John's Advice: Never Get a VW Beetle (an unfortunately ongoing series)

A few months ago, I had a really bad oil leak, and went to Midas to see what was up. It was simply a poorly placed oil plug from Jiffy Lube. There was something else in there too, but I forget what it was. No matter, the point for this story is that Something Went Wrong. While Midas was working on it, they turned on the check engine light. During their digging around in the engine, the throttle sensor went all wonky. Of course, the Midas line was that this sort of thing happens all the time for no reason, but they'd be glad to give us a deal on labor and could get the part for $750. It was obvious to me that they had hosed something, and that they weren't going to do a damn thing about it. They also didn't fix the oil leak. Schmucks.

The car ran a little rough, but still ran. We went down to Chattanooga in it, and haven't had a bit of trouble with it, except that at low speeds it couldn't figure out what gear it should be in. And so we didn't spend any more money on it. Until the emissions test notice came.

Heres the thing. If the check engine light is on for any reason, you automatically fail the emissions test, and 2 1/2 months later, lose your driving privileges. So, obviously, it was time to get the thing fixed. We took it in to a great local shop, run by someone Heidi's mom helped in her job (she's a nurse in a NICU... that's about as much as I choose to say). We got a wonderful deal on labor, and the part costs significantly less than Midas said it was. We brought it in on Saturday, they needed to get the part, and told us to bring it back on Tuesday. This was Tuesday of LAST week. It wan't the throttle control, as it happens. The computer was buggy, so they had to get a new computer. However, VW, being the master engineers that they are, needed the shop to bring the car in once it was installed to program the computer. The VW people have been giving the shop a runaround for the past three days, and it looks like it's not getting fixed anytime soon. It also looks like it's more than one problem.

So yeah, wah, cars have their issues. That's not the main complaint. Even the Midas thing isn't the main complaint (although this and previous history makes me never want to trust them again). Here's my big beef: VW is riding on their 35-year-old reputation, while cranking out horrid crap that costs an obscene amount to fix. When you bring it in to a dealership to fix, they charge an arm and a leg (I don't think I ever mentioned the $400 headlight a year ago) and drag their feet on getting the damn thing fixed. Hm, substandard customer service, substandard parts, substandard construction. Woohoo! VW is da bomb (which I hope isn't literal... I'm hearing reports of these things catching fire).

Pirates of the Caribbean: At Franchise's End

We saw Pirates of the Caribbean a couple days ago. Now, I'm a big fan of pirates and pirate movies. I think it's a great thing to see a mess of people leaping from ship to ship, and being all swashbuckley. But this was a really bad movie.

It clearly tried hard to be a good movie. I liked the second one a lot, despite other people's abject hatred of it. But this just didn't really go anywhere fast, and it kind of stayed in that nothing place for the whole movie. Sure, it wrapped up some of the open plotlines from the previous movie, but it was just really unsatisfying.

I really can't get into a lot without adding spoilers, but the climaxes aren't all that climatic, the choices made were stupid ones, and the action scenes were too chaotic to be as fun or suspenseful as they should have been.

The performances of the best actors weren't as good as they had been, although the performances of the weak actors were better than usual. Therefore we have a lowball average; you don't really go to a show to see Orlando Bloom and Keria Knightly act, you go there to just look at them. Johnny Depp, Geoffrey Rush, and Bill Nighy, you go to see act (alright, women can go to swoon over Johnny Depp, but not so much in that role). Their performances were little more than charicatures of their characters, taking out a lot of the spontenaity and fun that they developed in the earlier films, and replacing it with shallow hamming.

So anyway, I'm afraid the "season of the threes" (Shrek, Pirates, and Spiderman) is going to be a weak one. I've not seen the other two, but haven't heard particualrly good reviews of them. I'll still see them, doubting that they can be as much of a disappointment as this one was.

