S1dd - My Other Blog..

We switched from Dish+DSL to Cable in June because of their irresistible offer - 29.99 for Cable (Digital Basic + HBO + Max) for a whole year and 19.99 for Internet for six months. However since the day we switched we have had nothing but trouble.

On the day of installation, our signal was terrible. It turned out that the wire leading to our house was bad. So they replaced that quickly in a week and voila, everything was clear and we were happy for a day. After which it was all downhill again. We get serious noise on analog channels starting from the 50s. All the digital channels face serious pixellation and sound skipping atleast once a minute. Somebody was supposed to show up yesterday to fix the problem and that never happened. I called them several times after their two hour interval was over and was assured several times that the person is running late and will give me a call with his ETA. No such luck. No person and no call to even inform us or reschedule.

To top all this trouble, as soon as I setup automatic payments the promotion disappeared (?) and my bill went up from 54 including tax to 89.85 including tax and a 25$ credit that they gave me for the trouble, which makes a grand total of 114.85!!!!

I called comcast to fix this and the person had no clue why the bill was what it was. She could not figure any of the charges on the bill and wasted half an hour of mine until I just hung up in frustration (I couldn’t shout while I was at work). I was given bogus stories such as “Sir you got cable in Jun but High speed Internet in August”. What the hell have I been paying for from Jun until August then? I have since sent out an email to customer service and hopefully someone will fix things soon. If not, bye bye Cable.

Update: Comcast had automatically changed the time the tech visited to today without informing me! I got a reply from the email I sent comcast and it told me to chat with Customer Service. It turns out that the person I talked to on the phone had atleast reduced my bill some and the chat person reduced my bill back to what it should be. Now if only their tech can fix our channels. P.S. None of this affects the bill shown on the website and on the website there is no way to tell how much you owe!

Update: As usual, nobody showed up again and after a lot of screaming and complaining, I got another 25$ credit and somebody is scheduled to come in another week from now!!! If you are considering switching to Comcast in Charlottesville, think again. I wish the city would allow some competition for Comcast. When we had Dish, we could get no local channels thanks to trees blocking the view of their satellite.

I got an email at 9:42pm yesterday from Blockbuster informing me of changes in my plan:

We hope you’re enjoying BLOCKBUSTER Total Access™!

There are some changes to our subscription plan lineup that introduce a new pricing structure and new plans which limit the number of in-store exchanges.

As a result, your current plan will no be longer be available at the current price.

(Unlimited Online DVDs up to 3 at a time plus unlimited in-store exchanges each month for $17.99)

We’d like to extend you a new plan that includes Unlimited Online DVDs 3 at a time plus up to 5 free* in-store exchanges for $17.99.

In addition, exclusively for BLOCKBUSTER Total Access customers, we have introduced in-store movie rentals for $1.99* per movie should you need more than the in-store exchanges included in your plan.

Your new plan will go into effect on your regular monthly billing date following August 31, 2007. If we don’t hear from you by August 31, 2007, we will automatically move you to the new BLOCKBUSTER Total Access plan referenced below as “Your New Plan”.

So they did hear from me. I emailed than that I was disappointed and can’t trust Blockbuster anymore if they reduce benefits on the best option they had so far and I would like to keep my plan at the same price as an existing customer. This is bullcrap, emailing people on Friday night, probably when they are most likely to miss the email. More discussion on this at fatwallet. When they announced the new pricing, they did seem to say that existing customers would get to keep their plans

A few weeks back, I tried out Pad Thai at 156 Carlton Rd and was totally disappinted. I’m always excited when new Thai places open up but I will not be eating at Pad Thai again.

We picked up dinner just after work and the taste was less than average for a Thai place (every other Thai place I have eaten in Cville and otherwise has had better food). Also the dinner portion still left me hungry after finishing everything. The amount of food in the take out box looked like the amount of leftovers I normally have after a meal at Thai 99. Not that Pad Thai was cheaper than the other Thai places either! So bad food + not enough food! I say stick wiht Lemongrass or Thai 99 at JPA for great Thai Food.

Hollywood is turning every cartoon I watched in my childhood into a movie. This year was Transformers. Coming next year? is Voltron and in 2010 - Thundercats. If they are even half as good as the Transformers movie, I’ll be pleased. And in between those in 2009 is the Transformers sequel and a new He-Man movie - Masters of the Universe.

Now hoping for cheap Dual-Format HD players that can play both Blue-Ray and HD-DVD. Let’s see what comes up this holiday season.