All the answers you need are right there in front of you!
Updates from December, 2004 Toggle Comment Threads | Keyboard Shortcuts
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adam
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adam
Some thoughts…
* Kids are evil when you want to sleep (aka 0:00 – 5:00) and they don’t. Evil. Plain and simple.
* Say the word “cascading” in front of Noah, and he’ll ask you “what about dog’s skating?”
* Driving in New Haven totally sucks – unless you know the city and it’s choke points. I love New Haven sometimes…..
* COMPUTERS SUCK I keep coming across newer and stupider problems with them. It’s never the users fault, so it must be the computer – ergo they suck. Hard.
* Yes, it’s been a while since I posted anything. It’s also been a while since I did anything productive on the computer. One of these days, however, my time machine will work.
* Holy Hezmanah the Farscape: The Peacekeeper Wars (scifi, savefarscape) is good. Frelling good. And I’ve only seen the first half. -
adam
Cablevision and how they waste my time
I don’t usually rag on my cable company, but enough is enough.
First, they’ve been slowly raising the cost of the cable internet service since I signed up. Every time the rate increases, I call them up to find out why I wasn’t notified of the change in advance – if it’s not the law here in CT, which I think it is, then it’s a courtesy thing. They always say that there was a notice included with my bill to indicate the upcoming change. I look at every scrap of paper that comes with these bills, and it’s just not there.
Second, they just forced us to upgrade to digital cable. I’ll grant you that I do like the new system, but I resent being forced to upgrade. A little background: we love HBO. They have wonderful original series, and we watch them every week. I enjoy the fact that I can sometimes find a movie I want to watch and not have to endure editing for TV or commercials every 23 minutes. It’s a good thing.
Thirdly they keep trying to merge my cable internet and cable tv accounts. I have them separate for a reason, but about once a year, they manage to join them without my approval or knowledge. I then have to spend time on the phone having them fix the mistake they made.
Since we got moved to digital, we had to upgrade the cable box we were forced to rent to watch HBO. If it had been a simple “here’s the new box, we’ll take the old one,” I would have been fine with that. If it had been a simple “here’s the new one, feel free to blow up the old one,” I would have been fine. Instead, they tell us they’ll ship it out, and it doesn’t show up. Then I get a “second delivery attempt” notice from UPS. The note says that if we’re not home for the third try, they’ll hold it at the local facility for us to come get it.
Did you notice that I said “second notice” up there? I called to find out what that was about – apparently the driver went to the wrong address the first time, but it still counts as the first attempt. What really killed me was
a) they didn’t care that it was the drivers mistake
b) that I was right by the local facility that same day – if I’d known it was going to be in UPS’s hands, I would have told them to hold onto the package and gotten it myself.
Anyway, we finally got the new box – great, since I apparently needed the packaging to send back the old system, otherwise they’d be charging us for it (as I was told when I “ordered” the new box). I set the system up, go through all the configuration, and start to learn the new system. Good. I then call up to find out where to send the old system and complain about the shipping – it wasn’t addressed clearly, and they’d gone the extra step of requiring a signature – something they didn’t require of my parents a few towns away. I was then informed that I could “just throw out” the old system since they didn’t need it anymore.
WTF.
I’ve rented this system for about two years now, and will probably have the new one for at least another nine months or so. At about $5.00 a month for the box and the remote, that’s $120 for the first box, and about $60 for the new one. When I pushed one of the hapless phone monkeys about why I can’t buy the box outright, like I did with my cable modem, I was told that it was a law in Connecticut, much like people in Canada aren’t able to buy cable modems because of a similar law in Canada. Guess what? I don’t give a frell about people in Canada and whether or not they’re able to buy their cable modems – I live in Connecticut, I want to know why I can’t buy it. The phone monkey could only repeat that it was apparently illegal – he could provide no evidence to back this up. Maybe I’ll go see what’s available on eBay…. I’m not looking for some illegal box to let me get all the channels, all I want is to be able to watch HBO in another room in my house – I don’t think I should have to pay extra for the subscription to HBO, then yet another fee to be able to actually WATCH those same shows.
