A Random Act of Blogging

I’m absolutely livid with Comcast at the moment so if I ramble then that’s why. Why am I “livid” you may ask? It is because of 7 bucks. Yup.. 7 dollars.

I’m a TiVo user, and have been for a while. About 8 months ago, I decided to bite the bullet and get a Comcast HD DVR, because my TiVo’s were only Series 2 (non-HD) and I wasn’t willing to pay 200-500 bucks to upgrade my TiVo. That’s when I signed up for Comcast’s “Triple Play” or whatever it was called.

I signed up to pay 113.99 a month + 5 bucks for the HD-DVR + whatever taxes and federal fees. I won’t get into how crappy the actual DVR is, I think everyone knows the equipment is sub-par. But never-the-less, I did it and had HD on my nice big tv, which I enjoyed.

Then for Christmas my wife bought me a new TV for our bedroom. For a while I limped along with my other series 2 TiVo on that until Comcast’s “Forced” digital transition which made that TiVo completely obsolete because Comcast’s “free” box wouldn’t play nice with my dual-tuner tivo (smart of comcast I suppose to try to force out Tivo from peoples houses).

So I broke down and ordered a second HD DVR from Comcast. The person told me that that DVR was going to cost me 13.95 a month, which was close to what I was paying Tivo so it wasn’t that big of a deal (other than the fact that the Comcast DVR’s suck, but again, I won’t get into that).

When I got my first bill, I saw the new DVR charge for 13.95, which was expected. Then I noticed another charge that snuck its way in. There was an ADDITIONAL charge for 6.99. WTF!!! So this second DVR didn’t cost me 13.95.. it cost me 20.94!!!!!

I called and complained, I felt sorry for the customer service guy I was talking to because I was pissed. Yes, it is ONLY 7 dollars, but it was the fact that I was already choosing to pay for an EXTRA dvr and then to get this tacked on without being told and for no real good reason. I was told its to have the digital service to my house. WAIT! WHAT! What the hell is the first $114 for.

The next day I went to the local Comcast office and they told me the same thing. I didn’t want to cause a public scene so I left without saying a word. I then went directly to my office and order a brand new TiVo for $200. Yes Comcast, I gave TiVo more money because they deserved it and not you.

So I returned my 2nd DVR expecting to see that 13.95 + 6.99 charge drop off and I ordered a CableCard for 1.79. I asked the person on the phone, “How much will this cable card cost?” and I was told “$1.79 TOTAL.” I was happy with that. Finally I was getting a TiVo back (not 2 like I had, but close enough)

So I get my bill last week and guess what I see. Comcast took away my “Free DVR” (I paid $5 since it was HD) and raised the price of DVR I did have to $15.75 and kept that damn $6.99 charge on my bill! AHHHHHHHHH!

Ok ok.. so the DVR price changed and it was a computer glitch that screwed up the “Free DVR” thing and that is getting taken care of. But the flippin $6.99 is STILL THERE. I asked WHY! and the customer service person said, “Well it’s because of the CableCard.” I about lost it. WTF was I told that the CableCard would cost me $1.79 TOTAL when in fact it costs $8.78.

Again, what does my friggin $114 a month cover?

I’m paying for Digital Service, if for every device I want to recieve digital service requires me to pay $6.99 in addition, then I’m not really getting Digital Service for my original $114 a month am I? All I’m paying for is getting “serviced” if you know what I mean.

I am this close to just calling it all off. Switch internet to DSL, Switch my phone back to the PHONE COMPANY and moving to Satellite. I’m tired of BIG companies thinking they can nickel and dime their customers to death and not be called out on it.

Personal Comcast

As you probably could’ve seen from my tweets today, I’ve discovered a new music site today called Blip.fm. It’s kindof pandora-ish, but with more social junk in the trunk. Thanks to @sarahlane for tweeting about it or else I may have not found out about it.

So feel free to listen to my station http://www.blip.fm/snarfblatt and I’ll be sure to fill it up with all the music you never wanted to listen to.

General, Websites of Interest (or NO Interest)

Humor

It’s Monday already? Seems like the weekends should be longer. I’ve been fairly busy the past week which accounts for my lack of posting, yeah, that’s why. And, as has been my excuse in the past, I still don’t know what this blog should be about.

I’ve never been that good of a writer, so I guess I’ve just hoped I could learn if I write more often. But, for me, the lack of a subject makes writing very painful and feel more like work than anything else.

I could always talk computers or games or whatnot, but those subjects seem way overdone. Oh well, I’m sure it will come to me. For now, you all will just have to suffer. Heh, you all, who am I kidding. I took a 2 year break. No one is reading this anymore.

Peace out.

General, Personal blogging

Literally!

I started working out at the Courthouse a week ago and have had a pain in my neck ever since. I’m guessing I strained something since my body wasn’t used to any sort of exercise (desk job for the win!).

Anyway, gonna pop a couple more Alleve and hope for the best.

Personal exercise

I must say WordPress has changed quite a bit in the 2 years I’ve been away from my blog. This has got to be one of the friendliest pieces of software I’ve used and am quite impressed.

I’ll be adding and removing probably several plugins and widgets over the next few days as I get a feel for this new version. I’ll also be consolidating some categories most likely and trying to go back and add some tags to posts.

I’ve added the reCaptcha plugin to comments and activated the newer Akismet spam protection plugin. This should help deter alot of those spam comments I’ve been getting over the past couple years. I just finished deleting over 85,000 comments. Ugh!

blogging blogging, plugins, wordpress

… has it really been 2 years since I posted here. I guess its time to do some updating.  Anyone still see this blog? Somehow I doubt it.

blogging blogging

Guess I forgot to unlock comments.. hehe.. sorry about that. Commenting is enabled once again, so if you got anything to say, um, say it, or something…

General

Hey.. remember me? Yeah I’m the guy that started A Random Act of Blogging a little more than 3 years ago. Guess what, I’m still alive.

Looks like I haven’t posted in a while, I guess I had lost interest, not sure. I’m not making any promises, but I think I may start pushing this thing along again. First thing on tap. I’m gonna have to redesign. Yup.. this theme has served me well for over a year.. time to scrap it and start anew.

Got any ideas? I don’t, guess I better put on my thinking cap. Stay tuned, you never know what might happen.

General

Lookie at my new toy. I finally decided to join the rest of society and get an mp3 player. I ended up with this beauty. So far I’ve loaded about a gigabyte worth of music on it and am having a good time with it. My only complaint so far.. is those stupid “ear-bud” headphones everything is coming with these days. I mean really.. how are you supposed to keep those things in your ears. So now I need to go out and get some headphones that will work for me.

General