Not sure why I am so damned cranky today, but I have been a real ray of sunshine to everyone who I have encountered.
Trying to figure out how to calibrate my damned tv. The peons at Best Buy told me they don’t sell the Digital Video Essentials
If so, how do I make sure the color on my tv is accurate?
It occurred to me that dealing with the AT&T people regarding my malfunctioning phone and the Best Buy people may be a cause of my crankiness. It is 2010. Can’t stuff just work?
Xecky Gilchrist
Can’t stuff just work?
No, especially not stuff whose slogan is “It just works.”
Steve
I disagree with a lot of the stuff Erik writes, and I think John definitely drank his milkshake today, but I am so sick and tired of all the comments that are constantly like “why do you let this guy post” and similar stuff suggesting he should be run off. The posts are thoughtful and there’s usually a good discussion that leaves people better informed than when they started. Not everyone who espouses a non-liberal viewpoint is arguing in bad faith and it gets tiresome when every discussion starts from that presumption.
Shorter: Stop treating the guy like he’s Michael D.
singfoom
Don’t purchase ANYTHING from Best Buy. Worst company in the world. I have a $300 paperweight courtesy of them. Bought a Xbox 360, took it home, it didn’t work, had a disc in the drive that was all scratched.
Took it back the next day, they said it didn’t have a serial # on the back (though it was there at POS since they scan it) and wouldn’t let me exchange, return or anything. Even my chargeback failed. (because they said I didn’t return the unit, which of course, I didn’t, since they wouldn’t accept it.)
Go to newegg instead. Or Fry’s if you must visit a brick and mortar. Death to BB!
Jon H
Rent or buy the BBC ‘Life’ series on blu-ray.
One of the extras is a sweet, elaborate, calibration routine. It shows you a series of test patterns and tells you to adjust the image in some way or other for each pattern. I think it might also have something for audio.
Rook
Welcome to Corporate America, 2010, beta version .0c50c
Scratchie
Digital Video Essentials isn’t “bad for your TV” unless changing the settings is bad. But I didn’t find it particularly helpful, either.
Best thing to do is go to avsforum.com and search for your tv model. One of the ueber-geeks over there has probably already figured out the proper calibration settings and posted them.
Mark S.
If John Boehner looks an unhealthy shade of orange, you’re probably good to go.
MAJeff
How’s this for adding to cranky:
Roy Cohn…er, Ken Mehlman came out the closet.
Blog Referee
Comrade Cole, welcome to capitalism with American characteristics.
Belafon (formerly anonevent)
@singfoom: That’s interesting because I have had exactly the opposite experience with them. Over christmas I bought a PC, it didn’t work with the wireless card I had, and I returned it no questions asked. I don’t buy electronics from anyone else, especially with their warranties. I especially like the warranties you can get on iPods and other MP3 players where they will replace it even if you drop it in water. I have three boys.
lawnorder
I take it you haven’t read about the poor muslim cabbie that got his throat slashed (he’s alive) for being a muslim in NY. That made me cranky for the whole week
Brachiator
@Mark S.:
We have a winner! Send that man an Al Gore autographed copy of the Internets.
It will be delivered via an official Cash For Clunkers automobile.
Jon H
Apparently the same calibration feature is on other BBC blu-ray discs as well.
Anyway, I’d go for these, rather than a single-purpose product. At least then you get some awesome visuals to watch after you finish calibrating.
If you were using the TV as a computer monitor, you could pick up a USB calibrator like the $89 Pantone Huey Pro, but that creates a profile for your OS. I don’t know how people do the same for a standalone TV.
Peter J
Muslim suicide terrorist in NY throws himself multiple times on knife wielded by peaceful Christian.
singfoom
@Belafon (formerly anonevent):
I even bought the extended warranty just in case since I’ve had Xbox 360s fail before with the Red Ring of Death. Seriously, I tried everything. I went into the store multiple times, called CS and tried to escalate.
I did eventually find a serial # on it, under the front console, but it didn’t match that recorded at POS. Basically, someone modded their box and fucked it up, bought another one and switched out the guts and I ended up buying that one.