On the flipside of all this, since the switch to digital, we now have at least 12 different HBO channels, and dozens of other channels we didn’t have before. This is a good thing, but it’s also bad – that many more channels to watch.
The billing screw ups are one thing, but the average length of my phone calls with them to fix them are at least 30 minutes. If I have to do that once a month, then that adds up to six hours a year out of my life that I’ll never get back.
I guess what I’m saying is that I have a love/hate relationship with my cable company. I used to love them, but now it’s like they’re purposely trying to make me switch away from them – which I just don’t want to believe. -
adam
Keep in mind your most cherished dreams of the future.
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adam
Just plain weird
I have a problem with my pupils. No, not students – I don’t have any of those – but the pupils in my eyes. I noticed a long time ago that they don’t always dialate together. Or properly. Sure, it’s one thing when the optometrist dialates your pupils so they can peer deep into your soul – er, eyes – and make sure all is well, but it’s another when you merely walk inside and they get all wonky. The medical term for this problem is Anisocoria (defined on
emedicine.com and Eyeweb.com), and it can either be nothing, or apparently the harbinger of something rather serious. I choose to believe the first one.
A long time ago, I went to see some specialist about this – it was quite a long time ago, so I don’t know exactly when it happened – but there you go. Anyhow, I seem to recall that I had to stare into a large bowl of some sort – mounted on a wall, basically – and then indicate when little lights inside it went on or off. It seemed more like a test of my peripheral vision, but what do I know. The upshot of it was that nothing was apparently wrong with me.
It’s become more of an issue recently since I’ve noticed it in at least two of the kids – and it happens a lot more with :abby: than it did with :noah:. I don’t recall seeing it in Emma, but that doesn’t mean it’s not there.
Anywho, that’s the reason I mention it. So, the other day I decided to do a little research. I started out with a Google search for “uneven pupil dialation“, and that brought me to the name of the disorder. It also brought me to MediaTinker, who has the same problem – as did Albrecht Durer apparently.
So then I went on over to WebMD and made a post. The next day I found Dr. Lloyd’s response. Not a lot of help, what with it mostly being a disclaimer, but I also understand – it’s hard to diagnose something over the internet. But it’s just so interesting that you can find out so much stuff – some of it bad, sadly – just by typing in a few words in a search engine.
david 14:16 on 2004/12/09 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Cablevision is a pox upon the NorthEast and I pray for the day when I can get serviced (and I mean that in the nice, decent, child friendly way) by another provider.
lee 20:57 on 2004/12/09 Permalink | Log in to Reply
Hey, did you fix that comment thing? I gave up on MT completely and just relaunched my site with EE.
Cablevision is, I think, being acquired by Time Warner. Whether that will change anything, I have no idea. They just two weeks ago finally merged our accounts (I had internet, Stanley has the TV) after being asked to do so for FOUR years, which saves us a grand total of $60 per year. They said they had no idea how I could possibly have been getting internet service since they had it at my old address in Westport. It was impossible, no way. I said I was getting service because I paid the frelling $50 per month for it.) They are the second-stupidest company on the planet (the first is Kinkos-Fedex, especially the Westport Ave. store in Norwalk). SBC is supposed to be offering cable programming, allegedly. If only they also had cable internet — DSL is crap. My youngest sister has cable internet in Michigan for $25 per month because there is competition with Comcast there (she has Wow Internet).
Maybe when there’s competition (yeah, right) we’ll be able to stop paying through the nose for seven premium sports channels that we don’t want, and the money for the stupid Yankees channel that we never watch … if not for “Dead Like Me” on Showtime, we wouldn’t even bother with premium stuff.
Ok, ’nuff ranting (see what you started!)