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So I guess Washington beat WSU and won the Apple Cup this weekend. Being as I hate college football, I could really care less. But I thought football was supposed to be a manly sport.
“Apple Cup”? Could there BE a faggier name for a rivalry game? I come from a state where Stanford and Cal (and UCLA and USC, but screw ’em) play in the “Big Game”. Oregon takes a lot of shit for, well, being Oregon, but at least Oregon and OSU play in the “Civil War”. That sounds manly to me. “Apple Cup” sounds like something manufactured by a bunch of Oompa-Loompas.
Well, we’re into the thick of hockey season, now, and last Saturday, the Toronto Maple Leafs came to town. I’ll explain why this is notable in a second, but first, a few words about Ed Belfour:
The Four Of You who read this page should know by now that I am a rampant San Jose Sharks fan. And the Sharks have seen some lean times in the eleven-plus years they have been in the NHL. Then, in 1997, the Sharks finally made The Move, we finally got our All-Star player, when we traded for goaltender Ed Belfour.
Now, Eds was in a contract year, so we knew we were running the risk of him leaving the team at the end of the season, leaving us completely empty handed in return for the players we had traded for him. But everyone was certain that Ed was going to re-sign, as Ed himself had repeatedly told the media how much he liked San Jose, how he thought the team was going places, and how he was looking forward to working out a contract so he could stay.
The season ends, and still no contract. Ed wants to see what he’s worth on the open market, but he’s still 99% sure that he’s going to re-sign with the Sharks. So the Sharks plan accordingly.
July 1 is the first day of free agency, the first day it’s even LEGAL for other teams to talk to players without contracts. And the sun had barely risen on the West Coast before we find out that Ed Belfour had signed a multi-year deal with the Dallas Stars for less than we were offering him. He obvioiusly never had any intention of staying, and had played the Sharks for fools.
Ed Belfour was, and continues to be for many Shark fans, the most hated player in the National Hockey League.
The following year, Ed managed to avoid both of Dallas’s trips into San Jose, and it turns out that the first time he had to face his former team (and the fans he had screwed) was Game Three of the first round of the playoffs. And the fans were not kind. We won that game :)
Over the years, Eds has come back to San Jose Arena, but not frequently…his ability to come up with an injury or illness the night of a game in San Jose against the Sharks has been uncanny. His fear of playing in this building is both obvious and laughable.
After his tenure in Dallas, he signed with the Toronto Maple Leafs, a team who had made a deal with the league that they wouldn’t have to go on West Coast road trips for several years in return for switching to the Eastern Conference. Which includes road games in San Jose. What a coincidence.
This brings us to Saturday night: after five years, the Leafs are finally playing in San Jose again. And the night before, in Los Angeles, Mikael Tellqvist was in net for Toronto. So there’s no excuse, we’re gonna get a shot at The Weasel.
Saturday comes, and it’s time for starting lineups. And who’s in goal for the Leafs? Mikael Tellqvist, again. Eddie supposively has the “flu”. Fans on hand have reported that he looked perfectly healthy to them during warmups. Unbelievable.
So, Ed Belfour, if you’re reading this: You’re a PUSSY. P-U-S-S-Y. A she-male. A man-gina. May you rot in hell.
I shoulda known.
Maybe the Internet side of Comcast is getting their shit together, but the cable side is as hopeless as always.
Today I went on a pilgrimage down to my local Comcast office, for a couple reasons: one, three years of frustration with attempting to order the NHL Center Ice hockey package has made it clear that over-the-phone is not the way to go to insure a successful transaction, and two, because of the nature of Tivo, I’m gonna need a second digital cable box if I’m to watch said hockey while the Tivo records whatever it is it’s gonna record while said hockey is on.
The first part became clear as soon as I got to see it from their point of view: All this time, I’ve received nothing but the telephone equivalent of a blank stare each fall when I call to order Center Ice. I know the reason why, now: nowhere in any of their subscriber software does it ACTUALLY CALL THE PACKAGE “CENTER ICE”, OR IN FACT INCLUDE THE WORD “HOCKEY”! I learned that the “Nhl Full Season” is in fact what I wanted, and we got that squared away without further incident. (Dollars to donuts Opening Night is gonna come and it won’t be working. Again.)
Got my new cable box, too. Got it home, hooked it up, appeared to be fine. Dandy. Figure I’ll put it in my bedroom for now, allow me the luxury of Game Show Network from my bed, and prolly move it out to the living room once the hockey season gets rolling.
Well, tonight, I get in bed, and realize that I hadn’t thought to dial up a digital channel yet. Damn. So I do. And I get the “One Moment Please” screen that three years worth of Comcast fuckin’ up has taught me that they need to fix my box.
So I call. She sends the magic signal to blow out the box. No change. Analog channels, no digital ones. So she tells me to unplug it, let it sit for five minutes, and plug it back in. Should do the trick.
I give it six, ‘cuz I’m a nice guy. Now I get NOTHING. Static even on the analog channels. Toddle out to the living room, check the other box, it’s fine in every respect, digital, analog, it’s all good. Unplug, give it ANOTHER six. Bupkus.
Call BACK Comcast. At this point I’m just trying to get a confirmation that the box is deceased and needs to be swapped out. Silly lady asks me a bunch of questions designed to imply that I don’t know how to hook up a cable box. I’m patient. Prolly ‘cuz it’s late. And ‘cuz I should have seen this coming. She can’t blow out the box ‘cuz the system goes down at this hour. Well, okay.
