wtf, google blogger?

ahhh, apparently the cookie that tells the google blogger servers whether i want to track my own page views is browser specific so not using a browser for a while (and how long is a while?... 30 days maybe?) means blogger google stats goes back to counting my page views which totally skews all the stats cuz i don't know how many page views are me and how many are readers or visitors and that defeats the purpose of keeping stats...

expiration dates on stat cookies should be years, not days...

sheeesh...

windows defender

excuse me, windows defender just interrupted my conversation with a friend and other computer usage for no apparent reason... it did not scan, perhaps because i was typing as it popped up... i never even used it, it was disabled when i installed my anti-virus software because it is not compatible... but recently when firefox crashed one time too many i opened internet explorer and suddenly windows defender is scheduled to run daily... it doesn't matter what i am doing, it interrupts... another unnecessary annoyance from the idiots at microsoft who can't seem to understand that my use of my computer should be the priority and microsoft software should not usurp control over my computer (unless they'd like to pay for it)... dang proprietary software codes, when will they ever learn they will never have satisfied customers unless they start respecting customers...

and they wonder why so many say microsoft sucks... like they care with their billions...

brighthouse does it again

ever since the move, just like the last time we moved a few years ago, brighthouse internet has been intermittent anywhere but in the same room as the router... it took several home visits and changing routers and changing the wall connection and changing the external connection to get the service to produce a strong enough signal to actually provide internet through the 1200 square foot space... way too much of my time was taken up by the crappy brighthouse fixes... and here we are again... i've got to set up a service call... the green light on the router that is supposed to stay on steady is constantly blinking... the internet connection is intermittent... and cable is down again...

brighthouse is terrible service... the cable continues to have the same problems over and over and over and over (and those are just some of the records of the complaints) ... we need the internet for our jobs and it will not work consistently... i so do not want to spend hours working for brighthouse for nothing like i did after the last move and other times... we shall see if the compensation for my time, inconvenience, and frustration is worth my time or if i finally give up on brighthouse and try a different cable and internet service...

brighthouse roadrunner broadband turbo internet (updated 3/18/13, trending downward):

working near perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

5% of the time 5% of the time 85% of the time 5% of the time

no problems slow downs intermittent connection, reboot requires a call to tech support or repair visit

brighthouse digital hd cable tv (table updated 3/18/13, still trending downward):

working perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

0% of the time 0% of the time 85% of the time 15% of the time

no problems delays, box/channels reset occasionally, software does not adjust aspect ratio and picture size automatically sound does not go on at start, box resets/blinks every 60 seconds, aspect ratio and picture size are off box/channel resets every 10-15 seconds or other issue requires reboot, call to tech support, or visit

microsoft and so on

Adobe has yet another update it wants to install... and once again it failed... Java has yet another update it wants to install... and once again it failed too... Windows has thirteen, yes 13 "important" updates it wants to install... it's been trying to do that for five minutes... so far the software companies have oqned this computer for fifteen minutes... is it just windows vista that sucks or does adobe and java and all windows updates that suck, who knows (somebody must know, so feel free to suggest why updates fail and why they want to update so often and why they take so long to complete when they do update and yes, i turn everything off except for this notebook text box... and i am bored since i sat down here to use the computer but microsoft will not let me use this computer as i would like to... time to shut down the computer because microsoft wants me to...

so now forty minutes into this annoyance, update does not pop up again after the computer finally reboots... Adobe apparently succeeded once i went to the website after restart... so i open windows update and it tells me no important updates need to be installed... and yet, when i look at update history, four of the "important" updates failed... but there's no way to try to reinstall them... so i click on a few things and no help... i finally get to the microsoft website and it explains a "what if" scenario involving Office 2013 that i don't have and no help... so i send the error messages to microsoft and i am left with four failed "important" security updates... and an hour passed working for mocrosoft, adobe, and java... and adobe insists on installing google crome... and java insists on installing the ask toolbar... and microsoft, well, microsoft is in a category of inconvenience, annoyance, and intrusion all it's own... an hour of my life gone... i suppose that's my payment for their free software, but then, they should not get to advertise on software i pay for...

well, at least brighthouse is happy microsoft came along today (though the internet connection here continues to be more problemmatic than it was at the last location)... someday computers will actually work logically and reasonably like other products we own... wouldn't that be spacial...

waiting for the brighthouse connection

i occasionally get a message here or by phone from brighthouse sales or technicians that appear to be efforts to resolve the on-going service interruptions i frequently experience, a few of which have been chronicled in this blog... today i am brought here due to continued poor service preventing me from enjoying cable programming... in this entry, i will also address why i have stopped responding to the brighthouse calls... the bottom line is this - if the solution brighthouse is offering does not start with a monthly discount for my time, energy, and interrupted service, i am not interested in wasting more of my time trying to fix the continuing brighthouse problems...