I understand they’re everywhere and they’re convenient and before that experience I had spent thousands of dollars at BB over the years. I won’t give them one more goddamn cent now though. I told my family and every friend that would listen to the whole sordid tale. My Dad ended up taking back over $500 worth of electronics he had bought after I told him the story.
They’re either stupid or evil, but regardless of which, I cannot urge anyone strongly enough to never EVER shop at BB.
morzer
@Peter J:
Surely you mean “knife forced into helpless hands of innocent Christian”?
scav
If stuff actually worked when you purchased it, then you wouldn’t need to buy stuff so often, which would entail a decrease in demand for stuff so prices for stuff would go up and poor people couldn’t purchase stuff.
garage mahal
Best Buy really are idiots, no offense. I never heard of DVE hurting your screen (and I assume you bought a plasma and they meant it might burn in the calibration images?). WTF.
singfoom
@morzer:
More likely that that cabbie’s face declared Jihad on that nice passenger’s knife.
snarkyspice
@singfoom:
Best advice ever. Wish I’d read it before I bought appliances from them. A 4-week nightmare ensued because nothing was right and no one there can help you – and every time you call, you have to start all over again. FINALLY got a refund, bought the stuff from Sears instead and had it all installed and working perfectly within a few days. Major lesson learned.
morzer
@scav:
Which is clearly why we must cut taxes for the rich.
maus
Of course not, it simply conflicts with their several hundred dollar do-nothing pure profit “tuning service”.
MattR
@snarkyspice: Humorously, I can no longer remember the incident that pissed me off, but I have not shopped at a Best Buy for years.
Of course the problem is that if you actually boycotted all the shitty companies out there, you would have nowhere left to shop. (This is especially true of the cell phone and cable companies)
singfoom
@snarkyspice:
I don’t know where you’re at, but my friends have RAVED about ABT for buying appliances.
mr. whipple
@Scratchie:
What scratchie said.
Brachiator
Stuff won’t work until 2012, when the space aliens come and ancient Mayan prophecies are deciphered to reveal a universal repair manual written in all the languages of the world. Also included will be a sonic screwdriver.
General Stuck
Well, I been cruisin” today on a zen high. Beautiful weather, sunny 70’s. And nary a concern for politics. Peace out, bro.
freelancer
@Steve:
Some of us liked Michael D.
asiangrrlMN
@Peter J: Wow. I can’t snark about this because it’s just gonna get a whole hell of a lot worse.
Cole, you’re always cranky. Whatever. I would just add that it may be your continuing travails with PayPal have added to your cranky demeanor. I’m actually happy because the weather dropped quite a bit. It’s in the high sixties. Very nice.
P.S. I just wanna say that I am glad you brought E.D. on board. I may not always agree with him, but I can at least see from where he’s coming. Except today’s posts, but whatever.
Beulahmo
Don’t worry. Dealing with AT&T can make any perfectly nice person cranky.
You have been a ray of sunshine, at least around here. Your C4C rebuttal post made me and a lot of others around here happy. It even included one of my very favorite phrases that you’ve been using lately — “bag of dicks.” You picked that up from Louis C. K., huh?
(By the way, I’m not hatin’ on E. D. Kain here. I like him just fine, even when he says stuff that I think is hella wrong. He seems sincere and well-intentioned but a little naive. Including him here was a good idea.)
Anoniminous
@scav:
When do you expect to receive your Ph.d. in Economics?
:-)
morzer
Interesting piece of news. Ken Mehlman has just officially come out as gay.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2010/08/bush-campaign-chief-and-former-rnc-chair-ken-mehlman-im-gay/62065/
I suppose I congratulate him on finally being honest about himself, and I wonder how he managed to work with Karl “gaybashing is a legitimate wedge issue” Rove. Somehow the words hypocrisy and careerist come to mind.
