Another "Comcastic" Day At OUR House...

You just have to love monopolies, right?

I for one, don't...and I can't make it ANY plainer than that.

Take for example our local cable supplier, Comcast (please...take them...preferably somewhere far away). We used to have one of those old, small, brown ANALOG cable boxes...and everything couldn't have worked better. Never had a glitch, stutter, burp or fart from the system.

That was THEN.

We recently were "upgraded" to a Motorola DIGITAL box (within the past year) because one of our cable input lines was faulty (and the older style RG cable). OK,so no big deal...upgrade means BETTER, right?

WRONG.

Since we've gotten the digital box, I'm on my THIRD (as of today) rig, and it's wearing a tad thin with me. Anyone ever hear of "If it ain't broke...don't fix it?"

Having installed such systems as well as satellite dishes for a major "big box", I KNOW EXACTLY what I should see when I click the set on...and sorry to say, it just ain't happening. The first box just crapped out on the VIDEO side (nice if I were BLIND), so that was switched out for the 2nd box...which has developed a MAJOR pixelation problem. That's where everything freezes and looks like LEGOLAND for a few seconds. To be more descriptive, it looks like a BAD SATELLITE DAY (and you satellite dish owners know what I mean). The box also suffers from audio dropouts. Perfect when trying to follow the characters' DIALOGUE.

So now we're supposed to have the "tech" come out AGAIN today to replace the box a THIRD time. And I can tell you, these digital boxes all look like 2nd hand stock. I have never seen a new out-of-the-box unit come into my house YET.

That doesn't say much for a company that "prides" itself on being NUMERO UNO. Then again, they're getting YOUR money, so WTF, right? I was even approached to work for them...and after a long skull-session, I decided it's better to not sign on, only to wind up rocking their boat (which many bosses find annoying, especially when YOU'RE right, and they're NOT).

Suffice it to say, we'll reserve any judgement on THIS repair until I "get back from Missouri" (in other words..SHOW ME)!

The weird thing is that the straight cable signal is quite adequate, as our other TV in the family room will show you. I just don't want to bypass that "on demand" and music channels stuff (some of which is fairly good), by routing through the VCR (which makes all the problems go away marvelously). I figure if I'm PAYING for it...damn it, I WANT it.

The technician is "supposed" to be here between 8AM and 8PM (nice LARGE window, eh?), so you can see I'm relatively relegated to the house today (cable company's version of HOUSE ARREST).

I just hope we get this ongoing problem cleared the hell up...the holidays are coming and there's lots of Christmas fare to view. And if I want LEGOS, all I have to do is nip over to K-MART and buy some.

And after 2009, cable & satellite companies will have ALL of us by the shorthairs (broadcast goes DIGITAL), so all those small TVs will become nice little coffee tables (or doorstops).

Don'cha just LOVE the way you're forced into buying what you don't need...and then not being able to fully enjoy even that?

I know I do.

OK, will someone PLEASE get this tongue out of my cheek...my jaw is cramping!

**Editor's Note:

As of 1430 hrs, the cable is back up and running well (fingers crossed)...maybe THIS time we got the RIGHT tech (and maybe he DOES care).