<< June 30, 2008 >>
i liked me better before i sold out

so, last week i ordered me some comcast. they gave me a 9am to 11am window. here is how it went down:

9:00 I am sitting in my apartment, ready for the cable guy!
10:55 My phone rings. Cable guy is heading over; it'll take about 30-45 minutes.
11:05 I do some research on the internet, and discover comcast's on-time guarantee.*
11:10 Comcast phone rep says i should see a credit for the $100 install (!!!) on my next statement.
11:15 Cable guy shows up.
11:25 After doing who-knows-what in the basement, he comes up and says it should be working. It isn't working right away. He goes downstairs to get a modem out of his truck, and by the time he gets back the modem has a link.
11:30 After closing my firefox and system preferences, he can't figure out how to open safari (i wish i could have seen phil's face had it been his firefox that was closed). The guy is trying to type one-handed, and is fat-fingering everything. he stumbles through the wizard and i create my comcast.net account.
11:35 The wizard thing starts spewing javascript errors. We close it, and cannot get past that point in subsequent attempts. All urls are redirected to some comcast setup page (he determines this by randomly selecting a link from my history), which tries to download a .dmg image. that returns a 403 error, but of course he didn't figure that out.
11:40 I figure up Vista in a VM (should have done that in the first place), but we basically get the same results. Tech support is having problems, i don't know.
11:55 He gives up and says I should call later today or something. I sign a piece of paper that says i am satisfied with the work done, even though it is clear that i am not.
12:00 I click on the "For Technicians" link on the redirect page, and start its stupid wizard.
12:05 I am on the internet.

* GUARANTEE MAY NOT BE AN ACTUAL GUARANTEE

this was actually the first time i was home for a cable modem install, but i have learned some valuble lessons, such as do not let them touch your computer. i just rued again.

in other news, people in wheelchairs were on both of my commutes today. i guess that's what happens when you live next to a hospital.