Mickey7
It seems like stuff is working as promised less and less these days. Even brand names you used to feel fairly sure were of reasonable quality are now a crapshoot (she says as her Cuisinart pressure cooker explodes blowing shrapnel, hot water and improperly sealed canned tomatoes all over the place. Ahhh, ‘faulty valve’ the customer service people explain, as if they have run across this same potentially disfiguring situation hundreds of times before, yet inexplicably never once considered recalling said weapon of mess destruction). Makes you think about all the potentially maiming activities you routinely do–mowing the lawn, cooking with gas, bathing the cat (well maybe not that last one) with the expectation that everything will work the way it’s supposed to. I guess I’ll learn to survive with long grass and super relaxed, low pressure food from now on.
garage mahal
Re: Avsforum. I really wanted a HDTV 3 yrs ago, but didn’t have the scratch to buy a new one. I saw a non-working 50″ plasma from a guy on craigslist for $150. So I start researching what could be wrong with it, and avsforum had a shit ton of information on that set, and the notorious fail part that goes bad in all of them. Lots of bad reviews on the set as far as the infamous *pop*, but got really good reviews on the screen quality.
Looking back I can’t believe I rolled the dice, buying that set and part off ebay for another $150, and having my tech buddy put it in. Still running great to this day.
Roger Moore
@maus:
This. There’s no way in hell that the disk itself could hurt your TV; the worst thing that could happen is that you’d screw up the settings by messing with it. In that case, you’d need to hit reset to put it back to starting condition. Big whoop.
If you want to do a really great job of setting up your TV, you might want to consider getting a hardware calibration device like the Pantone Huey. The provided software isn’t the greatest, but you can use it with something like ArgyllCMS to truly calibrate your system. You can also use it to calibrate your computer monitor, which can make a big difference if you care about color accuracy.
Ked
John, if you have a modern TV, and are connecting with a digital input (HDMI), there is basically nothing those products could do to directly damage your set.
Now, there is one caveat to that. The DVD might encourage you to turn the brightness up higher than you otherwise might think to, which with some tweaking might well make the picture look better. It may also, IF your TV has an older lighting technology (pretty much everything before LED), draw more current, generate more heat (with a correspondingly higher stress on the internal components), and burn out the light source sooner. Or not. It’s hard to prove.
Personally, I suggest just turning on ESPN, tuning to make football look good, then flipping over to Lifetime, tuning to make that look good, and then revert back to somewhere inbetween the two. Save some money.
grimc
If you have any THX-certified DVD–you know, Star Wars or something–there’s something called the Optimizer. Not perfect, but decent, and free.
Steve
@freelancer: I am interested to hear why.
Ked
And I might add, it’s bloody unlikely anything could happen with older connections. Unless you turn your stereo up to 13 and the DVD player came from North Korea.
Mary
Not to sound glib, but can’t you just, you know, watch it? Does it matter if the color of the sky on TV is exactly the same frequency as the color that was filmed? Am I missing something here?
Now bear in mind that I grew up watching a tv with essentially no functioning red light, which caused everything to take on a vaguely greenish hue.
demo woman
My twenty year plus tv set is dying and needs to be replaced. I’m hoping to spend $600.00 or less but would like the screen to be at least 37″. The set that is dying is a Mitsubishi.
Any ideas on what brands I should be looking at?
I’m hoping the TV lasts for a few more months because the prices should drop around the holidays.
kindness
Go to oppodigital and buy their benchmark calibration disc.
Best damn blu-ray player on the market. Professional Calibration disc. Easy & cheap (the disc, not the player. the player can run some coin).
Leszek Pawlowicz
Revision3’s HD Nation show just finished a three-part series on calibrating your TV, including a link to a free calibration disc:
http://revision3.com/hdnation
Goes through the exact process of setting brightness/contrast, color/tint, and sharpness using test patterns.
The only way Digital Video Essentials might be bad for your TV is if you screw up the settings, and that’s hard to do with today’s TVs – they usually have the ability to restore the defaults with a single action. What Best Buy wants is for you to hire the Geek Squad to come over and fix it, and those guys are horrible.
WereBear
@Mickey7: I hear ya.
