Comcast still sucking!

So, since Saturday, we've had a total of 6 technicians and 2 maintenance here at the house. Hell, yesterday, we had 3 techs here at the same time. Guess what? OUR INTERNET IS STILL FRIGGIN BROKE!

They can see the problem, it only took 3 different techs coming here to determine that problem! Yet, when I call to complain that our service is not working, the person on the other end of the phone insists that their techs "know what they are doing and are supposed to do" No they don't, hell I've had to tell each tech what to do to find out that there was a problem, so when is Comcast gonna start paying me for training their techs?

Yesterday they "found" the problem. But, they didn't fix the problem.... They have good signal on the pole a block away, and bad signal here at the pole that goes to my house. Do I really have to tell you morons how to fix this problem? RUN A NEW FRICKIN CABLE FROM THAT POLE TO MINE!!! GET WITH THE PROGRAM PEOPLE, AND STOP WASTING MY TIME WITH ALL THESE TECHS THAT DON'T KNOW ANYTHING!

One of the things that I find amusing...they told my wife to check the connection today to see if it was ok. But, if it wasn't ok, she needed to wait until noon to call??? Why? Tell you what, it's still not working here at 10 AM, I'm calling and rippin heads off.

Comcast strikes AGAIN!

These two screenshots were done less than 5 minutes apart.

Comcast pisses me off so much right now, I feel a migraine coming on.

3 days ago, we started having issues with our internet connection speeds. First noticed that there was an issue when Paulette started dropping calls on her VOIP work phone. Then I started noticing when I turned on the 360 and my lag was so bad, it's almost unplayable. I called Comcast and waited on hold for 30 minutes, somebody picks up the phone and then hangs up on me. I call again, and am told that the "business side" is closed, I explained that I just got through, but was hung up on, so I was transferred again. This time somebody did pick up and proceeded to tell me that their network was down, and that she couldn't help me with anything, check back in a couple of hours.

The next day, Paulette calls, and they have an automated response stating that there are multiple outages in the area, and expected repair time was unknown.

Today, Saturday June 5th, I attempt to play on the 360 again. My connection is like I'm on dial-up. People are warping all over the place, I fire a shot at somebody, see them round the corner and about 2 seconds later, they die from my shot. Instead of 3-4 bars of green connection, I am lucky to get 2 bars in yellow, and spend most of the time with 1 bar in red.

The problem lies in the fact that it is not like this 100% of the time. It has it's good moments, and it has it's bad moments. The bad moments seem to outnumber the good ones by a large amount though while trying to game online.

So, I call Comcast. I spent about 40 minutes on hold before someone answers. I explain to the person on the end of the line my situation, telling her that one second I can ping yahoo.com at 35 ms, and a minute later, I ping yahoo.com and get a speed of 300+ ms. She says to me, so you can't get on the internet? I said, no, I can get on just fine, it's just unbelievably SLOW! She tells me a tech can be here between 1 and 4 PM. This is GREAT news to me! It was about 12PM at this time, so I wouldn't be wasting the day waiting.

The tech arrives, and proceeds to spend approximately an hour here. He came in, sat at one of the 2 computers in the office and proceeds to run ping, tracert, and Comcast's own speedtest. Having the computer hooked directly to the modem (as it is usually), he was pinging and getting the same results that I was. He proceeded to do the speedtest on the web, and it was giving excellent pings. But, as soon as we went back to DOS and did the testing, it was crap.

After about 4 phone calls to other techs in the area, he decided to replace the modem. After that ordeal was done, no change. I say ordeal because he had to make 2 separate phone calls to switch out a modem, which meant 2 different times he had to sit on hold. He was getting great ping from speedtest, and not from DOS. Another couple of phone calls, and we had accomplished NOTHING! He basically said that was all that could be done, and that the last phone call was to "Level 3 Tech Support". WOW, REALLY??? Level 3 out of what? 3? 100? At this point, he left, and basically told me that it was as good as it was going to get. He said he would check the line outside, and walked out the door, got in his van, filled out some paperwork, and left. He never did check the line.

My problems with this whole ordeal is:
1) Don't have techs answering phone customer support that don't even know what "pinging" is!
2) The tech did what he knew how to do, and what he could do with the equipment he was given. I hear him say multiple times that, "Oh, we don't have those here." and "Yes, we have the tool, but what I need isn't "unlocked" on ours" WTH people, you are sending techs to go handle problems without the TOOLS that they NEED! Get with the flipping program.
3) The tech NEVER ONCE tested the line coming into the modem. Pinging to speedtest was fine, it only sends out one signal to ping back. Then it takes 1 minute for the process to run to show speeds. He only did this a couple times, and it always came back with good response. I just did 5 tests consecutively, as soon as one was done, I started the next. Guess what? First 2 showed great results, 31ms and 32 ms. Guess what the last 3 did?? Yeah, 116, 212, and 174....