2007 Goals, Update 4

So... it's been a slow month. I've been putting effort in some places, not so much in others. As it stands, I haven't progressed much, if at all, on any of my goals. It's frustrationg almost to the point of discouragement, but not quite there yet. Or rather, it was there, but I moved past the worst of the discouragement. It's partially lighting a fire under my butt, and partially just annoying the hell out of me.

1. Get at least 5 union voiceover gigs: I just finished up my first promotional mailing to ad agencies. Since I'm on a budget, I wasn't able to send out any CD's, but instead postcards that have my website on them. I have yet to get a single hit from an ad agency IP address. Hm.
2. Get one national gig: See #1.
3. Get at least three agents in the local market: I have one; no change from late last year. We'll start sending out mailings to talent agencies probably this weekend.
4. Get into both SAG and AFTRA: Heh.
5. Drop my bodyfat to 12%: After a lazy month (we did keep working out, just not as much), we've decided to hit the gym in the evenings when we can, and mornings when we can't. Still, I'm pretty much in the same shape I was at the beghinning of the year.
6. Travel at least four times: 1 down, 3 to go
7. Get my headshots done: I'm waiting to lose a bit of weight, as I tend to hold a lot of my weight in my face. Not entirely sure what good headshots will do me at present, as I need a flexible day job in order to do on-camera auditions. Perhaps that will be a next year goal.
8. Join the Fighting 501st: I'll start work on cleaning out the garage this weekend, or at least clean enough to set up a card table. I should start work on the suit this month.
9: Get out of debt: Slow going. We're trading out high interest for lower interest, and plugging along as best we can.
10. Brew at least four batches of beer: 1 down, 3 to go. I just got this month's Zymurgy (the magazine of the American Homebrewer's Association), and there's likely a recipe in there on which I can work. I haven't looked through it much, but will check it out. Otherwise, I'll just get another kit.
11. Read the Bible from beginning to end: I'm still a little behind, but moving along with this. So far, so good.

Plans for this month: Dunno. I'll keep reading and praying, probably work on the Stormtrooper outfit, send out some mailings to talent agents, but I'm frustrated right now. I kind of want to just spend my time playing whatever Gamefly sends me. I'll get over it, but it's a hassle.

Bad Advertising

For the first time since I started this job, it's slow. So, what better way to use my time than to share my precious opinions? Well, precious to me, anyway.

Anyway, let's talk about advertising, and what makes a really bad commercial (OK, I'm not going to go into everything that makes a bad commercial, but rather this one facet). If a commercial tells me how horrible and wrong their competitor is, that's a pretty good sign that they're actually superior.

Let's look at Comcast's recent ads bashing satellite dishes. Instead of saying, "We're the best thing since sliced bread!" They're saying, "Only a moron gets a dish." Hm. They're slamming their competition. Could it be that they're scared? As it happens, I have Comcast, and have tried to get them in every place I've lived in the Chicago area. They used to have lovely customer service, and that was my motivating factor, despite their common lack of actual service. Well, their customer service isn't quite what it used to be; their actual service is pretty much par for the course. Now, last place I lived, I couldn't get a signal from Comcast, so I used DirecTV. My God, that was nice! I can see why cable is scared. Yes, the signal went out once in a great while (most notably during the last 10 minutes of the season finale of Lost). Since I've had cable in my current place, they've had at least twice as many severe drops in service than I had with my dish in a whole year. And yes, I'm not allowed to have a dish in the current place. Now, I can see the reasoning behind Comcast slamming their only competition, because it's actually superior; notice how you don't see any DirecTV commericals saying how crappy their competitors are?

I think the stupidest "the other guys suck" advertisement comes from Macintosh. I have a lot of friends, whose opinion I truly respect, tell me that when they switched to Mac, their computer experience changed dramatically for the better. A few years ago, that was the Mac campaign strategy: "Switch. We're really good." Now, it is true that they have a behemoth to overcome with Windows-based systems, but this is the wrong way to go about it. They have some greasy-looking prick saying "I'm better than the really likeable and friendly underdog here. Shun him, love me." These people are effectively telling me that they're afraid of Windows, because Windows is superior. What kind of messed up marketing strategy is that? Even their website is telling me, "don't settle for PC." Now, I actually am considering getting a Mac, but that's because of word-of-mouth, not their annoying advertisements.

