Boycott Comcast!!! Part 3: Slaying the Beast

After a brief hiatus, I will now finalize my Comcast Boycott with Part 3. As time goes by, you hate Comcast more and more. They overcharge for disgusting products, offer no help at all, and they will do all they can do screw with you until you give up and just stop caring or get pissed off and switch to another provider. When you finally make the decision to give Comcast the "Dear John" letter it so surely deserves, they sink their claws in. It's like trying to dump a longtime girlfriend who has used you for years without giving anything back. Over the course of your relationship, she has gotten lots of money, shelter, tax savings, and plenty of attention from you with minimal investment on her part. Of course, she has absolutely no interest in letting her meal-ticket walk away.

When you call to cancel service, the ever so helpful customer service person will make a vain attempt to keep you. They question you why you are leaving and make a pathetic attempt to gather information to make it more helpful. And by more helpful, I mean they will use this data to make their services even more frustrating and user-detrimental. With the idiotic "survey" out of the way, they then get angry and essentially cut you off ASAP. Case and point: I told Comcast I was moving on 3/31/06 and asked service to be cut 4/1. What did they do? Cut my service 3/31/06, citing the "billing cycle". What a joke? Of course, they tried to bill me through 4/1/06. I called them out on that crap, and saved a hearty $5. Take that!

As a last annoyance, once you terminate your service, they make you go to them to return your cable box and high speed modem. To be specific, Comcast has a grand total of 2 return centers for equipment in the DC area. One is in Landover, MD. The other is in Springfield, VA just off the 395 Van Dorn Exit. Neither is Metro accessible. Neither is convenient for anyone other than those who live in Landover or Springfield. In other words, if you are living paycheck to paycheck and have no car, you will spend no less than $20 in round trip bus and metro fare to return a box that costs Comcast $25 to purchase and works about 15% of the time. Isn't that just grand? To continue with the bitter ex-girlfriend analogy, it's like your scorned lover making you haul her worthless crap to her instead of picking it up herself. Naturally, you live far away, and she will make it as difficult as possible. While the spite factor is nice, I like to do the spiting, not the other way around!

Well, I finally got away from Comcast. As a final burn against them, my housemates and I forced them to bring in a private contractor to hook up their lousy internet product. For $50, he successfully gave us a special connection provided us both extra high speed connection, PLUS free Comcast cable. So, take that Comcast! From hell's heart, I stab at thee!!!

Kickball Is NOT a Sport!!!

If you go out walking during the spring or summer in Washington, DC, you will see many things. Cherry blossoms, marble monuments glistening in the sun, kids flying kites, and tourists looking at maps to figure out where the Washington Monument is (seriously, just look up...). If you're looking to get pissed off, you can wander down anywhere between the Lincoln Memorial and the Washington Monument and see burgeoning crowds of retards playing organized kickball. When I see these throngs of idiots screaming, yelling, and getting into fights over a game that any person with functional legs and an IQ of 40 can excel at, it makes my soul hurt.

Let's face it. Elementary schoolers play kickball in gym class because they're not coordinated enough to play any real sports in any valuable way. With kickball, the ball is big enough that even the girliest metrosexual can do well. The fact is, if you consider yourself an athlete and are proud to play kickball, you should be shot. You should derive no pride from such an activity. If you want to meet potential sexual partners and drink beer, go to the bar and meet potential sexual partners and drink beer. Don't ruin everyone's good time with your stupid little game, then defend it like it's your first born son. It's a fun little game, but keep it to yourselves. If you're not talented enough to play a real sport, don't do the rest of us a disservice by playing a meaningless game.

Admittedly, I do play slow pitch softball in the same area. While I take myself way too seriously in these games, I do not go so far as to call it a sport or be completely proud of my involvement in these leagues. To me, it's a good way to be mildly competitive, get outside in the summertime, and enjoy some frosty beverages. The fact that I am hyper-obsessed with my own involvement does not say anything about softball. I consider it a semi-sport because there is some skill involved with being a good player. However, kickball involves no skill at all. It's a lot like fishing on the Chesapeake and just reeling in the ones you catch. It's kind of satisfying in a way, but in a much more real and accurate way, you are actually a retard and should spend your time and efforts elsewhere.

In conclusion, if you play in a kickball league, you should be castrated or receive a hysterectomy. The fact is that the people playing this retarded game are collectively dumbing down America. They should definitely not procreate and should maybe be rounded up and deported. Kickball is a game that lacks masculinity or brains. Maybe Canada will be more supportive...

