Twenty minutes into Sunday night's brand new - and really good looking - episode of Battlestar Galactica and Comcast cable TV decides to take a big dump. NO PICTURE. Just a message on all channels saying, "This Channel Temporarily Unavailable." So, I have not seen the latest episode. So please, NO MORE SPOILERS! I was already greated with one.
This event is the last nail in the coffin for our relationship with ComCRAP. Since January 7th - the day they installed digital and HD - we have had problems. Poor signal strength, tiling of the image (lots of little squares), no picture on some channels. We had a tech come back a few days after the install and he found water damaged and corroded parts on the outside of the house and said that the outside cable was also damaged and needed replacement. It would be fourteen business days for that to take place. Fourteen business days came and went. I called ComCRAP. They had no work order. They created one. Fourteen business days came and went. I called. They had no work order. They created one and told me that Miss Utility would need to come by first and that would take ten business days and then within fourteen business days to replace the cable. Well Miss Utility has finally marked up the ground and in the meantime I have called Verizon and ordered their fiber optic system. Verizon recently ran all new fiber optic infrastructure on our street and we have a new hookup in our yard. So, ComCRAP is getting flushed and Verizon is coming in. I don't care that the Sunday night outage is not related to the other problem, it's still a problem with ComCRAP and their poor service. I am so sick of their commercials advertising how fast they are, what great service they have and how they are COM-TASTIC. THEY ARE CRAP-TASTIC. I wish I had stickers that say CRAP in the same font and point size that ComCRAP uses because I would apply them to their vans when I see them.
SO SAY WE ALL.
Hot Dog and Helo become lovers, did you see that scene?
(I hope I didn't tell you the other spoiler).
Posted by: malnurturedsnay on March 6, 2007 03:25 PMSomeone sticks a big "I am a stupid baby" sign on the back of the ship (or whatever it is on BG) =)
Did you write this during lunch?
Posted by: bacontaco on March 6, 2007 07:49 PMHey, when you get Verizon installed could you let me know the following:
Can you use the existing cable in your walls or did they have to run new wiring due to the fiber optics?
Internet: Do they give you DSL or again is it through the fiber optics?
I got around the week signal from Cox cable by rewireing the whole house with dedicated runs of quad shieled RG60 cable. I also had to order a powered 4 way cable splitter to get the signal strength back up. I too would like to go with Verizon but am intrested in your experiences with it?
Verizon tells me that the installation will take between 4-6 hours and they are putting in all new fiber optics and wireless. They are not using the existing cable. Everything is new.
In other news. ComCRAP came out last night and replaced another spliter that was in the wall of the master bedroom. The spliter was 20+ years old with a mghz range of 5-550. Alot of the new channels broadcast over 550 and go into the 600 range. This replacement has helped, but we still have problems and are missing several channels. The techs agree that the outside cable would still need to be replaced. Oh, and the HD box that they gave me also needs to be replaced. Regardless, we are going to Verizon. The cable TV wiring in the house (put in when the house was built) is over 20 years old and was poorly done. I could probably have all new cable run.
I don't know. I just want it to fracking work.
Posted by: Will Burnham on March 7, 2007 01:01 PMI still can't get Verizon here. They've finished trashing the neighborhood, and are trying to sell us on FiOS internet, but I don't want to get locked into something and not be able to upgrade, or, worse yet, get stuck with only ever being able to get half of what I want. At any rate, it's all a scam. F-ers.
Posted by: Geren on March 7, 2007 03:26 PMIs Verizon or ComCRAP the scam? Or both? All I want is a good connection and a working system. Seems that if I want to upgrade the ComCRAP that I have in the house, I am looking at running all new coax (well, having it run). Being in a middle townhome unit they would have to go up the front wall, drill in and go through the attic, drill out and then go down the back wall and drill into the back of the house where we have TVs.
Well, Verizon is about $20-30 bucks cheaper a month and we will get phone (already have it), TV and Internet all in one.
Posted by: Will Burnham on March 7, 2007 04:19 PMI ran 45 cable rund up a conduit up the back of my townhouse. I then fished each lin inside the walls from my attc. Trust me, this too was a pain. I am curious how they will run the fiber optic in your house? That is my main question. Keep us informed. This is intresting.
I also had my ourdoor line replaced, made a huge difference. I also branched the cable modem off before hitting the powered splitter with my tv signal.
Posted by: David on March 8, 2007 03:47 PMThanks to Mr. Marshall, I have seen the lattest episode of BSG. HEAVY! OMG, I can't believe that they killed ########.
I also can't believe that no one told Edward James Olmos that the model ship was on loan from a museum and had a value of $100,000+ (I have heard as much as $200K) Olmos did that "in the moment" -- it wasn't scripted. D'OH!
Posted by: Will Burnham on March 9, 2007 08:39 AMThank God that Sunday is only a few more days away. Our signal with Comcrap just degrades more and more by the day. Not that I watch much TV, but I do like the History, Discovery and SciFi channels, none of which we get at present on the digital box. The upstairs TV has been plugged back into the basic cable, AKA cable from wall direct into TV, and at least we have that.
The high def channels I had, well I no longer have because now I have others that I didn't have before. It's a mess. Hurry Sunday!
Posted by: Will Burnham on March 14, 2007 08:40 AMI just had ComCRAP installed as I have no other choice except for satellite TV which won't work for me since rain interferes with the sat signal and rainy days is when I watch TV. Like now. Love those monopolies.
Posted by: Clark on March 16, 2007 12:41 PMDid you go to Camp Highlands?
Posted by: David Gustafson on March 19, 2007 03:50 AMIf you have cable broadband, type 192.168.100.1 into your browser and click the diagnostics link to see data that would be helpful in checking out where a cabling problem exists.
I used a laptop and my cable modem to chase down problems with this data.
Posted by: mjohnson@claritas.com on March 19, 2007 02:18 PM