Politicians go into overdrive with this. "Politician X eats babies! Vote for Politician Y!" I'd say that I would vote for Politician X, simply because of Politician Y's hate-ads, but the X is doing it just as bad. Don't tell me how crappy the other guy is; tell me how great you are.

So, there's my rant, combined with a warning: don't believe the hype. If a product is legitimately good, you can see by how they advertise it. If it's good, they'll say it's good. If it's bad, they'll say their competition will usher in an age of darkness and sorrow.

Comcastic, craptacular

I've had my issues with Comcast before. They haven't always been very good with the actual service, but their customer service was always top-notch. Please note the use of the past tense in that last sentence.

We have a pretty fancy package with Comcast, but I have a pretty fancy TV. The fancy package does not entitle me to better customer service by any stretch of the imagination, but it would be desirable if Comcast actually cared about retaining their customers. I wanted to switch out my cable box for on with the exact same specifications, just with an HDMI ouput instead of the DVI output. This isn't so much so I can have a super-duper extra crystal clear TV picture, but more so I can plug more things into the TV.

I was told by the Comcast technicians this would not be a problem. I was told by the Comcast 1-800 number this would not be a problem. When you're ready, go to the office and switch it out. When I got to the office, they didn't have the box I needed. If that was the end of it, this post wouldn't be written.

However, this wasn't the end of it. When I got to the office, this was, pretty close to verbatim, the conversation I had.

Me: I know you don't have any DVR's available, but are there any with an HDMI output at any other offices?
Comcast: No.
Me: Okay, is there anybody I can call to figure out when one is available?
Comcast: No.
Me: Can I set up an appointment to have someone bring one out to me?
Comcast: I can set up an appointment, but I can't guarantee they'll have one.
Me: Is there a number I can call, later on down the line, that woud be able to direct me to one?
Comcast: No.
Me: When will they be in this office?
Comcast: We should get a shipment in on the beginning of the year.
Me: Can I call this office in the beginning of the year?
Comcast: No.
Me: If I call the 1-800 number, will they be able to tell me if you have any boxes available at this office?
Comcast: No. The 1-800 number are the ones telling people to come here.
Me: OK, here's what I would like to do. I want to trade out my DVR for one with an HDMI output. How can I do that?
Comcast: There's a list that some customers are on to let them know when our DVR's come in.
Me: Put me on that list.

From there, it was a pretty standard customer exchange, but it was like pulling teeth to get anything from them. Between that and the middlin' levels of service we're receiving, we may end up switching to some other company and/or companies.

Ouch and other musings

I have no real focus for this post today, but want to say something, if for no other reason than to get me out of my funk.

1: The job is coming along, slowly. I haven't really been trained much, because of the perpetual need to put out fires. Tomorrow, the boss is out fishing, and the senior tech might be home sick (his back is seriosly bugging him, and I saw in him a posture I saw in the mirror not too long ago), so I'll be alone, with exceptionally limited training, and a barely functional network ID.

2: I was chewing a piece of gum today and damn near bit through my tongue. I'm glad I was in a secluded room, verifying that the equipment in there was working, because I let out a very loud not-to-be-spoken-at-work word.

3: Heidi's dad has been diagnosed with agressive lymphoma. He's not showing any symptoms, but he's starting chemo. Psychologically, he's not helping his condition, as he's expecting the worst, and effectively waiting to die. This would be difficult to deal with normally, but we're getting married in about two weeks, and he has to be fully there, or it'll be a ceremony with a dark cloud over it.

4: My work has an insanely strange firewall. I can access wikipedia, I can access my blog, but I can't access my gmail account. I think tomorrow I'll try to check out if I can access my voicover website.