New Rule: No Fat Bastards in the Buffet Line

All of you know that obesity is a problem in America. You have fat, slovenly parents raising obese, lazy children. Kids eat crap all day long, don't exercise, and the parents stand by and do nothing. Diabetes and respiratory issues are on the rise across the population. Sure, you can be a complete retard and blame the food purveyors, , processed foods, and unhealthy products in supermarkets, but I'm not one to take the side of those who cry and whine about things that they have 100% control over. Yes, McDonalds tastes good, but if you eat it all the time, you're going to have more heart problems than the Vice President. Complaining that you have no choice or that you don't know is also BS. Let's see: Your burger's wrapper is translucent because of the grease content in your dinner. You think maybe it's a tad unhealthy?

Obesity may be a disease, but if people made better choices, they would be healthier. Period. One of the things that pisses me off more than anything is to see a fat bastard in line at a buffet loading his baked potato with 3 cups of sour cream, while he loads up a separate plate with fried chicken, mashed potatoes, gravy, grits, pork rinds, and sauteed onions, with a side of lard. Come on! You weigh 400 lbs and sweat while putting ketchup on a hamburger bun, so going to a buffet is going to make it better? Where's the logic? Where's the foresight? The idiocy of people is astonishing at times. Sure, not everyone can be thin, but anyone with an IQ over 60 can see that an obese family at a buffet is completely retarded. I don't care if you are happy with how you look or not. You may have the freedom to do what you please, but killing yourself with chicken wings and mayo is completely irresponsible. The government is worried about illegal immigration, terrorism, tax cuts, the economy, gun control, crime, and education. If they put some controls on foodstuffs and restaurants, people would be better off.

My suggestion: Buffets and fast food joints should have a new rule: If the customer waddles when he/she walks, cannot see his/her toes, has a belt around his/her waist that supports the gut instead of the pants, is sweating while standing in line, or reminds you of Shamu, you deny them service. Sure, the bottom line may suffer slightly, but since you're going to be sued by these fat bastards when they have their 8th heart attack anyway, you might as well cut your losses now!

Boycott Comcast!!! Part 2: Their "Technical Support"

Now that you have gone through the unnecessarily difficult step of setting up a service appointment, the wait begins. The way I see it, all Comcast "technicians" must go through extensive training. After all, it is impossible to be that that completely incompetent without learning from some sort of expert! Here are The Rules of Being a Comcast Service Technician:

1. To be on time is to provide good customer service, so don't do it at any costs. The fact remains that no matter what time you schedule your service appointment for, they will be late. And by late, I mean they won't show up, making you have to call their idiotic customer service hotline, which is useless (unless you're looking to raise your blood pressure). In fact, by the time the technician gets to your abode, you don't even want cable anymore, but you've made the effort, gone through hell, and now it's a matter of pride. Little do you know your adventure is just beginning...

2. If you speak no English, you're more likely to upset the customer, which is good. When the technician finally calls to give you a time estimate, you're very lucky if he speaks English because he's going to get lost and will need help. It may or may not be corporate policy to send the English-speaking technicians to nonEnglish-speaking households. Starting a signal fire on your roof or living next door to the person tend to help things. [Blogger's note: I have a friend moving soon. As a housewarming gift, I'm giving him Spanish and Swaheli-to-English Dictionary, so he can communicate with Comcast.]

3. If you mess up the initial installation, the company still makes money, and you will still have a job as a technician. This is just good business from a technician's end. It's win-win for Comcast, and the customer loses. This seems to be Comcast's corporate mission... Case and point: a good friend of mine ordered Comcast in Silver Spring. The service tech was 5 hours late, then determined her digital converter box wasn't working, so she didn't get the product she ordered. When the technician left, the cable was super fuzzy, and it started to get worse. After a week of waiting for a new appointment, a more experienced person came out and determined that the installer had hooked her cable up to Starpower (a competing cable service), which was why the cable box didn't work!

4. Regardless of whether you can help or not, make up any excuse you can to not provide service. It's more frustrating for the customer that way. This can be accomplished in many ways. You could say that the building's wiring is faulty, or the cable jacks don't work. Or, if the technician sees subscribe to a rival service, blame them. My current housemates and I decided to free ourselves from the idiocy of a Comcast cable subscription, but we still agreed to overpay for high speed internet. When our technician arrived, the DirecTV was set up. The Comcast tech told us he could not set up internet because the DirecTV guy had "used all of the cable ports" in the house. Hmm... our high speed internet couldn't be set up because the satellite television used the cable ports. Does this sound retarded to anyone else?