now to today's issue...

first, should it take 3-5 minutes to use the remote to use the search feature to find a specific show you want?... when you press your remote, does nothing happen for ten seconds or longer?... when scrolling through channels, does the scrolling freeze and take sixty seconds to get through the first 100 channels?...

when you want to find out when specific shows are on, for instance, which football games are being broadcast on which channels at what time, can you do that in less than 5 minutes without loosing your feed to the game you are currently watching?...

if you can do these things with brighthouse, then you are getting better service than i am... i do not know if it is the converter box or the line conditions or something at the brighthouse connections or bandwidth or something else, but the delays in receiving signals simply switching stations or scrolling through the stations is unacceptably long...

let's look at the solutions and customer satisfaction...

the first solution is change the batteries in the remote... i do that monthly, even more often at times... i do not use the remote daily... the batteries i remove from the remote are still very effective in any other electronic product and testing shows they are still good batteries... i have changed the remote several times... the remote does not seem to be the primary problem...

the next solution is reboot the box (again, a weekly activity which is ridiculous inconvenience and lowers my customer satisfaction a lot)... i do not work for brighthouse... i pay brighthouse for service...

it is as simple as this...

i should not have to provide service for brighthouse equipment unless brighthouse pays me to provide service... to resolve this customer dissatisfaction, i should be paid for each service i provide for brighthouse equipment... my time and energy has value... a $5 discount for each required reboot would be appropriate...

as i manually reboot on average weekly due to lagging service or other issues, a $20 discount monthly is required for customer satisfaction as much as the reboot is required just to use the service i pay for...

this does not include the auto-reboots that the box does when i am in the middle of watching a show - that is an intrusion that is not acceptable and a dollar amount will not provide satisfaction, however a punitive dollar amount might encourage brighthouse to not randomly interrupt the service i am paying for... $50 would be fair, considering the level of customer dissatisfaction and the profit margin brighthouse currently provides... the risk of a $50 refund should be incentive enough for brighthouse technicians to stop randomly interrupting the service i pay for... might as well have satellite...

the next solution to any issue is to call brighthouse... that averages more than 30 minutes and takes me away from work or life activities that of my choosing... essentially, it puts me in the position of working for brighthouse... i should be compensated at $15 an hour for my time when i am required to call brighthouse just to use the service i am paying for...

the next solution is a home service call... that requires a change in my schedule and anywhere 2-4 hours of down time waiting for the service technician... i have experienced at least two no-shows and may have forgotten more... again, a minimum of $15 per hour for the time i give to brighthouse required to use the service i pay for... since the best they do is a 2-hour window, a minimum $30 refund of my money is fair for each service call...

these are very fair wage compensations for my time as i could be earning much more per hour if i chose not to give brighthouse my time... this is also an excellent performance improvement incentive for brighthouse to improve their product and customer service as the responsibility for not paying me would be set directly on brighthouse - provide the service i pay for without glitches and interruptions and you refund me nothing, you get more than $1,000 a year from me...

so, to the brighthouse techs and csrs and managers who may read this, if your proposed resolutions to the issues i have been reporting for the last few years does not include monetary compensation for my time, energy, troubleshooting, and inconvenience... then please do not offer the appearance of a blank check "let me help you" in my comments here or on the phone... your "help" costs me time and money... and the dozens of calls and home service calls i've given you over the years has has not resolved the issues...

keep in mind that what brings me here today is the same thing that has brought me to write every blog entry about brighthouse service, dissatisfaction with the brighthouse product... if there was not an issue preventing me from using the product today, i would not be writing this... i am not looking for money, i am looking for the service in pay for... at this point however; i have given enough time and energy to brighthouse without fair compensation and propose the refund plan in this entry as a last effort to keep me as a brighthouse customer...

as a quality manager myself, understanding the customer's dissatisfaction and needs is an essential aspect of customer satisfaction... hopefully this writing has provided you with the specific information you need to satisfy this customer...

i am likely not the only customer who would approve of this plan...

UPDATE: why should today have only one issue, it's brighthouse service, after all...

I get home and find the show guide is suddenly changed to ridiculously huge letters so the stations can't be read and only the first word for any show name is visible... why am i not surprised that the box reset itself again and now does not provide a useable guide to what is on...

it's not like we have only one issue each day... we have several on-going issues every day... like the cable box still turns on and switches to mute for some reason and we have to change channels a certain way with the remote to get sound... if we actually watched tv daily we'd have a different service...

what baffles me most is how people who actually watch tv daily put up with brighthouse... i know what keeps me is the internet, not the best but the fastest around here... and also the fact that i get a discount some months i spend time trying to get the service fixed... but the fix has not worked in the past few years since i've had the service... we plan on moving early next year and moving with brighthouse does not look likely...

caution: music plays here - blogger dumb, google?