Seizuriffic

I had a seizure this morning. I was at home, so it wasn't such a bad issue. I jave a carpet burn on my face, and it looks like I scratched myself with my toenail, but other than that, I'm pretty OK. This is good, because frequently, seizures end up with me getting a new scar due to falling at an inconvenient location. I don't think it's a big deal so much, as I average a seizure every seven years or so, and this one was eight years since my last one. So crap, but not so crappy as it could be.

Training the Replacement

I just trained my replacement in the functions of my job. Wow, that's awkward. You want to teach him to do things right, but you also are a little miffed that things aren't working out for yourself. Don't get me wrong, the guy's qualified, but I'm training him to take over the job that I'd still like to have. It would be totally unprofessional to take it out on him or any of the other team by not giving him the training he deserves, but at the same time, I keep wondering if he's going to be the worker I was.

Owell, it would be less awkward if I had some reason to leave, like if I found a better job, but next week I'll be unemployed. This is annoying.

George Lucas is a Moron

So I was overly optimistic when I heard that Lucas was releasing the original, untarnished Star Wars films on DVD. Evidently (and I'm taking this with a grain of salt, as I can't trust anything anymore relating to these films) Lucas destroyed the negatives of the original Star Wars films, and the DVD copies are going to be rips from the Laserdisc versions released back in the late '80s (I think?). They won't be spiffy. They won't be hi-def. They won't be up for individual sale. They will only be available for sale with the damaged versions of the first three movies as a boxed set, selling for $90. Makes me want to call him a naughty word that will get someone leaving an anonymous comment telling me I shouldn't use language like that.

Now, why do I rant on Lucas so much? He's a filmmaker. His style changes. A lot of filmmakers change. Look at Spielberg. Close Encounters was released around the same time Star Wars was, and is one of my favorite movies of all time. And he's changed. However here's some major differences: Close Encounters took a while to grow on me, and I didn't really learn to appreciate it until I was an adult, Star Wars changed my life when I was a kid. Spielberg has changed and grown as a filmmaker. He's matured. Lucas has atrophied and turned this franchise of films that changed my life (the only filmmaking he is known for for the last 30 years) from one of the most spectacular and fun (if a bit lame in the dialogue department) shows on the screen into something pathetic and tiresome. My fury knows no bounds.

John's Advice: Never get a VW Beetle (#2 in an unfortunately ongoing series)

So my car's going through some fairly minor repairs. It'll only cost $468 this time. I guess the car was uncomfortable with the cost of my loan payments outpacing the cost of my repairs. Of course, I have another car payment coming up in a couple weeks, so maybe, just maybe, the loan can win the suck-John's-wallet-dry race by the end of the year. Maybe I shouldn't tempt fate like that.

Update: I wasn't thinking clearly and overestimated the amount I've paid on my loan this year. In actuality, the loan payments won't catch up with the current repair bill until September.

A Science Fiction Fogey

Wow I feel old. Let me 'splain.

I'm 36 years old. That's not so bad. I was born in late 1969. My mom was pregnant with me when man first landed on the moon. These were the days of adventure. I grew up watching Star Trek, Star Wars, Doctor Who, Battlestar Galactica, Buck Rogers, and pretty much every other science fiction piece of crap I could get my hands on. There was a dry period there for a while in the early and mid '80s until Star Trek: The Next Generation came out, and then producers wised up and realized there was good money to be made in science fiction.

But I'm 36. I remember those days. I remember having an afro because that was the style in the '70s. I remember VW's back when the reliable ones were in production. I remember a time before computers, ATMs, the internet, or even FM radio (or at least FM radio's popularity). I remember Han Solo shooting first. I think what gets me the worst is that I know a few people in their early 20's, and have been watching them get exposed to the new Battlestar Galactica. They have no idea what it used to be. They have no idea THAT it used to be.

