Archive for May, 2007

comcastic

Monday, May 21st, 2007

No one wants me to have HD.  This week I imposed on Stella-n-Rob for a trip to Comast to try the old swaperoo on the DVR.  It gets worse each time I try this, honestly.  We arrived  well before the lameass closing time of 2pm.  There was a constant 6-8 person line in the store and only one women working at the counter so we stood around for a while before getting “served”.  Oh I got served alright.

When I originally called and ordered the cable I had asked for HDTV, internet access and a HD DVR.  Through some “deal making” I ended up also getting the phone service since it was just as expensive to get it in a package deal as it would to just get the TV+internet.  In order to have HDTV and to use a HD DVR one also requires digital cable which I had mentioned in the phone call too.

What I discovered while talking to the women at the counter was that I had neither the HD DVR (this i knew) nor digital cable even though it’s a pre-requisite for everything else that I wanted.  This made me sad.  She then “attempted” to fix this by signing me up for the digital cable and would then swap me DVRs.  She couldn’t do it though.  The only customer service person there was unable to “change the codes” to give me digital cable.  So she did the only thing she could do; she asked me to “come back on Monday”.  I knew that exploding in a furious ball of anger as my elders might, would not be productive and perhaps be disconcerting to Stella-n-Rob so we left and disappointed and smouldering.

Then we all headed to Berkeley for lunch since the GF and I had never been there.  We went to 4th street which is an area filled with yuppy/hippy style shops and restaurants.  I had a $13 burger.  It was pretty good, but I’m not sure if it was worth $13.

no HD for me

Monday, May 14th, 2007

On Saturday I managed to get my friend Alex to give me a ride to the Comcast store.  We headed off with my DVR in hand and arrived at the mall where he thought they were still located.  The mall was 90% empty and 100% depressing; Comcast was not there, nothing was there.  I phoned up the GF and got her to find an actual location in some kind of place with economic life.  We roll down to the store in Alameda and discover it’s closed.  It closes at 2.  It opens at 11.  Between 12 and 1 it’s closed for lunch.  We got there around 2:45.  What kind of lameass store is only open for THREE HOURS on a Saturday?!?!?  Why even have it open if you’re just open for three hours?

So I need to come up with a new plan for swapping out this DVR or just go again next Saturday morning and hope they don’t have some new arbitrary time schedule.

tv

Thursday, May 10th, 2007

GOOD: We got full cable-fu on Friday; HDTV with DVR, internet and new VOIP phone service.

BAD: They gave us a regular DVR so we don’t get any picture on the HD channels, merely the audio.

LAME: I have to truck the crappy DVR to some comcast store out in BFE in order to swap it out for a correct one.  Not having a car blows for these sorts of errands since nothing in Oakland is really close.  Luckily I can impose on my friend Alex and have him chauffer me over and back.

work

Thursday, May 3rd, 2007

I got promoted to lead tester guy yesterday. yay.