsky, but when I called their support office they’d blame it on my computer or router instead it being a problem on their end.

    The final straw was when they insisted ‘everything was fine’ on their end and that it must be my modem.

    Needless to say that my subsequent purchase of a new modem from WOW! didn’t fix the problem.

    Two months later I switched from WOW! to Insight.

    I’ve only had to call them twice WRT internet problems, and each time I called the tech on the other end not only understood me when I used tech jargon to explain the problem, he walked me through a couple of steps to see what the problem was and had no problem with admitting to the issue being on the company’s end.

    Both times the outage turned out to be the result of unannounced maintenance on the service in my node.

    In fact, my only problems with Insight have nothing to do with either my Internet or land line Telco service.

    Instead it has to do with their practice of forcing subscribers to rent a DVR at $10/month if you want any HD channels other than the local network affiliates.

    When I called to bitch, the CSR tried to feed me a line about how my TV can’t pick up their signals, but after I called BS and said it can pick them up perfectly but removes them as scrambled during the initial setup, she admitted that there was no technical issue that prevented them from using clear QAM for their HD channel lineup.

    IOR, it has everything to do with generating box rental fees and enabling ‘VOD’ and nothing to do with ‘your new TV can’t pick us up’.

  67. 67.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 8:47 pm

    @Laura W:

    I know no one here thinks you’re funny with your concern trolling marathon, but fwiw, I do.

    Christ, these days, steve s is the only happenin’ thing going on.

  68. 68.

    Glocksman

    August 1, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    @Robertdsc-iphone:

    She’s not Lily, but here’s clip of my boxer acting silly.

    http://glocksman.lrpctech.com/pics/empress.avi

    Warning: this is a 5MB WMV file, so if you’re on dialup consider yourselves warned. :)

  69. 69.

    jeffreyw

    August 1, 2009 at 8:53 pm

    Damn, I wish I had Comcast to yell at, or a DSL connection to go bad. I live so far out in the sticks that my only broadband choice is satellite.

    And while I’m thinking about it, screw Hughes.net.

    There, I fell a tad better now.

    some little birds

  70. 70.

    Glocksman

    August 1, 2009 at 8:54 pm

    Bah.. I miss the edit function, as it’s an AVI file and not a WMV file.

  71. 71.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 8:56 pm

    @Just Some Fuckhead:

    Christ, these days, steve s is the only happenin’ thing going on.

    That’s why we’re pals, FH — we have classy taste.
    I like his thematic patterns. IIRC, he first went to town on the Grammar Nazi/”This”, Steed, and now he’s riding the Concern Troll Nag. He does each fully and to perfection. When he’s done, he’s done.
    I can’t wait to see what he rides in on next, frankly.

  72. 72.

    mcd410x

    August 1, 2009 at 8:59 pm

    Will someone please explain to me what happened between “Men In Black” and the sequel, which is 10 pounds of suck in a five pound bag?

    (The (r) is probably a secret left over from the GOPness of the site).

  73. 73.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 1, 2009 at 9:03 pm

    @ Laura W / 8:12 pm

    FSM forbid I should disillusion you about the site or, by extension, John. You are absolutely right, it IS his fault that you put an R in between perfectly innocent respectable parentheses and HIS SITE turns it into that funky thing.

    This is a fun game. Can anyone play? I’ve got lots of things going wrong in my life and it would make things so much easier if I could just blame John.

  74. 74.

    Glocksman

    August 1, 2009 at 9:06 pm

    @CaseyL:

    It seems like such a self-evidently bad idea I’m amazed people do it (the “savings” seem pretty paltry, after all – less than 10% of the non-combined price – and if one service goes out, so do the other two). .

    I’ve had cable, internet and landline telco service from one provider since 2000.

    I switched that sole provider from Sigecom (since bought out by WOW!) to the other in 2006 due to problems with the internet service.

    Despite frequent internet outages, my landline service worked just fine with Sigecom/WOW!*.
    Similarly, during my rare internet outages with Insight, the phone service worked just fine.

    *Though I doubt the same would hold true today as WOW! switched the phone service over to VoIP, which means if your internet dies, your phone dies as well.

    Apparently I switched to Insight just in time.

  75. 75.

    SiubhanDuinne

    August 1, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    Testing (R) (r)

  76. 76.

    RedKitten

    August 1, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    I think a lot of stoopid stuff is funny when I have cheap Pinot Grigio in me, so please factor that into the equation too.

    Isn’t that kind of the whole point of wine? I know, I know, it’s got health benefits, yadda yadda yadda. I enjoy wine because it makes me silly. :)

  77. 77.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 9:08 pm

    @SiubhanDuinne:

    This is a fun game. Can anyone play?

    Absolutely!
    Bring your sense of humor along though. It’s required.

  78. 78.

    Laura W

    August 1, 2009 at 9:11 pm

    @RedKitten: YES.

  79. 79.

    Just Some Fuckhead

    August 1, 2009 at 9:13 pm

    I blame John for my broken hand not healing correctly.

  80. 80.

    burnspbesq

    August 1, 2009 at 9:17 pm

    All of you who have problems with Comcast, understand that it is karma. Comcast gave most of the money to build the new basketball arena at the University of Maryland, and the gods are punishing Comcast for giving those mouth-breathing, mentally deficient Twerp fans a new crib in which to throw bottles at the parents of opposing players.

    Sweat, Gary, Sweat.