Now, what do I do? The techs answering the phones don't understand laymen geek speak. The techs in the field are overworked, and don't have the equipment needed to do the testing that needs to be done. I have busted frickin internet, and all they can do is say, well, that's as good as it's going to get. But, when I go to get off the phone with them, they LOVE to say, "And thank you for choosing Comcast!" LIKE I HAVE A FLIPPING CHOICE???

Now send somebody here to monitor my line for 1 hour, hell I'll let you get away with half of one. THEN tell me there isn't a problem! Oh wait, they don't have those tools here... Just remember, not all of your customers are idiots that believe everything they are told, some of them do know their stuff. This is business class internet for a reason, there is a business being run here. If my wife can't answer the phone to run the business, then we don't get paid. Guess what? We don't get paid, YOU DON'T GET PAID! GET OUT HERE AND FIX IT!

I'll be calling again on Monday, since I'm sure I won't have a snowballs chance in hell of getting somebody on the phone line on a Sunday without at least an hour wait! And I don't have much more time to waste on Comcast! Don't believe me, check the previous fun we've had trying to get a Tivo hooked up!.

Comcast, The End....Or is it?

We finally got our cable set up.  UGH!  What a craptastic situation.  Comcastic my butt.  They sent a senior tech out to install the cards.  DH said he was a "senior" alright.  Geez.  He had no idea how to do the TiVo, and had to call someone else.  Turns out the card was definitely bad, so they replaced both.  All working, doing good now.  Then I got the bill.  Longest bill ever.  A bunch of  partial month charges on there for this that and the other, I think it was 6 pages, when it's normally 2.

So, what's the moral of the story?  Comcast Home service stinks.  The Business side is fine.  And if they give you a credit, you can be darn sure that it will end up being eaten up by stupid "change of service" charges.

An update on the Comcast Situation aka Comcast part 2

Alright boys and girls.  I know you've been patiently awaiting this. (HAHAHA) 

Wednesday our appt was scheduled for between 1 and 4.  Now I only found this out by calling Comcast, no one bothered to let me know.  DH had a dr. appt in the AM, so stayed home afterwards waiting on them to show.  4:00 came with no technician.  Hmmm, sounds familiar right?  I called, and got to escalations, who placed a call out to find out where our guy was.  We were told that he was on the way.  5:00 and still no tech.  Called again, and this time they assured me that he would be here in 5 - 10 minutes.  The tech showed at 5:18.  I sent an email to the Comcast National Customer Operations Center We_Can_Help@cable.comcast.com at 5:22 to let them know he was here.  Our tech that showed up was Larry, and he was very nice.  He informed us of some issues that they were having with their handheld devices and that they basically suck.  He also said he was re-assigned to our job at about 4:30.  He stayed with us for a little over an hour to try and get things going.  He installed the cablecards to our new TiVo, and we got it to where it was mostly working.  TiVo needed to run an update to the system, which didn't happen till 2:00 am, and the TiVo rep said it can take up to 2 hours for them to function completely.  As of yesterday they are both working properly. I spoke to many different supervisors, and the tech just called me back again 3/226 @ 1:30 to make sure that everything was okay.

So as it stands now, we have a $40 credit to our account for missing the appointment on Tuesday, and on Wednesday.  Tell me people, would you be satisfied with that?

I also have not heard back from the National Customer Operations Center.  And if you're reading this, you can email me with any questions. 

Oh Comcast, How I Loathe Thee

What a horrible wasted day!  Comcast was supposed to be here between 1 and 4 to install 2 cablecards for our TiVo.  4:30 arrived and no tech!  So I called, and told the girl that I could wait for a little bit (since I had to work till 5 anyway) and see if he arrived.   She was supposed to have someone call me back to let me know when he was going to be here.  5:15, I called back and they said that I was the next stop and that my newly scheduled appt was from 4-7, and then when I asked about the $20 credit that they advertise, the guy gave it to me.  Apparently you have to ask.  So I waited till I could wait no longer, since I had to drive across town to get Melissa. 6:15 I called them back to find out WTF, and of course after I get a rep on the phone I hear the guy knocking on the door.  That rep said she would give me another $20 credit.  Well, I let the guy in, and ran back to get the phone and tell the rep he was here, and I told the guy just to install the cards, and left him to his work for 2 min.  I assumed he installed them, since he showed them to me.  Then he goes on this tangent about how they have to do some BS, and I told him that I was walking out the door.  So he said he (or someone else) would come back tomorrow to finish it.  Well the idiot didn't even install the cards!  We have to pull the whole TV setup apart to put the box in, and wanted the cards installed, because it will be impossible to get them in once it's put in place.  What a bunch of BS!  I am so mad at them!!!!!!  Now I have to wait around to see if they are going to show tomorrow!