When I exposed Esther (Heidi's 20-year-old sister) to BSG, she was having a hard time pronouncing the word Cylon when it was printed on the screen. That was a completely foreign concept to me. When I first saw the word Cylon printed on the screen, all I could hear was Dirk Benedict's voice in the back of my mind saying the word. Esther had never even known this show existed prior to the Sci-Fi Channel's retelling of it. I think what got me even worse was Nate's (Heidi's cousin, who I believe is 23) . In the linked post, he talks about the miniseries being like a "wannabe scifi movie." OK, ouch.

Perhaps it's just because I know from what depths of mediocrity this particular show arose. I have been quite pleased to hear that for quite a while Esther was hiding away watching the first season whenever she could, but in her case, I was returning the favor (she got me hooked on Lost). Y'know, it was a crappy show in the '70's, but I was 8. I hadn't developed my sense of critical appreciation yet. For me it was all, "Ooooo, spaceships! Laser guns!" and I got obsessed. As an adult, I've tried to sit through an entire episode, and have managed to do so I think once, and that's only because I was trying to get Heidi to remember the show she last saw when she was 3. So I'll admit, I'm a bit biased. To hear such lack of knowledge pains me, and to hear such harsh criticism even more so.

How do they stay in business?

So after the crappy day I had yesterday, Heidi wanted to take me out for a distratction date. We started going to a movie, but we ended up going to GameWorks. For those who aren't familiar with GameWaorks, it's become sort of a trashy attempt at Dave & Buster's. Nobody who works there is happy about it, and in fact every employee who we interacted with at some point gave me a subtle look of frustration/disgust. Most of the games we played didn't work properly, the food tasted good, but gave us nasty stomach aches afterwards. I kept thinking, "It didn't used to be like this."

I remember back in the late 90's going to GameWorks in Ontario Mills Mall (out in Ontario California, between LA and San Bernardino). They had a much more limited menu, but the service was always fun, the food was always good, and the games were high quality and in good repair.

This got me thinking: this was the brainchild of Stephen Spielberg (I don't know if Dave & Buster's was already in existence at the time). It's slowly gone downhill from its inception, much like his previous retail experience, Dive! That was a restaurant which was fun, expensive and good food, but you couldn't really go there frequently. There was one in LA and in Vegas, and you could go there for an expensive but good sandwich or salad or whatever. The whole theme was that the restaurant was inside a big yellow submarine. The one in LA died around 2000, and I don't know how much longer the one in Vegas lasted. In any case, I think GameWorks is going the same way. I'd say it's prime for the taking by Dave & Buster's, but I think they use their semi-inconvenient locations as a tool to keep their rent down, so they don't go the way of GameWorks.

In any case, for future entrepeneurs, don't let a blockbuster filmmaker design your retail business. They're two very different media.

Car hassles

Y'know, this would be irritating if I wasn't in the process of paying for my half of a wedding. But in the past month, my car has required $1800 worth of repairs. It was the alternator a few weeks ago, now it's the brakes (yeah, that's partially my bad... all four rotors were screwed). Admittedly, the car is five years old, so it's getting ready to get some stuff worked on, but this is happening at a really bad time.

Grrrr.

Friends & Frustrations

So I was playing D&D yesterday, and I'm beginning to come to some conclusions I don't want to come to. Let me 'splain. This weekend was one of the best I've had since well before my dad died. Heidi and I acheived a new level in our relationship (I'll write more about that later), and when I was working at church the following morning, we were joking around about a guy with the initials of ASS not being able to have monogrammed underwear, especially on the front, because then it would be confusing. When I got to Richard's house, I was in the best and most playful and silliest mood I'd ever been when I met up with these people. It was wonderful. What followed was a series of personal attacks that I haven't experienced at such a level since early high school. I mean, seriously, there were attacks about my physical appearance (and I'm a fairly handsome man these days), my laugh (which usually brings me into a crowd, for some reason it tends to separate me from this crowd), a whole mess of really juvenile things. None of it was intended to bring me down, I'm sure, and perhaps the contrast from my emotional state when I got there magnified the whole deal, but it really ended up pissing me off. A lot. I stayed the whole evening, but didn't have much fun, and left tired and crappy. And it got me thinking. When I game with the Mensa crowd, I have fun, I feel energized, sometimes a little shagged out, but still alive and happy to have done so. When I game with my friend Jon, I leave wanting more. I have a lot of fun, we all are really happy to be together, we laugh together and it's great. I leave happy and excited. When I game with this crowd, I pretty much always leave tired and annoyed. I have to think about it a bit more, because these are all peole that I do like, ultimately, but I may end up leaving that group.

