Sunday, February 23, 2014
Saturday, February 22, 2014
Friday, February 21, 2014
Pot holes and idiocy on pot laws
My car is in the shop today because I was driving on a random street and my front tire was sucked into one of the regions massive pot holes, caused in no part by Climate Change. The problem with my local streets has little to do with the weather and everything to do with the state/county/city not having the funds to keep roads in decent shape.
So I was wondering, where could my stupid state find money to pay for road repairs? Look no further than Colorado you moronic imbeciles who are elected to find ways to fund necessary projects, like roads. This from the Denver Post:
"DENVER—Colorado's legal marijuana market is far exceeding tax expectations, according to a budget proposal released Wednesday by Gov. John Hickenlooper that gives the first official estimate of how much the state expects to make from pot taxes.
So I was wondering, where could my stupid state find money to pay for road repairs? Look no further than Colorado you moronic imbeciles who are elected to find ways to fund necessary projects, like roads. This from the Denver Post:
"DENVER—Colorado's legal marijuana market is far exceeding tax expectations, according to a budget proposal released Wednesday by Gov. John Hickenlooper that gives the first official estimate of how much the state expects to make from pot taxes.
The proposal outlines plans to spend some $99 million next fiscal year on substance abuse prevention, youth marijuana use prevention and other priorities. The money would come from a statewide 12.9 percent sales tax on recreational pot. Colorado's total pot sales next fiscal year were estimated to be about $610 million."
Thursday, February 20, 2014
The never ending Comcast shuffle continues
How does Comcast stay on top as the worst internet provider in history? I decided to look into how a single company can remain terrible constantly for a long period of time.
History: for the last 14 months I have been paying Comcast for something they advertise as “blast” internet service, which promises constantly high speed internet. Never do the speeds match the promise and once I realized that, I jumped right into the rabbit hole of Comcast happy talk and promises made of rare Unicorn meat.
See, the deal with Comcast is pretty simple, promise customers an awful lot and don’t deliver any of it.
The brilliance of Comcast philosophy is that they seemingly have outsourced all their phone answering technicians to a far off country where English is not even a second, third or fourth language, so when you call, the conversation can only amount to pleasant promises in something that sounds an awful lot like a mix between broken English and Martian.
What Comcast favors is not only the poorly worded script these terribly paid employees in a bunker somewhere east of China rhythmically announce, but also the monthly visits from actual human technicians, who must get paid by the visit, because a few of these hard working people have stayed for pizza and beer.
Here is how Comcast handles reports of bad service. First, the far off, non-English speaking employee promises that “with this calt, we make you service work good.” Once or twice, when you hear such a promise, you think to yourself, “finally a Comcast employee dedicated to fixing my terrible service.” Such a thought is really worthless, because I am imagining a call-center in some slum warehouse outside an equally terrible small city, in an even more equally terrible country. These minions have been trained to only say a few things understandably, such as, “this time we get job done” and “I can send technician to your homes and sometime they fix your problem, yes?”
Now, I am not expert of the secret training sessions that Comcast must put every employee through, but my guess is that the training session sounds something like this, “make promises we have no intent on following through on, keep making these promises and when all else fails, mail more empty promises that THIS time all will be repaired.”
I don’t know if that’s an exact quote, but from my own experience, it has to be close.
So, over the last 14 months I have made countless calls to some far off call center, where the nice man/woman (trust me, it’s impossible to tell the difference) makes promises about repairs and then more promises about how important my call is to them and then at some point sends technicians to my home, who in turn makes more empty promises.
In the past 14 months I have had eight technicians visit my house. Not the same technician mind you, because sometimes Comcast pretends that someone with superior knowledge and skill with be coming by and repairing my failure of an internet system. Of course, in the grand scheme that is the Comcast customer service protocol, the same home visit will play out as some sort of staged technical ballet. They will walk in, check the current Comcast modem, look at the wires, walk through my basement, put a ladder up against some pole and announce, “we are working to improve the service in your neighborhood.” Then they will get back in their Comcast van, laughing hardily and drive away, only to do the same routine to another Comcast victim somewhere down the road.
One of the most remarkable aspects of dealing with Comcast is how quickly the English speaking employees will tell you that “Comcast has no intention of ever fixing this current problem.” Seriously, I have had numerous technicians in my house over the last 14 months and the vast majority of them have told me the same thing. While they get paid to visit homes and businesses with faulty Comcast service, they hardly ever do anything but test connections, replace perfectly functioning modems and make promises about how the service will certainly be repaired in a short amount of time. When questioned about these promises, a vast majority of the service technicians will tell you the truth, Comcast never repairs anything unless it’s an obvious easy fix.
Never repair anything. That is true, I have heard that so many times from Comcast employees that I am sure that is the way things work at this megalomaniacal corportation. Part of the problem it seems is that Comcast continues to use cable wires installed up to 30 years ago. Once I asked a Comcast technician when the company might replace the existing elderly non-functional wires in my neighborhood. He laughed and told me it would be wise to just move to a newer community that has newer wiring. “You mean there is no plan to replace the obvious failing wires?” I have asked, incredulously. “Not a chance,” every Comcast employee has told me with a smirk and a shoulder shrug.
Comcast is not only brilliant at making promises that will never happen, but if you are thinking maybe just have your service changed from the promise of super-high speed to a lower cost “average” Comcast internet speed service. I have also asked both the far off customer service people, but I have also put that very question to Comcast technicians standing in my living room. The honest answer I have received countless times is, if I pay less, expect even worse speeds.