    And I hate Brenda Frese more than I hate Dick Cheney.

  81. 81.

    RedKitten

    August 1, 2009 at 9:18 pm

    I blame John for my recent bad haircut and the small patch of eczema at the base of my left index finger. That bastard.

  82. 82.

    Tonal Crow

    August 1, 2009 at 9:41 pm

    @mai naem:

    …I don’t understand why somebody would go hiking in Kurdistan.

    Lots of mountains, rustic nomadic countryfolk, almost no insurgents that far east, goats galore…what’s not to like?

  83. 83.

    Nellcote

    August 1, 2009 at 10:15 pm

    @Demo Woman:

    They were picked up crossing from Kurdistan into Iran. It’s an unmarked border and they were warned to be very careful. But aside from that, Kurdistan is a very beautiful and relatively ‘safe’ area. Lots of mountains, valleys, rivers and waterfalls. Hiking is a popular local pastime.

  84. 84.

    Jay Andrew Allen

    August 2, 2009 at 12:31 am

    Is this a real problem for comcast? People calling up and spoofing service calls, and so I have to go through more security hoops to find out why my internet is out than I do to check my balance at the bank?

    True story: back in 2003, I called into Comcast with a service question. The rep said he couldn’t find my information in his database, and then refused to answer any more of my questions because I wasn’t a Comcast customer.

    We bitched back and forth for minutes until I hung up, dialed back in, and (to Comcast’s credit) got a rep who didn’t have a giant flaming stick crammed up her rectum. But, still – damage done, Asshole Customer Service Guy.

  85. 85.

    Steeplejack

    August 2, 2009 at 1:47 am

    @General Winfield Stuck:

    Dude! Ouch. The only song that has been ruined for me worse than that one through overexposure is Rod Stewart’s “Maggie Mae.” And I was not crazy about that one to start with.

    You should have gone with “Vincent.”

  86. 86.

    Steeplejack

    August 2, 2009 at 2:00 am

    Speaking of cable providers, I have to admit that I have had Cox Cable for both TV and Internet the last four years and have had no problems, plus delightfully fast Internet access. Have had to reboot the cable modem maybe two or three times.

    Here’s the latest interesting thing I found out: My cable box with built-in DVR holds about 40 hours of stuff and usually contains about 39.75 hours, so I am constantly having to erase something when I want to record something new. I went to the Cox Web site to see if maybe there is a newer cable box with bigger DVR (mine is four years old), but there isn’t.

    But I did find a couple of other sites that tipped me to this: My Cox cable box (a Scientific Atlanta model) has a SATA port on the back. I can buy an external SATA drive (500 GB for about $90, 1 TB for under $200) and hook it up to the cable box. The cable box will recognize it, format it in its proprietary format and automatically start using it to store DVR stuff. 500 GB = 300 hours; 1 TB = 600 hours. Rapture! I so look forward to the day when my DVR contains 639.75 hours of stuff and I have to delete something to record something new. It’s all about choices.

  87. 87.

    Steeplejack

    August 2, 2009 at 2:04 am

    @Steeplejack:

    Addendum to the previous: Given sufficient DVR space, I could record an entire season of Quilting with Georgia Bonesteel and maybe answer my burning question of whether that is some obscure quilting tool or the actual name of the (slightly scary-looking) hostess.

  88. 88.

    Freemark

    August 2, 2009 at 4:17 am

    I can tell you why Comcast verifies your info every time you call. First the phone number in the system often doesn’t match the phone number you are calling from. Or the phone number is on more than 1 account. Phone numbers get reused very quickly if you give yours up. Second Comcast does extra verification because Comcast customer’s information is the target of extensive social engineering. The people you are talking to on the phone at Comcast have access to change email and voice mail passwords, can access phone records, and can instantly shut off internet and other services. So they don’t get fired, they will make you verify certain info before they change those things for the anonymous person on the other end of the line. And also, for the record, it is pretty easy to spoof caller id.

  89. 89.

    bob h

    August 2, 2009 at 7:17 am

    Why does anyone have cable in the first place? Its just Lou Dobbs and Shepherd Smith and Glenn Beck, a medium for the assholes who are destroying our political discourse. Everyone says Comedy Central is worth the price alone, but you will see the best bits on the blogs the next day anyway.

  90. 90.

    Ked

    August 2, 2009 at 12:43 pm

    Satellite for television.

    The cable companies are like the car companies. Stuck in the 1970’s, pretending to roll with these new-fangled technologies but not understanding a thing. DirectTV and Dish cost less, deliver more, and don’t spend half their time running con games.

    DSL for internet.

    Preferably a local ISP reselling the service, rather than ye olde big telco, since you can work with them more directly, and if it is a telco issue they can run interference.

    True story: I was sitting in a chain coffee store late afternoon a year ago, and there were a couple of loudmouth salesmen a couple of tables behind me. As I sipped on my green tea latte (BLECH – never ordering one of those again), I got the gist of the conversation – it was a new Comcast sales rep getting the facts of life explained to him by an old hand. It boiled down to – tell them anything, promise them anything to get them on the “triple play” package, but don’t ever let them know what it’ll cost after the introductory cost period.

    I dislike salesmen, but that’s the worst I’ve encountered. …well, there was that software deployment at the used-car dealership, but that was more about personalities than policies.

  91. 91.

    Tattoosydney

    August 3, 2009 at 7:29 pm

    Looking for a cookie in an old thread….

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