5. If you haven't pissed off the customer, you really aren't trying. The newest Comcast BS. Barking Bug miraculously "lost" some of his HD channels. Because he has a sweet TV, he overvalues the HD signal. However, like me, he highly undervalues Comcast in general and has agreed that they must be obliterated. Anyway, Barking Bug called up the retards in the customer service center and convinces them (after 40 minutes of moaning) to send a technician out. The guy arrives yesterday (4/15), looks at the TV, looks at the cable box, and says, "I don't know what's wrong. I'm not sure why they sent me out here. I can't help you." and left. Oh, I'm sorry. Your job is supposed to be finding problems, determining a solution, and fixing them. Excuse the rest of the world for expecting you to be able to help...

Boycott Comcast!!!! Part 1: Their "Customer Service"

The DC Region is under the control of a monster, Comcast Cable. This corporate juggarnaut is polluting the media environment with crappy, overpriced cable and incredibly expensive (but effective) high speed internet. If you live in DC and watch TV, chances are you have been pissed off, cast aside, or put into bankruptcy by this insideous corporate creature. Digital signal or not, cable (with DVR) and internet should not cost $180 a month! There are three major categories, why everyone on Earth should boycott this miserable corporate entity: 1. Their "Customer Service". 2. Their "Technicians". And 3. Slaying The Beast. Naturally, each of these categories includes many reasons why Comcast is a worthless company that should be brought down. Over the next several days, I will stoke the fires of a formal boycott against this horrendously overrated and un-needed corporation. We must bring them down in the name of justice and consumer rights!!! The problem here is, despite all of the crap they throw out to their customers, we generally have no choice... It is up to all of us to destroy this horrible, worthless company. The services they provide are valuable, but they contribute nothing but stress and annoyance to our lives, and for that they should be destroyed!!!

Their "Customer Service":

The madness and frustration begins from when you pick up the phone to set up service. Most times, you have to wait 10-15 mintues to make a service appointment. Since they are often the only cable/internet provider in your building, they can afford to employ the most frustrating automated phone system in the history of man. There are few options, and they never direct you to the right place.

Once you get through to a customer service person, you are then asked to repeat the nature of your call. Seriously, if I just went through the oversimplistic, idiotic automated menu, you should ALREADY KNOW WHY I AM CALLING! Having wasted all that time, the "customer service" person then proceeds to deride and sarcastically mock you, as if to say, "You are stupid enough to call here and order our ludicrously low quality products at a price that you have no choice but to pay. I will now laugh in your face as I overcharge you for service that may or may not work..." These people act as if your mere presence is a huge inconvenience. Yes, you jerk, taking down my information to set up service (and add money to your corporate cofers) is truly a slight against you as a person. Shut up, cut your BS attitude, take down my information, and move on to the next victim, er, I mean customer. They give you crap and 'tude just for setting up service. Just imagine how pleasant they are when something goes wrong! For more horror stories, click here.

As you are subjected to the rudest treatment ever just to set up your account, their "customer service" personnel proceeds to mispell your first and last name, then confuse the two. No, my name is not Smith John, you moron!!! After correcting them 3 times, the partially educated person will then make you spell out your street address letter by letter, as if you were talking to a foreign exchange student. Once you go through it for the 4th time, they will finally give some sort of vague estimate of when you can be overcharged for crappy service. Something like, "I know you have nothing better to do than take time off work and sit around your home waiting for us. Can you be there from now until 2 weeks from Friday from 8 AM-4 PM?" Naturally, you have no choice but to comply. These bastards sit there and collect so much money from everyone, yet they fail to provide even the slightest amount of convenience or help. If you can, boycott this evil, awful company until they provide their consumers with something of value. Since that will never happen, find a better cable and internet provider!

Tomorrow: Part 2, Their "Technical Support"

Osaka Sushi Goes to Hell

Until today, one of my favorite places to eat lunch was Osaka Sushi & Coffee, which is right next door to my office in McPherson Square. They offer an odd blend of food--quality sushi, organic/health foods, and gourmet coffees. I would go there at least once a week for their #2 Special (1 tuna roll, 1 salmon roll, 4 pieces of sushi, and miso soup for $9.50). It was a healthy, filling meal, and it was consistently awesome. In fact, for a sushi lunch, it was pretty dirt cheap and perhaps the best deal in town. However, about 2 month ago, they came under new management, and the changes began. In that time, they have gone from a favorite to a banned eatery deserving of my wrath!

After consulting the manual on how to piss the Email Demon off, they have made the following changes since January 2006:

1. Management raised prices. This was understandable, given they were probably making next to nothing on every meal to begin with. Still, this was a $2 price jack. Very sneaky stuff. This move reeked of profiteering, and it irked me, especially as a Jew. Despite my better judgement, I continued to eat there 2-3 times a month. After all, good sushi close by is good sushi close by...

If that were the end of things, I wouldn't be so angered right now.