ATTENTION GOOGLE CHROME USERS!
CLICK PAUSE ON THE PLAYER BELOW
IF YOU DO NOT WANT MUSIC TO PLAY

APOLOGIES,
GOOGLE CHROME DOES NOT ALLOW MUSIC TO
NOT
AUTOMATICALLY PLAY

DUMB MOVE, GOOGLE

if you did not click pause, perhaps you see, or rather hear what i mean?


this one is supposed to work in chrome - it does not in mine... you tell me, does it?

the point here is that Google is supposed to be one of the most technologically advanced companies in the world, right?... so why does Google FAIL at creating a browser that can do the simple task of reading a code accepted in other browsers, a code that simple respects readers and sets music inserted into a blog post to NOT play automatically... music automatically playing can be intrusive to any reader attempting to read a page without sound... so does that mean the creativity of music or sound is to be ignored when writing a blog post or creating a web page?... Google apparently thinks so... dumb move Google... I've been using Chrome for a while, but realizing this flaw, I am switching back to Internet Explorer and/or Firefox... you need to get your act together Google... I like chrome, but it's lacking an essential audio ability... and sadly, it's been that way for years according to the research i've done...

let me know when you get it fixed...

brighthouse continues to suck

so after a wonderful day out playing softball with friends and a wonderful evening home enjoying dinner with friends i decide to give up sleep tonight to watch something i was looking forward to for weeks, a 10 year reunion show for firefly and five minutes into the show for reasons only the intrusive people and computers at brighthouse know, the cable box turns off and goes into some sort of countdown followed by another countdown followed by a reboot and twenty minutes later i am still wondering why i don't just cancel this crap brighthouse service because the show will not go on...

so i will not get back the time or sleep i gave up tonight and i still do not get to watch the show i wanted to watch and brigthouse still charges more than they charged last year for service that gets worse every month... yes, besides exploring alternbative tv services and in spite of offers to help which do nothing to stop the deteriorating service and continuing service interruptions... in fact just it continues to get worse... i started keeping track and the current stats are:

brighthouse digital hd cable tv (table updated 12/14/12, still trending downward):

working perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

0% of the time 0% of the time 90% of the time 10% of the time

no problems delays, box/channels reset occasionally, software does not adjust aspect ratio and picture size automatically sound does not go on at start, box resets/blinks every 60 seconds, aspect ratio and picture size are off box/channel resets every 10-15 seconds or other issue requires reboot, call to tech support, or visit

cable and internet search

the box once again is acting up, flicking the picture and sound on and off and preventing the signal from reaching the tv... shutting it off a few times and waiting did not help this time... a manual reboot is next... and since the brighthouse service will not work and not allow me to watch tv, it is time to invest some time in research for better service - so let's see what else is available at my address...

comcast... $40 cable and $30 internet from road runner (same company brighthouse uses)... the $30 internet is without taxes and without internet speed boosts... and is a time-limited offer, 6 months and then it goes to $50... a package for $80 sounds very similar to what i am currently getting from brighthouse for at least $20 more, so there is a draw for comcast... the site does not make comparison shopping easy and does not offer any comparison to brighthouse... a prime example can be found here on this page where they have the starter tv and the internet package for $30 each and then the combo of those two services for $70... simple math suggests this company has some serious math problems (and i should trust their tech knowledge?)...

even more unfortunately, it looks like a 2 year commitment is required, which is a big turn off for me as i might find major flaws in the service in the first few months and be stuck for two years... the lack of required commitments still keeps brighthouse ahead in spite of the horrible service lately...

still, saving $20-$30 a month is a major draw so i will explore comcast further... reviews show just as many complaints about comcast as there are for brighthouse, so the switch would have to be based on the details of costs, channels, internet speed, and the roll of the dice that the service may be a bit better... sometimes, after continuous dissatisfaction, any change is better than continued poor service... ultimately, the comcast experience may be better or worse than the brighthouse experience, but i will not know unless i try it...

centurylink (orlando)... sounds similar in cost, though i have not explored the details of the services and packages offered yet...

cleartv offers a bundle of tv and internet for $65, almost half the price i currently pay per month plus one month free, so it's worth a look as i continue searching... the page, however, gives the feel of a scam (not suggesting it is, it just lacks depth and detailed information and requests contact info immediately, before providing any shopping experience)... also appears to be a 4G at best internet, much slower than high-speed cable...

