Road Apples, #164

Comcast...File this under "giving credit where credit is due".  The local Comcast supervisor, a Mr Donald Kondraski, really came through for us.  It was his intercession that got the local pole wiring replaced, and since then our Internet service has been flawlessly working, and actually faster than before.  While I said some unkind things about Comcast (all true), in the end this gentleman pulled it out.  Give that man a raise Comcast!

The End of the Mac Experiment...Yes, my Mac is being donated to my youngest daughter.  This posting, as a matter of fact, is being typed on my new set-up, an HP desktop running Windows 10 on an Intel i3 processor.  It's fast enough, and I can further juice up the RAM.  The hard drive is 1TB, which is plenty of storage.  So far, so good.  It's nice to have a familiar set of tools in front of me, and I can safely say that I've been cured of the Apple bug.  The transition wasn't without some extra work, as getting my display to work with the new PC via an HDMI connection required some finessing, but all's well that ends well.  All that's left is to finish installing some software.

By the way, Windows 10 is great, particularly when compared to that unmitigated disaster, Windows 8.  There is a part of Windows 8 that remains on the machine, but thankfully the basic interface is classic windows stuff, complete with that I missed the most, namely painfully easy file management.

Radio Face...While working on a group presentation for my current graduate school class, I was paid a nice compliment about the quality of my speaking voice.  I've gotten the "you have a radio voice" compliment before, and it's nice to hear.  It does make me think though that I also happen to have something of a radio face to boot.  Now in truth, I know that's not completely true.  At my best I clean up rather well.

BBC...is getting ready to ruin Top Gear.  It will just never be the same without Jeremy, James and "the Hamster".  I don't know who the new host is, and quite frankly, I'm not sure I want to find out.  I mean how could you possibly top the old guys?  The played soccer with cars once and had a lit gas grill going in the back of a truck.

Uma Thurman...I confess, I really like the Fall Out Boy song "Uma Thurman", in spite of the fact that Fall Out Boy seems a bit Emo to me & that the song uses a sample, which I find a horrid, unoriginal practice.  It all works though in this song.  See for yourself.


It's catchy & clever (kind of like Blurred Lines, but without all the perv-y elements).  The video is fun to watch as well.

The Turn...I can feel "the turn" happening.  This is when the seasons really begin to change, and despite the heat wave we had in these parts through part of last week, I'm thinking that things are changing.  In as much as I really don't like Winter all that much, I have to confess that I enjoy there being an end to endlessly hot days.  This is why there won't be any retirement for me in the deep south or southwest; nice places, but just not for me.  Now to begin my favorite season, Fall.

Presidential Race...It looks like the smart-person glasses haven't been enough to keep Rick Perry in the Presidential race.  In terms relative to the current GOP field (compare him to Trump & Huckabee) Perry was one of the more moderate candidates, which in and of itself is a shocking statement.  I suspect that his 0-1% support might end up going to Rafael Cruz, which will make exactly no difference.  This will be the first of many, although I've always suspected that some are in this race simply because:

1) It's a kind of job.
2) They can use the exposure to sell books and stuff.

See Mike Huckabee and Rick Santorum.

On the plus side, Dr Ben Carson is doing well.  While I don't think I'd vote for him (one never knows though...), he's the kind of outsider that I think most GOP voters want, without the monstrous ego and woman-hating of Donald Trump.

Comcast Follies

Well it was two wasted afternoons for me where I could have been working on school or work "stuff".  Yes, my Internet service is still about as reliable as the Philadelphia Phillies' pitching staff (proof HERE...and I don't even like baseball smilies).

I don't want to discredit the work of the in-person technicians who have been to my home, a total of FOUR times already.  In fact, the last gentleman brought his supervisor along for the ride.  This was yesterday afternoon.  They made with laptops, pole climbing and gadgetry that would make the Ghostbusters look underprepared.  The supervisor also provided an explanation of sorts:

• I am not crazy.
• It's not my router (which as been now been replaced a total three times).
• It's not my wiring, all of which has been replaced.
• There is no noted squirrel damage, which apparently is a big issue in West Pittston.
• It does have something to do with the heat.
• It also has something possibly to do with someone in the area who may be doing a little internal signal boosting, causing some kind of feedback into the system.  Thanks neighbor!

Explanation in hand, my two visitors yesterday still did not fix my problem.  That, it appears, will have to come with the pole wiring being replaced in this general vicinity.  I was told that would be happening today, starting around 3am.  For the record, I see no evidence of Comcast trucks (or their workers) stringing wires.

Did I mention that the Internet service died about 10 minutes before my graduate class yesterday evening?  Yes, while I was trying to focus on the finer points about whether or not Emotional Intelligence can be taught, I was instead worried that I'd be booted from the virtual classroom, courtesy of Comcast.  Not a good experience.

The Internet was not working the this morning, for the record.

A small glimmer of hope has emerged from this all though, in that while on the Comcast International Roulette Wheel of customer service, a representative (named "Nina"...I think...) suggested that I disconnect the coaxial cable from the back of the router and then reconnect it.  That operation seems to restore the service...until it goes down again.

Somehow I'm thinking that if my payments were about as reliable as Comcast's Internet service I would have already gotten the boot.  Credit to me for being more patient than Comcast, which provides absolutely zero benefit for anything as far as I can tell.

Anyway, I just want what I pay...a lot...for, namely Internet service that works all the freak'n time.

Rant concluded.