We just had to junk a 7 month old DeLonghi coffeemaker, after the last one served us nobly for eight years. (It does get heavy use in our house.)
We’re getting a French Press this time.
lawnorder
OT but what the hell is DHIMittude ? Is not on the lexicon. I know is something wingwackos call us lefties but have no idea what it is.
Brachiator
This just in: Iran declares war on pets.
mr. whipple
The new TV’s are pretty complex, with 4 or 5 out of the box user modes, plus a custom mode, plus any of the modes can be tweaked if you know how. They can look pretty decent, but you can get them adjusted to be incredible.
Loves our Panasonic 1080 42″ plasma, but wish we woulda had the money for the 50″.
WereBear
@Brachiator: This gives me a sick feeling.
mr. whipple
@WereBear:
We would typically get a year out of a Mr. Coffee. Got a Bunn last time. Wife hates it, I love it.
Brachiator
@WereBear:
Sometimes I’m even too lazy to use the French press, but when I do, it’s great.
Anoniminous
@Mary:
Behavior geneticists have proven “futzing with stuff until it’s just right” is an inherited characteristic from the Y chromosome. In females the double X masks the observable trait.
As I read the research the same genetic induced behavior allows a women to repeatedly walk into a hardware store and not buy anything. (!)
Pinkpuppy
Ditto to the other responses: DVE hurting your TV is pure FUD. I suspect they just want to sell their own calibration services.
HD Nation just completed a series on how to adjust your HD set. They are a pretty no nonsense pair of guys: I suspect you might like them. The first episode is here.
They actually use the free AVS HD 709 calibration disk which you can download, burn and play on your blu-ray player. Details here
John Cole
@WereBear: I’ve been using the same Bodum for over a decade. Replaced the glass container once or twice.
WereBear
I’ve had one for years; it lets me make my (gasp!) flavored coffees without contaminating the coffee maker.
But I drink my coffee one big coffee house mug at a time; we need something to fill the thermal carafe.
I should have known something was up; the Delonghi had a price drop. It feels good at the time, but you pay, later.
Corpsicle
Black Level:
Pause a DVD on a scene with a lot of very dark things. Turn BL down until you start to lose detail in the darkest areas, then back up just until the dark detail comes back.
Contrast:
Like Black Level but backwards. Pause a DVD on a very white scene, increase Contrast until light details get washed out, reduce until they come back.
Brightness:
Depends on the light level in the room and the source material. Try around 75%.
Backlight:
Depends on the light level in the room and the source material. Anywhere from 45%- 80%. Lower Backlight means lower electricity use.
Color and Tint:
Pause on a well lit scene with faces. Play until they look natural.
Dynamic Contrast:
Turn off. Usually looks like shit.
Svensker
@demo woman:
I think Panasonic is still good — a friend just bought a 37″ P for about $500 on sale, and is happy with it.
No Sharpe TVs, ever.
Anoniminous
General consumer-type stuff doesn’t work because it isn’t built to work. It’s built to be sold … a different thing altogether.
It’s possible to purchase stuff that works but since they have to make out of something other than spit, aluminum foil, bailing wire, and duct tape it costs more up front but you end-up paying much less over the long haul.
demo woman
@Svensker: Thanks!
AhabTRuler
@Brachiator: French Press + water cooler with hot water spigot = Yeah buddy sans labor.
@WereBear: Not to take away from that, but I just sent a buttload of new readers to your website. The SO was complaining about her friend who failed to properly introduce a new cat, so I just sent her to you. And she sent her facecrowd to you, too.
@Anoniminous: I’ll pay a premium to only by it once.
Anoniminous
@WereBear:
Right out in front of God (talking the ->Big Guy<- here, long white beard, robes, etc. etc.) & Everybody a perversion is willingly exposed:
goddamnit where’s those pearls?
Mnemosyne
@Brachiator:
I can’t see that sticking for cats, unless the Ayatollah wants to simultaneously announce that Muezza never existed and the Prophet actually hated cats. Cats are pretty revered in Islam.