att u-verse presented challenging to find in this internet search and appears to require $91 to get HDTV, which is unacceptable pricing... also, the complicated internet presence presents a lot of scam-like "authorized representatives" so finding the source provider is not easy... at&t also requires a log-in to shop "build-your own" bundles on their site, definitely marketing that borders on the spam sites...

so after jumping through a few hoops i found that max internet is $63 and 300 channels is $87 and after rebates or whatever promo offers, it's $115 a month including a dvr and an additional $100 rebate for signing up for a year... still, i do not believe this includes HDTV, so not acceptable... bundling wireless service reduces the monthly bill to $110... knowing att, there is some hoop-jumping involved, as their complicated website showed...

and ah, i believe (again, the site is not simple to navigate) i found HD and it is an extra $10 a month, so $120 now... this plan includes a movie package for $20... unfortunately, it does not appear possible to remove the movie package and still get HDTV as HDTV is not available with lower priced packages... the $100 rebate brings the monthly cost down about for the initial year, so $112 a month, about the same as the current brighthouse we pay without the two dvrs and more channels...

the catch may be that after the 12 month required contract, the $46 per month discount ends and the monthly cost is $166, are they nuts?... i'd have to speak with them before ordering, but the $112 for more channels, 2 dvr boxes (one wireless), and more sounds appealing...

directv... $40 cable for equivalent station lineup to what i have now and a dvr... regular price $70... requires a 2 year contract and goes up to $50 the second year... while the website makes comparing packages simpler than the cable providers sites, the discounts appear complicated as they are rebates requiring online submission and the risk of not getting the rebates if you do not do it correctly, typical pain-in-the-ass marketing technique)... also, auto-payment is required... again, road runner is the separate company that is bundled for high-speed internet access... the free nfl package makes directv a very serious draw in spite of the hoop-jumping required, however the time-sensitive rebate hoops make it a fourth choice for now behind the two cable providers bh and cc and att...

without the hoop-jumping, directv sounds pretty good... but the hoop-jumping suggest to me that dealing with this company will not be a simple or happy consumer experience...

brighthouse (central florida) currently charges us $120 for the cable internet (roadrunner) package (this includes taxes) for one cable box and this does not include a dvr... definitely the most expensive of the lot...

going to their bundles page i see an offer for $110 that includes phone... and $100 for the service i currently get (and why do i pay more for this, probably because i am not a new subscriber which adds to the price appeal of comcast and directv)... though the directv page makes it much easier to find prices, channel lineup details, and compare packages, the simplicity of no contract and no rebates makes this the simplest and most attractive front-end package i've found so far, yet the add-on packs can become confusing and the price difference combined with the actual experience of the poor quality of service brighthouse provides still leaves me a very dissatisfied customer looking for another provider...

it is interesting to note that brighthouse does not show up on the first search page doing a google search for "tv and internet costs orlando florida"... no charge for the marketing information, brighthouse...

wow, that was a long few hours to find all this information (and there are plenty of details i would dig deeper for before a final decision) and in fact, while this started out as a complaint, it may just be edited and become a consumer blog entry... but for this place, ultimately, i am leaning toward switching to providers unless brighthouse either improves service or meets a competitive monthly price... why pay $110+ a month for crap service when i can try an alternative with the same channels and internet speed and includes a dvr and more tvs for a lower price...

good question, aye?

brighthouse sucks, again

once again, in the middle of a program i am watching, the cable box is resetting on it's own... so i will miss ten or more minutes of the program i wanted to watch thanks to brighthouse sucks... they should just add the suck to their name... or put fail in their smiley face logo... i really do not want the horrible brighthouse service statistics i started keeping while waiting for service repairs to dominate this blog, in fact, i really don't want to be inspired to come to this blog in the first place, but i find that coming here and venting my immediate complaint, however meaningless, helps me deal with the frustration and anger i feel when my life and entertainment is interrupted or stopped by a corporate decision like right now... and it passes the time while i am waiting for the brighthouse service to return... i suppose it is just way too difficult (or simply a level of customer service that brighthouse does not wish to provide) to have a pop up on the screen ask me if this would be a good time to reboot the box or upgrade the software... especially since it also messes with my expensive plasma tv and the remote synch that is yet another frequent complaint... remotes could be so much more functional...

