Die Comcast. Die.

How can a company be so inept? Each time I have to deal with Comcast, I’m left seething. From the phone system that chews up minutes reminding me to make sure my cable equipment is plugged in and turned on before it will put me in the queue for an agent who might be able to tell me why the picture is pixellating again to the website that forces me to log in (Username and password on separate pages–I don’t get that one but at least they added a link to the first page that answers, “Where do I enter my password?” No joke.) then asks me to re-enter my address in order to show me the channel lineup, this company can’t get anything right. It would make a great comedy if it were for the tragic fact that we have to pay so much money (over $100/month just for tv) for the privilege of being abused.

If DirecTV ever gets its act together and offers an HD Tivo again or AT&T manages to launch Uverse in our neighborhood, we will happily give Comcast the boot. Until that happy day, I’ll just bitch. Here’s the latest.

Comcast has been monkeying with our channel lineup lately. Mostly good. Adding a number of HD channels but moving some key ones such HBO HD and Showtime HD. You know, things we pay a premium for so I like to know where to find them. Except they did all this without making a peep. I actually had to google “Comcast Bay Area channel expansion” to find out what was going on when Showtime just vanished before Christmas. For a few months, we’ve gotten duplicates of several channels but even that finally stopped last week.

So tonight I find a bold envelope in the mailbox trumpeting Important Channel Change Information Inside. Great, I thought, they’re going to explain what’s been going on. I even hoped they might finally add the elusive BBC America HD to the lineup. But no. Nothing related to Comcast could make that much sense. Instead, I am disappointed to find that they have wasted still more of my last bill sending me a flimsy notice that four lame SD channels are moving. Standard definition version of Comcast SportsNet California, Food Network, TBS and QVC.

Who gives a fuck.

I resent having to pay to get all those hundreds of SD channels. I I don’t want the sports. Or the non-English. Or the public access. Or shopping. Certainly none of the whack-job religious ones, including Fox News.

Let me get just the current HD tier, BBC, Logo, HBO and Showtime. But no, you can’t do that. In order to get what we actually watch, I have to also pay for your hundreds of junk and flotsam.

Inept. Comcast. Two words that go together so well.

Free Pastry Day

Next Tuesday. Whee

Real Story

There’s a lot of hoopla in the mainstream media right now about the San Diego man who claims his Prius accelerated out of control on Tuesday. Too much about this story seems off in my opinon. The driver is now claiming that after the car kept accelerating on its own, he reached down and tried to pull the accelerator pedal back but it wasn’t stuck. How do you manage that trick? Is he a contortionist? More puzzling, he goes on to claim that he didn’t put the car in neutral because he was afraid to do anything that wasn’t normal. Huh? Diving down to the footwell while going 94 mph is normal but shifting the transmission to neutral, as it’s designed to do, isn’t? Something is fishy here.

I wouldn’t be surprised to find out the entire incident was staged. The AP has a story–almost no outlets have picked it up–pointing out that 89 class actions lawsuits already have been filed on behalf of Toyota owners claiming the resale value of their vehicles has declined due to the recalls. The story estimates Toyota faces a conservative $3 billion in damages. Here’s where coincidences start coming together.

On March 25, there will be a hearing by a panel of Federal judges to consider consolidating all the individual cases into one massive case. The stakes are enormous. In the 2008 settlement over Ford Explorers, plaintiff attorneys collected $25 million in cash while the owners they represented each got a $500 voucher towards the purchase of another Ford. These plaintiff attorneys who currently are making up evidence against Toyota will probably see a similar windfall.

Oh and one more item of interest. Where will this March 25 hearing take place? San Diego.

Convenient, huh?

Media Incompetence

A little blip buried in this week’s overblown coverage of Toyota’s recalls. The so-called professor who rigged up an Avalon for ABC’s hack Brian Ross actually works for the plaintiff lawyers who are “gathering,” i.e. manufacturing, evidence for lawsuits against Toyota.

Legal vultures circling around the piles of money that Toyota practically has been minting for years are manipulating our dimwitted mainstream press?

Say it isn’t so.

Another Reason

Rich was watching the Oscars while I made dinner tonight. I tried to avoid watching but then I heard Richard Dreyfus voicing a Hyundai ad that I know Jeff Bridges had originally done. Odd. Sure enough, seems the PR fascists at the Academy forced Hyundai to substitute other voices for tonight’s broadcast. Typical.

Take It

I feel like someone might come snatch away my homo card for saying this but I just don’t care about the Oscars. Some much hoopla. So much incessant self promotion. So much mediocrity.