2. They put up a completely new menu and eliminated their standard specials in favor of smaller portions at the same price. Within 2 weeks after the price hike, they were offering smaller portions for the same high price. Now, instead of being a great deal, it was standard fare: slightly above market price for good sushi. At that point, what would keep me coming back? Heck, I can overpay for decent sushi at Cafe Asia. At least they offer surprise "prizes" in each roll. And by prizes, I mean little shards of plastic that will cut your mouth open. Seriously, why should I show loyalty to an establishment when I'm getting a raw deal (no pun intended)?

3. They stopped including miso soup with the special menus. This was annoying, but bearable, as the weather is getting warmer. Free miso is awesome, but having to pay extra is BS. In the end, when you can please your customers by giving them soup that costs probably 10 cents to make, you keep offering the soup. It's just common sense!

4. Two weeks ago, they dropped another bomb: No more little plastic cups of soy sauce for customers to take and use. Instead of getting the exact right amount of soy sauce, they now offer tiny packets. It is not only enfuriating to open these little things, but you NEVER get enough soy sauce. You think 6 packets is enough, but when you get only 3 drops per unit, it is a woeful time. Trust me, it is a total disappointment to have to eat sushi without soy sauce. I know there are limits to "the customer is always right", but this is total BS. Making me struggle with an impossibly small amount of soy sauce is punishable with death. They truly are playing with fire here!

5. The last straw came today. They opted to no longer make their own wasabi. Thats right, a sushi restaurant served me wasabi in a little soy sauce-esque package. When I combined the over-processed wasabi with the maddeningly meager amount of soy sauce, the whole mixture tasted contrived and without heart. My meal was totally ruined. What kind of sushi restaurant would do itself and its customers the disservice of offering wasabi in packet form? Where is the honor in paying some Japanese company a pittance to perform a service you can do yourself. That would be like owning your own cracker factory and going out and buying boxes of Triscits to serve to your guests at a party... Part of the charm of any japanese restaurant is that almost all of its sauces and ingrediants are prepared in house. This is an absolute disgrace, and I cannot allow it to stand!

Bottom line: I cannot imagine the cost savings they are realizing by making the soy sauce and wasabi changes, but it is not worth the loss of quality that their product has suffered. I have now placed Osaka Sushi & Coffee on my banned restaurants list. Of course, in 4 weeks, I will go back there and get pissed off again (ala Subway), but perhaps this post will serve as a strong enough reminder that I won't fall into the trap!

SportsCenter Jumps The Shark

Originally, Sports Center ("SC") existed to show sports highlights from around the country and the world on a fledgling cable network called ESPN. In the mid 80's to early 90's, the show grew in popularity with the emergence of sportscasting legends Chris Berman, Bob Lee, Dan Patrick, Craig Kilborn, and Rich Eisen, with up and coming stars Kenny Mayne and Stuart Scott. [Blogger's Note: Chris Berman has fallen from stardom like Tori Spelling. He lives off his prior reputation, he offers nothing to any show he's on, and he gets paid ludicrously well for sucking at life. While Berman was instrumental in building SC into a franchise, he now offers nothing to sports or sports entertainment.] The show was a hodgepodge of great bits, amazing writing, and it was driven by the anchor personalities. It wasn't about advertising or market share, it was about good TV and a solid broadcast. ESPN built a monopoly by hiring the best talent and putting out the best broadcast. I used to watch it 3 times a day in middle school, high school, and college...

Flash forward to 2006, and the show has long-since become a parody of itself. The legendary anchors have moved on with their own failed projects, and the new generation of sportscasters have become self-centered douchebags more concerned with their own exposure than the quality of their work. The writing is painfully cliched, the show is formulaic, and the anchors, with few exceptions, don't seem to have any passion. Let's not forget that there are so many sports being televised these days, that the anchors can't even devote enough time to sports anyone cares about. Do you think I care who won the Texas Regional 4H Club Sheep Humping Contest? NO! I want the major sports, college athletics, and interesting stuff. Trust me, no one needs to see the guy in Bangledesh who runs straight into an elephant's anus. This may be good TV, but it has its place on FOX. The Budweiser Hot Seat, the Coors Light Sixpack Bullet Points, and all the other idiotic promotions annoy the hell out of me. And let's not forget that every 3 minutes of crappy television product must be matched with 2 minutes of even worse advertisements. ESPN: Just because you essentially have a monopoly doesn't mean you are not responsible to put out a quality broadcast. Get off your butts, hire some quality talent, play the highlights, and cut the commercials, product placements, and cheesy question segments. No one cares about them. Get back to the basics, use your capabilities, and give the consumer a good show.

I tried to reach Sports Center to comment on this piece, but the show claimed to be doing more important things...