so the cable box is rebooting and the tv lost it's signal and is confused and thinks there was a power outage or hack attempt or virus or something as it went into emergency shut down mode... a smart tv knows when an unexpected shut down and signal change occurs, just like a computer does... but based on the poor service and products, it does not seem that the brighthouse people or software are up to speed with the latest tech... so the box is stuck on L-8 and has been since i started writing this comment... i mean, if the reboot reset upgrade or whatever is happening only took a minute, it would not be such a frustrating forget watching what you wanted to watch experience and probably wouldn't bring me to seek the distraction and venting of this complaint, but the box takes forever to do whatever it is doing without my consent... pathetic customer service...

almost any decent reliable software has a setting to "ask me before uploading updates" and "ask me before rebooting"... even microsoft in their all-powerful we-can-do-anything mindset finally understood that customer service... but not brighthouse...

not very bright, these people who make the big decisions at brighthouse...

and then of course when the box finally is rebooted, it defaults to off so i must turn it on which turns off the tv so i must get the tv remote to turn on the tv and of course the box returns to the start-up channel which comes on without sound as usual, just one more brighthouse fail i am ridiculously learning to live with... how much longer is getting shorter with each meaningless complaint (so maybe they are not as meaningless as they appear, aye?)...

and now i press the remote button to go to the next channel and i get a black screen partially burning into my plasma screen because it is a partial black screen and the box wants me to "please wait"... as if i have not waited enough...

no, i am not ready to spend a few hours and set up more appointments to try to fix things again... brighthouse wasted a lot of my time this year (and tonight( and giving them even more time just seems like getting screwed further... maybe next month...

UPDATE 3am = no, once was not enough tonight, another brighthouse interruption of service long enough to bring me here happens to ruin yet another hour of my viewing, that's three hours tonight of wasting my time paying for brighouse crappy service that is not providing what my contract says it will provide... and now the box decided to reboot yet again after another upgrade of some sort... so this is ridiculous... so yet another call to tech support to find out why my cable box is repeatingly rebooting tonight... one reboot ruining my viewing experience over two hours is not enough, another ruining a third show had to be done...

no warning, no prompt asking if this is a good time to shut down my tv enjoyment... just interrupt the shows and shut off the box after rebooting forcing me to deal with the crappy remote and the resetting of the sound because the box doesn't work right when it is turned on and resetting my tv and re-finding the channel i was watching... rub my nose in how crappy the brighthouse service really is...

it's ok, i can miss the first or last fifteen minutes of shows and still enjoy them... and adding insult to injury, the first thing i see is that bullshit brighthouse tv commercial... days are numbered for brighthouse getting my money if this keeps up...

brighthouse sucks, chapter whatever

yes, brighthouse brings me here again... let's do a quick status check:

brighthouse digital hd cable tv (table updated 11/12/12, still trending downward):

working perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

4% of the time 8% of the time 68% of the time 20% of the time

no problems delays, box/channels reset occasionally, software does not adjust aspect ratio and picture size automatically sound does not go on at start, box resets/blinks every 60 seconds, aspect ratio and picture size are off box/channel resets every 10-15 seconds or other issue requires reboot, call to tech support, or visit

brighthouse roadrunner broadband turbo internet (updated 9/5/12, trending upward):

working near perfectly working adequately not working properly not working at all

55% of the time 30% of the time 10% of the time 5% of the time

no problems slow downs modem requires a reboot requires a call to tech support or repair visit

and the vent as it was happening...

another hour and a half of my time working for brighthouse and i am paying them to work for them... i was working for myself on the net juggling a lot of tabs searching for tires and blogging and the modem decided to stop, blink, just stop... i rebooted four times and nothing... next came shutting down the computer and it took a half hour to save all the work i was in the middle of, but i saved everything and shut down the computer... turned it on, no change... local service only... we've been here before a few times and it ended up with blaming my computer and then service calls and then changing out the modem... i hope this isn't the start of yet another time consuming no-service cycle as i need to stay connected to continue job hunting...

i called brighthouse and was on hold a half hour listening to how easy it is to resolve modem issues by rebooting the modem... reboot, no change... reboot the modem again... no change... again, no change... reboot the computer again, no change...

after about an hour of rebooting the modem and the computer, suddenly there is a connection again... i was still on hold with brighthouse listening to the repetitive messages, so i hung up... thanks for the crappy service once again, brighthouse...

yeah, i know a brighthouse representative left a message here last month offering to help, but there comes a time after speaking with a dozen different representatives and having a half dozen house calls over a couple of months that i run out of patience and more, i run out of belief that the brighthouse reps can fix the problem and need to take a break...

the tv cable box still sucks too, but at least it's been working adequately most nights... sometimes it just starts blanking out every fifteen seconds or so and sometimes it works ok... sometimes the sound works when the box and tv go on, sometimes it doesn't... the channel needs to be changed to get the sound to work and that works about 75% of the time... the box needs rebooting at least once a week... it's a shame that i've gotten used to such poor service...