One of those weeks

This has been one of "those" weeks. Y'know, the kind where you look back on it and wonder "what the hell was I thinking?" I'm just regretting a few stupid mistakes, but my mind has been kind of messed up most of the week. I even spent most of last weekend asleep feeling unwell, and most of last night awake, thinking about how I might get fired because of a combination of a stupid decision and other people's lack of response.

I don't know, maybe it's the heat. Maybe it's the food (or lack thereof). Maybe it's the fact that my place is still a completely disorganized mess, and I've been living there nearly a month.

I used to be a pretty confident, intelligent, rational, decisive, resonable guy, with things more or less together, despite all the crap going on in my life. What happened?

The Broken Window

So some prick decided to break my passenger side window Saturday night/Sunday morning. Not steal anything, not even attempt to steal anything. Just break the window to be rude. Maybe he broke the window, looked in and thought better of it. Maybe he broke the window and the car alarm went off and he ran off. But there was still glass precariously situated in the top of the window frame, and the moment I touched it, it fell in the car. So basically, it seems like the guy (or girl, coulda been a chick, don't want to be sexist here) just broke my window out of malice. Now, don't get me wrong, I'm glad nothing got stolen. But really, that's just rude.

That's the thing about crime. It's not just coldhearted and wrong, but it's really selfish. "Hey, I want to bugger this other guy's day that I don't know. Yeeha."

I'm really not all that upset about it, I guess I'm more annoyed that the glass-fix place hasn't called yet. Still, it's another stressor added into an already stressed life, y'know?

Furious

So, I had the Worst Cable Technician in the World (I should make him a plaque) come in on Saturday. He showed up, judged me for buying a modem that the previous tech suggested, broke the cable to the TV, judged me for having the modem hooked up to the USB port, judged me for not recognizing that the TV wasn't working (primarily because last time I turned it on, it worked fine), and subsequntly told me he couldn't do anything (boy, ain't that the truth), and that he'd have to send a line technician out. Dammit, I could have told you that!

So Comcast has been on my shit list all weekend. I still have no home internet, but now I don't have the cable I've been paying for. And this with a brand-spankin' new TV. I've been patient; they've attempted several times to accomplish something, and I'm going to give them until the end of the week to be successful. I guess I should tell them about my deadline, but if they are too incompetent to take care of the connection by Wednesday, that's when they find out about my self-imposed deadline. That's when I go check out my other options, which, admittedly, are less effective and less desireable than Comcast. However, if they work without me calling them every day (Comcast can't even get it to work with me calling every day), that's more impressive than a potentially great service that perpetually fails.

Also, as long as I'm on a rant, let me continue said rant. My normal route to work is to get on the brown line, and then transfer to the purple line when I can, because the purple line goes around the loop the alternate way, and is significantly quicker for me. Today, had I decided to stay on the brown line, I would have probably gotten another chapter in Harry Potter read, which would have been OK (although I'm hearing less-than-stellar reviews of the book), and I would have maintained a seat the whole way, and I would have gotten here a lot earlier. I got off the brown line shortly after my chapter was done, and waited for the Purple line to come by. Another brown line train. Another brown line train. Another brown line train. Is the purple line running today? Well it must be, because there's a purple line train coming from the other direction. Another brown line train. Another brown line train. The brown line train that I was originally on comes from the other direction, having made its way all around the loop. And the next one. Finally, twenty minutes after I got off the brown line, I get back on the brown line in disgust. I make my way around the loop, and, even when I get to my stop, there's no purple line train that has come the other way. What the hell was going on?