Roger Moore
@WereBear:
What’s wrong with flavored coffee? Vanilla coffee made with real vanilla bean is wonderful, and if you’ve never tried cardamom coffee, you don’t know what you’re missing. “Purists” who insist that adding anything to coffee somehow defiles it should recognize that the Arabs- you know, the people who discovered coffee- use something like 80% of the world’s supply of cardamom as a coffee additive.
AhabTRuler
@Anoniminous: Wallah, I’m issuing a fatwah against flavored coffees.
Omnes Omnibus
@freelancer: Some of us liked Right Said Fred but that doesn’t make it right.
Roger Moore
@AhabTRuler:
I think that’s going to stick about as well as a fatwa against cats or trying to enforce Rhineheitsgebot in Belgium. People have been mixing stuff into their coffee since very shortly after they started drinking coffee in the first place; it’s certainly older than fancy, new-fangled brewing methods like drip and French press.
WereBear
@AhabTRuler: Ooooooh! Thanks so much!
It thrills me when people like my cat advice. It’s a little out there… but it does seem to work for other people, not just me.
Okaaaay, ya’ll, say what you like about flavored coffees. It’s still lots better than those flavored artificial creamers.
AhabTRuler
@Roger Moore: Genuine flavors aren’t so bad, but the oils from flavored coffee can linger. I myself worry more about the grinder than the coffeemaker in particular, so the dirty public grinders at the supermarket annoy the piss outta me.
@Roger Moore: Lighten up, Francis.
Quaker in a Basement
Not sure why I am so damned cranky today,
Uh, because you’re John Cole?
Omnes Omnibus
@Quaker in a Basement: I would have gone with because it’s Wednesday, but your answer works.
chopper
did you have your juice?
Anoniminous
@AhabTRuler:
And all Right Thinking people will hear and obey. As The Book says:
“For Lo! In the last days ye shall be surrounded by sinners and Republicans and some of the former will adulterate The Holy Bean with noxious flavors.”
Quicksand
@grimc:
Seconded. There are lots of THX DVD’s out there (Pixar movies, for example), so you probably already have one.
Gets the job done.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Why does the Book refer to the Doughy Pantload? I assume that was the meaning of the bit about beans and noxious flavors. Was I wrong? Theology sometimes confuses me.
Roger Moore
@AhabTRuler:
That seems like one more reason to grind your coffee at home. I sort of assumed that somebody who was enough of a feinschmecker to worry about cross-contamination would be far more worried about rapid staling of pre-ground coffee. A decent burr grinder isn’t that expensive, at least compared to the many pounds of good coffee you’re going to grind with it.
I’ll lighten up about it when the coffee “purists” do. I’m tired of Johnny-come-latelies who think they can define something as impure because they don’t know about it.
wmsheppa
My favorite part of this story is not that the folks at Walter Reed Medical Center stashed a radioactive package under the concierge desk and left it there for the weekend, but that they knew it was missing and suspended the search until the next workday.
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/local-breaking-news/dc/feds-walter-reed-exposed-patie.html?wprss=local-breaking-news
Wouldn’t you think that a missing radioactive package is worth staying a few hours late for?
Anoniminous
@Omnes Omnibus:
No. No. No.
The Holy Bean was revealed unto a goat herder in the blessed land of the Yemen. And The Bean was roasted upon the fire and then The Bean was ground exceeding good so that The Flavor would infuse into the Blessed Drink and then upon the Holy Water is heated until it Boileth and the the ground Bean is cast into a (French Press) pot and unto it the Holy Water is added, yea verily up to the lip thereof, but not over. And the Press of Righteousness is placed on the top. And then one exercises the Virtue of Patience until the steeping is done. And then firmly, but with due regard, one presses the Plunger, casting the now forbidden groundednesseth of The Bean into the very chasm of the pot.
And then you drink the stuff, shouting “Please Sir! I want some MORE!!!!”
In contrast the Pantload of Doughyness is only but the south end of a north bound horse.
WereBear
If you do go French Press, you get to use the Coarse setting on the grinder.