and the long term damage that i am going to have to remedy is that the box is definitely the wrong box for a plasma tv because the box does not resize the images like the other box does (a difference in software i am told, but can i believe the techs?) so some burning in of the images on the plasma screen has started... i just have not had the patience to call and set up yet another service call to change boxes again because this box at least works about 60-70% of the time and the last few boxes have not been nearly as mediocre ( in other words, they worked worse)...

one of these days i will just have to make the time to research the alternatives, direct tv, dish, u-verse, century link... friends have those others services and most seem to like them... there are drawbacks to all of them, but brighthouse is just becoming intolerable and they are the highest price service of them all...

i am so tired of wasting my time with them...

UPDATE 3:15AM... and about ten minutes later... this entry was uploaded and the brighthouse service went out again so i called brighthouse back... good news, this time i was actually connected to a tech support rep after about five minutes... this time the modem reset itself, all lights blinking off and then back on just before the rep came on the line... i shut down the computer again and when i turned it back on, it was connected again... the rep put me on hold and returned a few minutes later informing me that the tests he ran showed the modem was shutting down on it's own... well at least they see that on their end... now i am waiting for a level 1 support tech troubleshoot the problem... i hold we don't have to go to yet another visit from brighthouse to exchange modems again...

oh crap, i am listening to the annoying modem reset message again... i hope this does not mean i was reset in the queue and have an hour wait like last time... the more i listen to that stupid unplug your modem message, the more i want to hang up and unplug from brighthouse for good... i will be back later with an update...

UPDATE 3:34AM: waiting for the level 1 tech... they finally came on after 20 minutes and gave me the there is an outage in your area and technicians are working on it line... i had to wait 20 more minutes and give my telephone number and identification information and explain the problem again just to get that standard line... the previous tech could not say that... this tech chould not just say that without my repeating the ID info and problem again... they just wasted another half hour of my time... what is wrong with that picture?...

brighthouse - still poor equipment, poor technical service, and poor customer service... at least they are consistent...

#NBCFail

complaint in progress... actually it is a tape-delay, but we'll pretend it's live...

the person and/or people in charge of the NBC broadcast of the 2012 Olympics learned nothing from two weeks of harsh criticism and complaints from thousands (at least) of viewers and most of the media critics as the hashtag #NBCFail appears all over the internet... sadly, the error that Twitter made in supporting and even colluding with the #NBCFail failure compounded itself tonight as they blocked the #NBCFail hashtag from showing up as trending in spite of the hundreds of tweets per minute with the #NBCFail tag... #TwitterFail hurts even more as it shows the new boss is the same as the old boss and people are getting fooled again...

the irony of the song lyric reference is excruciating as perhaps the largest exclamation point on the #NBCFail failures was to edit to death the closing ceremonies (editing out Muse, the band that wrote and played the Olympics theme song, among other bands) and almost an hour of the closing ceremony production and finally cutting away just before the finale starring The Who to insert a new #NBCFail sit-com - without commercial interruption (after more than 33% commercials per hour throughout the Olympics, that is insult upon injury) - and pushing the finale off for an hour to midnight on a Sunday night (so even non-internet savvy people, their primary demographic audience perhaps, had to miss the 2012 Olympics finale - getting up for work in the morning, are we?... and each night Ryan Seacrest (who was definitely not cresting this week) was asked how they were doing on the social networks to lead into a segment on how social media was talking about the Olympics and they lied by omission as the dozens of articles and many thousands of complaints were never address #NBCFail...

even the lead commentator for NBC, Bob Costas, acknowledged the issues and validated the complaints tonight as he noted that the next Olympics will be just in a much closer time zone, referencing the complaints over ridiculously alienating (and poorly produced) tape-delays... but like a nightmare that repeats, NBC failed again tonight even bigger than previous nights... the band playing the final song?... The Who... the song?... My Generation.... yeah, and we did get fooled again...

Costas also mentioned that two high ranking NBC sports producers did call this their last Olympics... whether that was their intention before the games or whether the criticism and their poor judgment calls lead to the resignations or retirements is for anyone to speculate)... most Olympics viewers are shuddering to think about the next few Olympics as #NBCFail has exclusive rights to mess up those broadcasts too...

The New York Times agrees, establishment enough for you, #NBCFail producers?

