:: Ray's Periodic Rantings ::

:: Thursday, April 27, 2006 ::

A different take

Jeffery Feldman's Frameshop has a take on oil and the current rising gasoline prices that artfully uses language to change the focus of the argument. This one is not a downer. Honest.
:: Ray 7:40 PM [+] ::
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The oil we eat

More upbeat reading. Discuss amongst yourselves.
:: Ray 5:26 PM [+] ::
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Impeach!

Residents of Illinois who think that George Bush is the worst president ever and, more importantly, that he has committed impeachable offenses, there is now something you can do about it.

First, read Illinois House Joint Resolution 125, introduced yesterday by Rep. Karen Yarbrough (D, IL7). It is pretty straightforward and easy to understand.

Now, email or write to your State Representative, telling him or her that you support this bill and why. It isn't difficult to do. In fact, the hardest part of the whole thing might be keeping the "why" part of the message down to just a couple of pages. You can find out who your State Rep is (along with your other elected officials) here.

It may not be much, but it's a start.

(via DailyKOS and others)
:: Ray 5:17 PM [+] ::
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Comcast follies continue...

Just when I thought I had experienced the deepest depths of bad customer service with Comcast, it got worse. Their installer showed up yesterday to hook up the phone (or rather, "Digital Voice") and internet at the new house. So far so good. I was unable to be there to oversee the effort, but with Mary watching it all seemed to go well, except that it took a long time and the installer seemed frustrated, having to run a new cable from the pole to the house (which I note is now the fourth one, not counting the electrical hookup...there is a virtual forest of wires above my back yard). Yesterday evening, however, I made a really maddening discovery. In order to run his cables, the Comcast installer had disconnected the DirecTV satellite dish that we had just had put in three days before. I was flabbergasted, and I still am!

It looks like in the process of figuring out which of the previously existing cables were which, he indiscriminately disconnected them all, then left them that way instead of putting them back the way he found them. This strikes me as both rude and irresponsible, but maybe that's just me.

After monkeying around in the dark last night, I got one of the satellite boxes working, but it looks like in order to run the additional line for the second box back into the house (Mr. Comcast actually pulled it out to make room for his cable), I will have to drill a hole. First, however, I have to take the TV and satellite box outside and hook them up to see if the line that is there is the right one. Thanks, Comcast! Having just moved, with a ton of unpacking left to do, I really didn't have anything better to do with my time.

Comcast...home of stunningly bad service all around!
:: Ray 3:41 PM [+] ::
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Idle daydreaming...

Among the reasons I sometimes wish I lived in San Francisco:

Power Tool Drag Races

:: Ray 2:22 PM [+] ::
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Comcast imploding

Has anyone dealt with Comcast lately? I have used them for home phone and cable modem (billed separately) happily for several years. Now, however, I am in the process of moving from one suburb to another, and things have gone to crap.

It turns out that Comcast does not offer the same service in the new suburb. Except that they do. Silly me. It turns out that right now I have Comcast Digital Phone and Comcast Internet. They are billed separately. In my new suburb, however, all that is available is Comcast Internet with Comcast Digital Voice, billed together. Note "Voice" instead of "Phone". From what I can gather, the Voice service is essentially an IP phone routed over Comcast's networks, rather than a cable phone that hooks into the phone system at the local bell central office. Whatever it is, switching from one to the other has been a huge headache. So far, I have been given two different phone numbers along with two different install dates for the new location, and been told by one person that I still had to cancel service at the old location, while told by others that everything seemed set to go.

So now I am in Comcast customer service hell. In trying to straighten the situation out, I am now on my 4th toll free phone number, punching through what seem to be identical menues at each, explaining my story to clueless reps, and trying to give them ticket numbers that they have never heard of. Reps for Comcast Phone have limited access to the files for Comcast Voice, and vice versa, and none of the toll free numbers identifies which of the two divisions it has connected you to. Ack!

Here is the ultimate irony: when I established this service, I originally signed up with AT&T, which was offering the cable phone and internet to compete with Ameritech, the local baby bell of which I was not a fan. Since then, (see if you can keep track without your brain exploding):
1) AT&T sold its cable service (along with my account) to Comcast
2) SBC bought and absorbed Ameritech
3) SBC bought and changed its name to, wait for it...AT&T
The result of these follies is that the company that I signed up with to escape the baby bell is now ma bell again, and that my phone service is instead being provided by a cable company that has proved itself not very adept at customer service across the odd mix of technologies offered by its different divisions.

Welcome to telecommunications in the 21st century!
:: Ray 5:10 PM [+] ::
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April showers bring more photos.

At long last, Burning Man 2005 photos.
:: Ray 3:11 AM [+] ::
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