Maybe we’ll foo foo and get a grinder, too, but it would scare heck out of the cats and I’ve got a sick guy with erratic nap times, so it’s the FILTHY grinders at the supermarket for me, oh well.
However, they do offer plain & flavored grinders, and I always politely discriminate therof.
Omnes Omnibus
@Anoniminous: Oh. OK then. That makes a lot more sense.
Larkspur
Why can’t things just work?
Well maybe, as things got a bit more complicated, a very good instruction manual, along with a summarized cheat sheet plus FAQs, would have helped enormously.
But what the hell, technical writers want to be paid actual money, just like copy editors, and gosh darn it, it’s about time we stopped coddling our customers, because they bought the device, so they own it, and it’s an ownership society, yes?
chopper
see, i just cold brew the shit a gallon and a half at a time. i’m sick of cleaning out a coffee maker every day, and sick of making a batch from scratch every time.
Anoniminous
@WereBear:
(After reading the thread)
I trust you realize I was kidding.
SiubhanDuinne
It’s an Open Thread, right? So, no such thing as being Off Topic, right?
Good.
For those who observe, sacredly or secularly, Christmas is four months from today. Today would also have been my mother’s 93rd birthday. I mention both of these because my mom, who was in retail, usually spent her birthday singing Christmas carols as she was stocking our family’s store with Xmas books, gifts, cards, wrapping paper, and the like.
One of the songs she most liked singing was the old French carol “I’ll est né, le divin Enfant” — and every. single. time I see the “All your base are belong to Tunch” tag, my mind automatically sets it to that tune, and then, of course, it’s with me for the rest of the day.
Just wanted to share, in case anyone else had an ear in search of a worm.
MikeJ
@WereBear:
My cat looooooooved the coffee grinder, because girlfriend taught him it meant steamed milk was on the way.
Larkspur
@SiubhanDuinne: Oh, that is cool. Now I want you to sing it and give it to us on YouTube, possibly with Tunch starring.
Really, that is a poignant memory. Add in Tunch, and it’s just about perfect.
Edited to add: happy birthday memories to you in remembrance of your mom. I worked in retail for many years, and I suspect your mom was a better person than me, because the only singing I did involved sarcastic variations on the prettiest of carols.
WereBear
@Anoniminous: Yep. So was I!
SiubhanDuinne
Oh, by the way (for those of you who were around last night): I mentioned to a work friend that I was thinking about translating *Atlas Shrugged* into LOLCat, and without missing a beat, he said: “I can haz railroad?”
LOL. I meant it as a throwaway joke, but damn if I don’t think this could work!
quaint irene
From ‘Spaceballs”
Big Helmet “Fuck! Even in the future, nothing works!”
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Aw. Sounds like being reminded of your mom is not a bad thing at all.
I am in no shortage of ear worms, because I got six free months of satellite radio, and all those songs I thought were buried in the mind of my mind?
They’re baaaaaaaaaaaack!
Comrade Dread
@Beulahmo: Dealing with any f***ing corporation can make you cranky.
For example:
1. Had a Chase credit card.
2. Spousal unit handles the bills and noticed about five months ago we were being charged for a ‘payment protection plan’ I did not recall agreeing to.
But whatever, right, I figure I may have let them put me on a ‘trial’ to get off the phone faster and forgot to cancel it, so…
3. I call and cancel it four months ago. Go through the whole: dial customer service number between the hours of 6:47 am and 6:48 am Estonian Standard Time while turning in circles counter clockwise and praying to Cthulu for aid in understanding the coming non-Euclidian geometric labyrinth that is bank customer service. Only to find that I need to call another number, which routs me to another number, where another number later I finally cancel the payment protection plan by tricking the customer service agent into saying her name backwards.
Customer Service Imp says, “It’s canceled. Have a nice day.”
4. Spousal unit notices after four months that credit card balance is not declining as quickly as it should be. Sees we’re being charged for ‘Payment Protection Plan’. Says WTF, I thought you canceled this.