An open letter to Coca-Cola

Will anybody in the Coca-Cola company actually read this? Not so likely, but I figured it's better than just complaining about it to my friends, which is what I've done for the past SEVERAL YEARS.

Re: Coca-Cola's promotions. I very rarely win anything from them, and there's very rarely much worth winning anyway. I have no problem with that. I don't drink Coke because I want to win something, I drink it because I like the taste, and I'm slightly addicted. Pepsi has more valuable promotions, but that's OK. It takes more to make me drink a Pepsi. When they were doing their Billion-dollar giveaway, I actually was a Pepsi drinker for a while. I didn't win anything, but it got me to drink the product, and that was their devious little goal. But I digress.

When I oh-so-frequently don't win anything, would it kill you to say "Thank you" or maybe even "Sorry you didn't win?" I don't mind the "Play again." I expect that. "Drink Coke" is even a valid message to be printing on your bottles, but perhaps it might be a little redundant if someone is looking inside an OPEN BOTTLECAP. When I look inside a bottlecap, I want to see something more inviting than "Drink Coke. Play Again." Thank you Big Brother, may I have another mind control experiment, please. Note that Thank You has fewer letters than Drink Coke, and therefore is probably slightly less expensive to print (All the letters in Thank You are bigger than the I in Drink, so it might even out). But really, seeing Drink Coke Play Again does nothing but piss me off. Seeing Thank You wouldn't take the non-existant sting out of losing, as there's nothing but irritation at the message, but it would give me the illusion that Coke actually cares for my well-being in some small way. Sobe does that, and I want to drink more of their violently expensive product, and I don't even know or care what they're trying to give away. I just want to read the cleverly-written consolation messages, and drink some overpriced tea/sugarwater.

I think that's my beef right there. Sobe has consolation messages. They console you and even make you smile when you "lose" whatever the promotion is. Coke makes me avoid playing at all, because I don't particularly care what they're giving away, and their messages state, in no uncertain terms, "We want your money. Fuck off."

Am I overreacting? Yep. But this has pissed me off mildly for years, and I mention it occasionally, and this is really the first time I'm going through the effort to write anything. So, if anybody from the Coca-Cola company is reading this, why don't you forward the link to the highest levels of management, hmmm?

I'm Stealing Internet

Yep. You heard me. I'm stealing Internet. Because Comcast is too incompetent to maintain a connection in this building (we've had technicians out here freakin' three times, and we're still having problems!), I'm stealing a bad connection from some anonymous neighbor's functional unsecured wireless internet (quite probably DSL). I move in July. It won't be soon enough.

Now off to see how poorly World of Warcraft works with this connection.

My home internet frustrations

Y'know, I really hate my internet connection at home. Let me 'splain. First off, I right now rent from my roommate, so he owns the place, and all the decisions about the home are his, and all the bills are in his name. Therefore, everything hinges on whether or not he pays them. With most people, this would not be much of an issue, but twice in the year I've lived here the internet has gone dead on a weekend he's been away simply because he didn't pay the bill on time. God only knows how many times it's happened when he has been around, and I just haven't been the one to catch it. Then there's the fact that it's Comcast. They're moderately sporadic in their own right, so there's another point of failure. Then there's the cable modem we have: crap. I'm sure our latest problems have been a direct result of the fact that the modem is a steaming hunk of poo encased in blue plastic. Then there's our wireless internet. I have a wireless mouse, which tends to interact negatively with the wireless internet, and ends up with a crappy signal, but I also have a USB receiver, which has a hard time recognizing that it's even there moderately often. So, approximately half the time, I have no connection to the internet when I turn on my computer, and I have to run through each of these points of failure to try to trace what the problem might be this time. I almost have Comcast on speed dial lately. And yes, I do intend to use Comcast as my internet provider when I move (unless RCN is available), but I will pay them on time, and I will avoid the wireless internet for the time being, thereby eliminating many of my frustrations.