I turned off #NBCFail and missed the fiasco, but it was interesting reading all over the internet... sad that #TwitterFail conspired in the corporate betrayal of consumers... but the bigger they get, the more out of touch they get... history repeats, redundantly... la la la...

and the NY Times was not alone... i'll be back with more as this turns into a rant for other blogs... StarTribune - monkey shine perez hilton just look up (Google for you younger folk... snark at m-m-my generation nyuk nyuk narf... oh, and you'll have to use -zimmerman in your search query or you'll get all the apologies NBC made in their George Zimmerman reporting mess-up... if you don't understand, then google how to use google for advanced searches or boelean searches and you'll be fine... aherm) apology online (especially the past 24 hours) and even Google will prove #NBCFail - it even gets it's own label...

so how was your night? (laughing with me, i hope :)

cable services

maybe it's not as bad as brighthouse sucks, but maybe... three or four services calls in the past two weeks and still not right...

so the cable guy finally showed up and after asking what's wrong (why do i call in a service request giving details of what's wrong if the request is not documented for the tech?) and he played with the box a bit (my request was a replacement box due to the box repeatedly freezing)... he came and went twice bringing in two other replacement boxes until one seemed to work... jackson had to all him back in from his truck cuz the HD aspect ratio was off and he explained that the samsung software accounted for that but the sysco software did not and they've been having a lot of problems with the samsung box... so ok, i said i'd explore the features and he said call us anytime...

every cable guy has different answers and excuses and none have been proven right... worse yet, each cable guy set the features, remote, resolution, aspect ratio, and so on differently... they do not seem to know the best settings for a given HD tv... poor training, poor knowledge, poor service...

and i discover that this latest box (maybe the seventh or eight box this year) apparently does not convert to a 1080 signal so the max resolution is 720 and that is a downgrade from the previous box... yeah, it froze, but i want 1080 resolution (why buy a tv if you can't use the features, right?)... so i went online and wrote brighthouse support by email instead of calling... i am tired of calling... definitely not a satisfied customer...

they did give me the second discount for this year so the recognize the shoddy service, but saving $37 bucks is not fixing the problem... so the continuing saga of poor cable service drums up this meaningless complaint...

go figure

i fall in love again and she disappears... i went back to the website called orlandofriends by fluke and found i had not logged in since 2003 or some ancient time and so i logged in and saw messages from 2007 and 2008 and 2009 and i responded and the next day those same messages were from that next day, interesting little script that, changing the date as if i didn't notice the messages the first time... and then, one of the people inspires rhymes and reasons and falling in love and then... poof (yeah, they are all the same link, it's a meaningless complaint, after all)... alas, she may never know or if she did get my message, she may never find me now... true love shattered by the internet, alas...

instagram?

why would anyone give any app this much permission?

from the Google Play Instagram Permissions page:

THIS APPLICATION HAS ACCESS TO THE FOLLOWING:
HARDWARE CONTROLS
TAKE PICTURES AND VIDEOS
Allows the app to take pictures and videos with the camera. This allows the app at any time to collect images the camera is seeing.
any time? so the app can collect images without my knowledge?

YOUR LOCATION
FINE (GPS) LOCATION
Access fine location sources such as the Global Positioning System on the tablet, where available. Malicious apps may use this to determine where you are, and may consume additional battery power. Access fine location sources such as the Global Positioning System on the phone, where available. Malicious apps may use this to determine where you are, and may consume additional battery power.
i can't turn it off when i don't want to use it?

NETWORK COMMUNICATION
FULL INTERNET ACCESS
Allows the app to create network sockets.
why and do what with them?

YOUR PERSONAL INFORMATION
READ CONTACT DATA
Allows the app to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your tablet. Malicious apps may use this to send your data to other people. Allows the app to read all of the contact (address) data stored on your phone. Malicious apps may use this to send your data to other people.
why do the makers of this app need my friends information?

STORAGE
MODIFY/DELETE USB STORAGE CONTENTS MODIFY/DELETE SD CARD CONTENTS
Allows the app to write to the USB storage. Allows the app to write to the SD card.
seems almost reasonable

SYSTEM TOOLS
PREVENT TABLET FROM SLEEPING PREVENT PHONE FROM SLEEPING
Allows the app to prevent the tablet from going to sleep. Allows the app to prevent the phone from going to sleep.
sleep is necessary to conserve battery - seems this app wants way too much control

RETRIEVE RUNNING APPS
Allows the app to retrieve information about currently and recently running tasks. Malicious apps may discover private information about other apps.
Hide
this is ridiculous

NETWORK COMMUNICATION
RECEIVE DATA FROM INTERNET
Allows apps to accept cloud to device messages sent by the app's service. Using this service will incur data usage. Malicious apps could cause excess data usage.
this app wants way too much control, can destroy a battery, make the phone useless, cost money in phone data charges, and violates privacy way too much - definitely something fishy about google wanting all this power in every phone they can get...