5. Returned to the labyrinth yesterday for another go. Got another Customer Service creature, who told me that they usually give out a confirmation number, and without one, I wouldn’t be able to claim a refund. But said Customer Service agent would cancel the payment protection plan for me. Said, “It’s canceled. Have a nice day.” Asked agent for the confirmation number. Said she couldn’t give it out. Asked why she had just said they give a confirmation number. Said she couldn’t see it. It would be mailed to me.
Went mad. Joined ancient cult devoted to destruction of mankind and Chase bank.
Omnes Omnibus
@SiubhanDuinne: Some projects take on a life of their own. I am sure I would be able to read more of it than the original (~20 pages)
slag
On the flip side of the private-public divide, I had a truly lovely experience with my local public services today. Sorry for you.
SiubhanDuinne
@Omnes Omnibus #90: I’m thinking this would make a fine communal project, not unlike the LOLCat Bible.
SiubhanDuinne
@Larkspur
@WereBear
Thanks for your nice comments! She was a musician (trained singer) as well as the default manager of the bookstore her father founded in 1937.
Was reminiscing earlier today with my sister, and we were lamenting that my great-niece (sister’s granddaughter) age 13, never knew our mom, who died much too young at age 58 in 1975. I mostly remember the singing and bookstore years; my sister has a different set of memories. Both true, factual, and valid, but quite different.
MattR
@WereBear: If you are a sports fan, check out Sirius’s fantasty sports channel
@quaint irene: Not to be pedantic, but Dark Helmet :)
WereBear
@SiubhanDuinne: Even siblings grow up in different families.
@Comrade Dread: I do feel your pain. I canceled a Discover card protection plan FIVE times. Kept coming back like the Undead. We canceled the card in disgust. It was the only way to stop it.
AhabTRuler
Well, good (no, mediocre) christ on an uptown bus, I hope no one thinks that I have ability to issue a fatwah on anything, much less coffee.
BruceFromOhio
You have to draw the pentagram first, THEN light the candle, THEN slay the chicken. If you get it out of order, you have to fucking start all over. Pain. In. The. Ass.
morzer
@MikeJ:
Cats and girlfriends/wives in alliance are inevitably going to predominate over the innocent male of the household. It’s just the way things are.
BruceFromOhio
@SiubhanDuinne:
This. If that wayward visitor comes back looking for the identity of Balloon Juice, I’m pointing him to this.
SiubhanDuinne
@BruceFromOhio #99: Agreed, that’s about as random as it gets!
Jon H
@demo woman: “Any ideas on what brands I should be looking at?”
My dad has a 46″ LG 1080p.
Picture is nice, but the way it arranges channels drives me nuts. He doesn’t have HD cable, just regular cable. The TV arranges channels by ‘type’: regular def, high def, and something else. (The channels that would be HD with an antenna come over as HD, without having ‘HD cable’.)
So as you’re stepping through the channels, you’ll see the non-HD version of, say, the local CBS station at channel 2. Then seventy-eighty channels later you get into the HD channels and you see the HD version, channel 2.1.
My parents find this a bit confusing. They have a little LCD TV (Viewsonic) where non-HD channel 2 is followed by HD channel 2.1, etc. It seems like a more logical arrangement. If you disable the non-HD channels with HD alternates, you still get the networks in the expected order.
On the LG TV, I tried disabling the non-HD channels with HD alternates, but that was just confusing, because networks would seem to drop out of the expected order, because of the grouping of channels.
SciVo
@Comrade Dread: Credit unions all the way, comrade! 8) I really love mine (First Tech). It’s as if they’re run for the benefit of their members… imagine that!
Tax Analyst
@Comrade Dread:
I’m disappointed in your story. It’s just not the real 2010 Corporate Customer Service Mindblowing Fuck-You-Over-Till-You-Thank-Them-For-It experience unless the CS creature adds at the end, “On this call did I exceed your service expectations, sir?” I remember the first time I got that question. The Rep had done a good job and I had thanked her, I then I get asked – I said, “Well, that’s a problem, because you see, when I called you for assistance I EXPECTED good service. So with that in mind, no, you did not exceed my expectations, although you did a very fine job. Could I speak with a supervisor, please?” I had to make a special request to this good-natured Supervisor to get the AMEX CS Reps to stop asking me that stoopid-ass question at the end of each phone contact with them. They put a special note on my account and it was about 95%+ effective. One rep started to ask and then stopped in mid-sentence and started giggling and apologized. I thought that was actually kinda cute.