As it stands, I often get speeds just a little faster than dialup. So, I have followed up my query to Comcast technicians by sharing, “I did not think my internet speeds could get worse.” The smiling employee will then let me in on a little Comcast secret, “your service can always get worse with Comcast.”
Former president Ronald Reagan often said that the scariest 9 words a person in America can hear are “we’re from the government and we’re here to help.” Reagan did not live long enough to expect high speed internet in his palatial Los Angeles home, but had he hung on for a few more years I am sure he would have changed his warning to, “we’re here from Comcast and we’d like to fix your internet problem.”
Wednesday, February 19, 2014
Tuesday, February 18, 2014
Travels of a clock
An elderly woman is spending the day photographing a clock on her adventures in Portland. Here is one.
Friday, February 14, 2014
Thursday, February 13, 2014
Wednesday, February 12, 2014
Comcast, the worst company in the universe
For over a year I have been trying in every possible manner to get the goofballs at Comcast to actually deliver what they promise, a high speed internet (for which we pay an exceptional amount of money). Instead, I have had what can only be called a master level course on everything that is wrong with large corporations who outsource their customer service to distant lands and never have any plan of delivering the services they promise.
Since January 2013 we have been basically begging Comcast to deliver the high speed internet they are more than happy to charge us for, but seemingly intent on never delivering. Where we live, the only option for higher that dial up service is Comcast, so we are doomed. When we realized that the speeds never met the Comcast promise, we began a dangerous dance with the crummy corporation.
At least once a month we have welcomed a Comcast technician into our house, and every time we have received the news that something was found that contributed to the lack of real internet speeds. Not once have these “fixes” actually led to the promoted speeds that Comcast is constantly bragging about.
The best thing about this terrible company is that they have outsourced their customer service phone service, so when you call, you almost always get someone who barely speaks English, but they consistently say, “Hello, my name is Barbie and I am here to make sure we have a solution to your problem.”
Of course, Barbie is never really named Barbie and Comcast has no plan to solve any problem, unless it is a billing issue and then that particular problem is always solved in seconds.
What I have learned over the past 13 months is no matter what the issue, the long distance customer service agent (Barbie) will never solve anything. He/she will promise to get to the bottom of this, then pretend to send this issue to a higher authority and that will be it. When you get finished being beaten down by this stupidity and decide in your best health to discontinue calling this far off land of customer service centers, Comcast will think they have miraculously actually solved an issue.
That of course is never true. My sense is Comcast is like a bad dog who constantly poops on your best rug and after a month or two of this, you either give on training, or throw out the rug, either way the badly trained dog wins.
Recently I called Comcast again and asked that somehow they actually figure out a way to deliver their promised speeds. I was told that this was news to them that my speeds remain terrible, since I had not called in 2 months. Instead of actually doing anything to fix the issue, the Barbie of this conversation recommended that I call whenever I experience slow service. I then explained to Barbie that I would be calling every day if that was the only way to get it fixed and Barbie said, “that may actually get your internet repaired.”
So I have added the Comcast customer service number to my favorites and everyday at lunch I call and speak with the latest Barbie and I complain about the slow internet speeds and he/she says that this will be a priority and everything will work out. I am pretty sure nothing will ever come of these phone calls, but at least one Barbie told me that if I ever make it to China we should meet for coffee, so there’s that.
Tuesday, February 11, 2014
Monday, February 10, 2014
Lets read the comments from ESPN fanboys on a top prospect announcing he happens to be gay
A top NFL prospect came out today, which is super swell. But instead of that story, which is not really a story since most of the NFL players are kind of gay anyway, but instead of a story of the first top NFL draft coming out and being honest about his sexuality, I find the most important thing to do is read comments on a sports related website.
So, congrats to Michael Sam for being a courageous young American. Here are the reactions of some grown adults posting on the ESPN website, a website open to the entire world at no charge.
So, congrats to Michael Sam for being a courageous young American. Here are the reactions of some grown adults posting on the ESPN website, a website open to the entire world at no charge.
Matthew Engel
Why in the hell do gays feel they need to tell the world their private sexual business? No one gives a crap if you take it in the butt
- Warren Bolden · Top Commenter · Arizona State University at the Polytechnic campus
Thursday, February 6, 2014
Wednesday, February 5, 2014
Monday, February 3, 2014
Polite Seattle fans barely go crazy
Celebrating Seattle fans after a Super Bowl win are still Seattle people, prone to waiting for a green light to walk across the street.
Sunday, February 2, 2014
Super Bowl headline of the day
The Great Pubic Debate: 'If You Don't Like My Hair, Stay Away From My Vagina'
A shirt mitzvah
I learned something important this week, that is you should always trust strangers you meet on the internet.
First a slap of recent history. I posted some pictures of t-shirts I was about to send to a friend of mine as part of a decades long competition where each of us continually send the other fabulous and unique shirts we find during our various travels. The photos contained one shirt that someone who happened upon my blog found awesome.
So, we corresponded back and forth, and soon enough I was sending a nice midwesterner the shirt he could no longer live without. He promised to send me some mystery t-shirt that I am sure will be equally amazing. Yesterday I received the shirt he sent and today I got an email from my internet friend who expressed happiness with his shirt.
Meanwhile I also packaged up and sent a box stuffed with remarkable and beautiful shirts to my friend in New York. The lesson I learned is that the world is filled with a vast majority of nice people who do nice things.
Saturday, February 1, 2014
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