So I get to call back, ‘cuz they won’t declare the box dead yet. The BEST scenario at this point, I think, is that I get to go out of my way on Monday after work to exchange this box for a new one, which may or may not work. That’s OPTIMUM.
…and in fact, that’s what’s going to happen. Resulting in an errand to either run after work on Monday, or tell ’em I’m gonna be late and go in beforehand. I’m leaning in that direction, actually. Fuckin’ Comcast. I have LITERALLY never made a transaction with this company, either now or when it was AT&T, that has gone right the first time. Monopolies are amazing things.
So I’m driving to work this morning, and listening to the radio, as I am wont to do, the program I am listening to is in an ad break, and there are women oohing and aahing over the “free checking” deal their bank is giving them. “How can they do all of this for FREE?” one of them bubbles happily.
Jee-sus. Please tell me the average American isn’t so blind as to how the banking system works. I’m begging you. Lie to me if you have to.
Look, folks: if you are paying any kind of monthly fee whatsoever to a bank for a checking account, you are a DOLT. When you open a checking account, you are essentially letting the bank borrow any money you have in there for as long as you have it in there, for free (in most cases, keep reading), to invest how they see fit, in order to make more money that they get to keep for themselves.
Let me put that another way: I wanna buy some Microsoft stock. So you’re gonna buy it for me, and when the stock goes up, we’ll sell, and you get your money back and I get all of the profits. Sound good? Of course not.
Now, that’s not to say that checking accounts are completely worthless. There is a significant value to having your money represented in a safe computer for instant retrieval rather than keeping a coffee can in your cupboard or stuffing it in your mattress. But, rest assured that the money the bank makes from your free loan more than makes up for whatever it costs them to provide whatever services they provide to you.
“But my bank gives me .25% if I have more than $10,000 in checking!” Ooh! Pinch me! Do you know what kind of RETURN they get from that? They turn that into a 10% or 15% car loan, rest assured, they can afford to give you .25% of that, and it ain’t gonna keep the filet off of their table.
So the next time you’re in a bank opening a new account, and they’re gushing about all of the “free” crap you get, and they kick you that $15 toaster as a “free gift”, remember the $250 KitchenAid mixer you’re putting in the bank executive’s kitchen.
Comcast sucks.
You’ll find this to be a recurring theme here at Chez Fred, as their suckitude (and by extention, the suckitude that existed before they took over AT&T Broadband Internet) is directly visible on this site. Ya see, when I first started up this Blogger thing, my cable modem was handled by @Home. They did right by me, Blogger worked like a champ, and all was well.
Then the whole AT&T / @Home thing went down, AT&T took their customers hostage, and ATTBI.com was born. At the same time, talking heads started showing up on my TV screen, assuring me I would enjoy “the same great service from AT&T” that I had with @Home.
Well, if by “the same great service”, they meant “We’re gonna throttle the hell out of your download speeds, raise your rates, and implement totally asinine restrictions on network access, including access to our POP3 server through Hotmail” then they certainly succeeded. Oh, and by the way, they also closed off all access to their Web servers from outside of their network. Which meant that Blogger couldn’t publish to my site anymore. And I have YET to get hold of an egghead at ATTBI who can give me a satisfactory reason for keeping Blogger out. Thanks, guys. ‘Preciate it.
Fortunately, Blogger has a service called BlogSpot for people in my predicament. But unless I pay them money, they slap ad banners at the top of the pages they host. And I wouldn’t have to even host them there if AT&T weren’t such idiots.
Long story short, this is why the blog takes forever to load sometimes, and why there’s an ad banner on top. At least I figured out how to anchor past it.
But this isn’t why I rant about Comcast today.
I have digital cable. I noticed that with Comcast taking over the cable side of things from AT&T as well, that there were new cable packages available. I also knew there was a second tier of digital channels I don’t get, which mostly include 47 different niche Discovery Channels that I could give a rip about, but also include VH1 Classic Rock (said to be excellent for an 80’s music geek like me) and TechTV. And I want these but I couldn’t justify paying another $10 a month for them.
So I call Comcast and ask what’s up. She explains to me that woih the Digital Plus package, I would “basically get every channel but the movie ones like HBO and Showtime.” And it would cost me $2.96 a month more than I’m paying now. Well, hell yeah, sign me up, I say. TechTV, here I come! Woo!
So I get home last night, and plop down in front of the TV to tell my TiVo of the wonderous new programming options it has before it. And lo, there are a lot of new channels out there. And TechTV is still turned off. Well, this must just be a mistake, let’s call the cable company and tell ’em to turn on all of my new channels.
“Ah. Sir, you have the Digital Plus package?” “Yes, that’s correct, just got it today!” “Well, um, TechTV and some other channels aren’t in the Digital Plus package, those are part of the Digital Extra service, and those will cost another $5.95.”
What. The. Fuck.
Digital Plus, Digital Extra, I wouldn’t be surprised if they had an obscure package called Digital Extended Remix With A Twist Of Lime Served Up By A Struggling Gay Waiter, that you had to order to get the 24-hour all-Chihuahua channel.
So we sorted it out, I told them I basically didn’t want anything if they couldn’t give me the channels I wanted in one package, and they set my cable back the way it was.
But still. Digital Extra. And there is NO mention of this on the website, by the way.
Comcast sucks.
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