worse and worse

google dot com, google.com, the google corporation, more and more is becoming as unpleasant to deal with as the microsoft corporation… the way microsoft tries to control everything you do with their software as if they own your computer, google is trying to control everything you do with the web and our only alternative is to toss the pc and avoid the google site (and all the subsidiaries) and see if the apple corporation, the macintosh apple software, and the blogging software that is out there will allow the freedom that google and microsoft do not…

yeah, maybe tomorrow, when i've got more time to learn and explore and more money to invest in computers...

free oil for everyone

free oil for everyone

The 'simple solutions' like hay and straw and other products look great in a small bowl or laboratory, but don't be naive, there's no strainer big enough to scoop millions of tons of soaked straw and hay out of the gulf and even if we somehow had that much hay and straw and a three hundred mile strainer, there's not enough ships in the navy to drag that much weight out of the water... the simple solution was to act swiftly and responsibly, but that was not in BP's interest... and don't look at the government, come on, did you forget katrina and new orleans already?...

government is condemned for over-regulating industry when they do anything before a disaster and then condemned for not cleaning up the mess industry makes after a disaster... responsibility is on the businessmen, their greed did this - and you and me - our dependency on luxuries, oil, and our lifestyles did this... we demand more oil, more energy, more consumer goods, and we don't want to see the costs to the planet nor the risks to ourselves in our blind attempt to have it all...

many people still do not want to see, as the flagging of videos on youtube demonstrates... but the only thing keeping our heads in the sand will do is get us covered in oil, or kicked in our up-in-the-air butts... great nations fall when the people stop caring enough to take responsibility and do the right thing... that's history, and we are living it... and we can only hope enough of us wake up in time to realize what we need to do to save ourselves...

for anyone paying attention

i would really like to figure out how to get the title centered and all of the reaction choices to show under each post and someday i might, but i explored the new blogger design features long enough for tonight and found no simple way to do either and i don't feel like exploring the html itself to find out if and how it might be done there...

feel free to share your knowledge of how-to if you are out there...

infinite profits

katrina drowns new orleans, 2005

yeah, we all know the story... or do we?... did you know about hurricane pam?... pam that did the very same thing to new orleans in 2004 that hurricane katrina did in 2005... you can watch the video and learn a bit about hurricane pam... one year before hurricane katrina devastated, hurricane pam tore the city apart and flooded new orleans almost exactly as katrina did, in a computer simulation...

yes, scientists created a storm, hurricane pam, and entered all the facts they had about the lay of the land, the strength of the levees, where people lived, and all the known facts about the physical city of new orleans into a computer... and then they entered meteorological data for a storm and aimed it toward the city… levees failed and new orleans and surrounding lands ended up under water… the scientists told the government and army core of engineers and you know what they did...

nothing…

in every other arena, someone who has the power to save lives, knows lives could be lost if they do not act, and then do not act and lives are lost... they would be criminally libel for the deaths… I believe it is called criminally negligent manslaughter… the government is guilty of this, but no one holds those in charge who killed people through negligence accountable…

that simply sucks…

trust your government?... what may be worse is the news media, the noble fourth estate that loves to point fingers and dramatize human failure and claims to have a noble mission to tell people the truth, seemed to miss this atrocity… did they deliberately ignore the facts?...

all the news that’s fit to print?

sometimes, humans are nauseating...

ego's complaint

not to reference portnoy at all, not that i want to diminish his complaint, whatever it was, because everybody's got the right to complaint, after all (and you, yes you there, the one who found this post by searching for portnoy's complaint for some book report or whatever, yes you, you have the right to complain too, unless you plaig... plageriz... pla... cut and paste this witty missive into your report, in which case, you did it to yourself so you have nothing to complain about)...

but naturally, ego's complaint is you might be the only one who ever finds all the wonderful words and nonsense i've put on line and written for years, since the dawn of time, even, and i don't have any sort of massive following of crazed fans twittering and tossing underwear (or their cookies, chocolate chip please) at their computers as if i could see (hey, turn on your webcams before you do that sort of thing, aye?) all about how wonderfully in love they are with my amazing cleverness and lovely way with words...

i don't have time for the time it takes to grow an audience of nubile young innocents and their mothers of text phone junkies who worship the written word (i had more written word worshippers in the eighties before al gore and rocky invented the internet, after all)...

i mean, i'm not craig ferguson, but i do have a quip or two worth noticing now and then... and ego, of course, believes i should have millions of ranting and raving fans waking each morning to rush over to their computers just to see what i might have written overnight...

seriously, where are the intelligent people who would recognize the priceless value of reading me?...