Beulahmo
@Comrade Dread:
Oooh, do I feel you there, buddy. I *definitely* believe credit card companies *count on* raking in huge revenue from little tricks like “accidentally” setting up customers for these bullshit “services” that have recurring charges, and then “forgetting” to post the cancellation for as long as they can get away with it.
Next time (because it WILL happen again, doncha know?), tell the customer service rep that you are following up with a registered letter documenting your phone conversation, and that you are prepared to send a copy to your state’s attorney general and to the Office of the Comptroller of the Currency if they fail to cancel the “service” or credit your account for the unauthorized charges.
Mnemosyne
@Comrade Dread:
Well, there’s your problem. You were supposed to say “Klaatu barada nikto” after turning circles counterclockwise but before praying to Cthulu.
I mean, really, what did you expect?
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Siouxsie and the Banshees – Il Est Né le Divin Enfant
MikeJ
@SiubhanDuinne: Arrrgh! I tried to say this twice, but WP just stalled on first attempt. FYWP. NOw on to your regularly scheduled comment:
Siouxsie and the Banshees – Il Est Né le Divin Enfant
BruceFromOhio
@Mnemosyne:
Shit. All those wasted chickens.
Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people)
How does this happen? Man shot in head felt bullet only 4 years later.
Anne Laurie
@freelancer:
Seconded. Also, MD took less than 10,000,000 words per post to be exhaustively wrong. And when you called him on a factual error, you’d get an apology instead of the Squid-Cloud of Butt-Hurt(tm).
Brachiator
@BruceFromOhio:
It also doesn’t work if the chicken is infected with salmonella.
asiangrrlMN
@BruceFromOhio: No, no, no. FIRST candle, THEN pentagram, THEN invocation, THEN chicken. Sheesh. No wonder everything breaks.
@Anne Laurie: I kinda like Kain’s long-winded posts, but that’s probably because I am pretty verbose myself.
@SiubhanDuinne: This is a lovely memory. Thank you for sharing it.
abscam
@Felanius Kootea (formerly Salt and freshly ground black people): Um, yeah…whiskey tango foxtrot!
Chris
No. They got it wrong, as they left off the last word of the phrase. It’s “bad for the tv salespeople“, because it shows you that after calibration, the cheap model gives you just as nice a picture as the expensive one, so they make less money. :-)
Seanly
Search CNET for your TV model. If they don’t have it, they may have a review for a sister TV (similar model line or different size). They list good settings for the TV.
Tweaking the picture to your liking can make a big difference. My 1080p TV looked good. Then I found setting guide online – the biggest change was to reduce contrast & sharpness. Then my TV looked great.
In one scene in “Public Enemies”, the FBI agent is talking to his staff. An open window is behind him. With the better settings, I could see the grout lines in the brick of the building across the street. My wife rolled her eyes at me when I mentioned that.
16shellsfromathirtyaughtsix
So Cole is one of those customers.
Original Lee
@wmsheppa: I hope the security guards aren’t planning on having children for the next little while. /joke
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
” Joined ancient cult devoted to destruction of mankind and Chase bank. ”
I am interested in your ideas and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.
Comrade Sock Puppet of the Great Satan
In fairness, being drone in Cust.Service sucks. So if I actually get through to a human being that gives a shit about my problem, I make a point of asking to speak to the supervisor and mention that I though the Cust.Service rep did a decent job, so they get some kudos for actually solving my problem.
Anon of Ibid
John: Nothing coming out of an HDMI cable could possibly harm your TV (unless you wire it directly to a Tesla coil)
DVE and Avia are awesome for correcting color on TV’s and monitors. I bet WorstBuy is just trying to upsell you to a Spyder or whatnot.