Milk Carton

I stumbled across this cute little milk carton box, and apparently there is a die you can buy to make it.  Well, I figured that I could figure it out, couldn't be that hard!

So here is my pattern. 

You will definitely need a score board for this.

With your paper horizontal, score at 1/2", 2 1/2" and 6".  Turn clockwise, and score at 1", 3 1/2", 6" and  8 1/2".  Make a second set of scores only down to the 1/2" horizontal line at 2 1/4", 4 3/4", 7 1/4" and 9 3/4".

Score the top portion as shown on the horizontal.

Prefold on the score lines.  Cut the bottom 2 1/2" section up to the 6" score and remove the bottom left piece, and assemble.

I am going to try and get a video up and step by step tutorial on how to do this as well.

Anniversary Card

This is the card I was working on the other day.  The secret one!

I stamped the background on red with the heart stamp from Confession:  i {luv} unity in black and silver.  The sentiment is from the January 2010 Kit of the Month Club which I popped up with 3-d Dots.  I then cut out a mask, and stamped the red heart in the middle with a homemade mosaic stamp, and outlined it with my white signo gel pen, and added some Queen and Co. Rhinestones in the corner.  The blue mat underneath is embossed with hearts from the Fiskars Texture plates, and finally I added some diamond stickles to the heart on the sentiment.

Today is our 6th anniversary, and DH's B-day, so we're celebrating in style.  Yesterday we went to the Cheesecake factory, and tonight we're hitting our favorite italian restaurant.  I Love love!

A Delicious Dinner!

I was very pleased with myself last night, and cooked a really good dinner!  After going to the store and picking up a few things this weekend, the refrigerator was very full of things to be taken care of, and since we're trying to eat better for DH, I thought I would cook up something.  I was going loosely after a recipe my brother gave me.

I sauted 5 chicken breasts with about 8 cloves of garlic that I squeezed right over the top.  I added about half a jar of sundried tomatoes and oil, and then some white wine (don't I add wine to everything?).  I didn't have any heavy cream, so I used a can of cream of celery soup.  Since I wanted it to be a little bit richer than that, I added some cheese, mozzarella and a little bit of parmesean.  I made up some whole wheat penne to go with that, and then sauted a bag of spinach with about 5 cloves of garlic and a little bit of anisette.  I know that it sounds like a lot of garlic, but it was strong at all, because I added it at the beginning of cooking.

I will definitely make it again.  It was delicious, and if you are in need of an easy dinner, this is it!

Sourdough Starter Part 2

Well, my original intents on the sourdough starter, poolish method did not go so well.  I threw it out last night.  It did not do what it was supposed to do, and I tired of it quickly.  So I am doing a Desem method sourdough bread instead.  I'm not going to go into the whole method.  You can read about it here.  Tonight starts day 7, so I hope to bake bread within the next two days with this.  It smells pretty good, and its nice and sour.  Now the problem with this is going to be converting it to a liquid starter so that I can give it to my mother too.  So, I picked up 3 books at the library to assist me with my sourdough endeavors.  Any of these 3 would be a great addition to my library (ahem).

I originally went in looking for The Laurel's Kitchen Bread Book by Laurel Robertson, which I thought they had, but they didn't.  Instead I got:  Bread A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes by Jeffrey Hamelman, The King Aurthur Flour Baker's Companion, and The Bread Bible by Rose Levy Bernbaum

The first book, Bread, A Baker's Book of Techniques and Recipes is full of great information, and a good conversion table for convering the stiff starter to a liquid one.  Most of the recipes are for large format baking though.  Easy if you have an 80 quart mixer, but I don't have access to one anymore.  I really liked the King Aurthur Flour book, it has some great recipes in it, and the long lost Panzanella recipe, which technically isnt a baking recipe, but totally cool that they included it.  Not a lot of info about sourdough, but it would be a great general baking book to own.  The last book the Bread Bible I was reluctant to pick up, because the writer is one of those "cookbook writers" and not a real baker or chef.  Luckily she did a lot of research, and it had a lot of good stuff in there, most important the bakers percentage which I had never heard of which is strange because I was a commercial baker.

Anyway, tonight I will be dividing the desem to bake.  From what I read, it should take all day to rise.  Hopefully tomorrow night we will have some bread!

A Sourdough Starter Experiment

So He says He wants me to make Sourdough.  Only problem is we have no starter.  So I'm off to find a recipe!

3/8 cup of Flour
1/4 cup of water

Now I wait 12 - 24 hours....