feren

Dear Village Official:

In response to your letter dated December 5th?

You can choke on it. Choke and die crying.

Yours,
J. F. Olsen
Taxpaying resident and whipping boy for your petty, contrived retribution

Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: Midway - Monkey Forest (vincent and quentin 2003 remix) (D I G I T A L L Y - I M P O R T E D )

There is a high pressure sodium security light shining brightly into my bedroom, courtesy of the newly constructed NTB. It is in fact so bright that I can read a newspaper while I lay in bed -- without turning on my reading lamp. The shade and blinds help by dimming things but they're still glowing far more than they normally would. THat glow pisses me off no small amount. The construction company, store owner and I are going to Have Words about this tomorrow. This was not part of the deal. After the day I had at work I didn't need to come home to this.

In other news, on Sunday I picked up Neil Gaiman's American Gods and have started reading it.

rhiacat and

moryssa both suggested it in my entry from the 17th, so I decided to grab a hardcover copy since

jasra was nice enough to give me a coupon for 25% off one item at Borders. I'm a couple dozen pages in and enjoying it thoroughly -- it has much of the same "Flavor" as Good Omens but follows a completely different plotline. On a related note, I badly need some bookshelves in my household. I don't mean the fiberboard junkers you can pick up at Wal-Mart, I mean I need bookshelves that are made out of solid wood. Oak would be nice. IKEA need not apply.

I hated every day of high school

Current Mood: pissed off
Current Music: Iris - It Generates

My local Comcast branch office recently shuffled the Sci-Fi channel from channel 44 to channel 160. This is both bad and good. The good news is that it was all-digital from that point on, which allowed them to include happy digital surround sound. The bad news is that you have to have their minimal digital cable package ("Digital Classic," I believe they call it) in order to receive it. Fortunately, this wasn't supposed to be an issue for me because I already had the "Digital Starter" package along with Starz. I pay somewhere around $62.99 per month for that, along with another $9.99 per month for the dual-channel HDTV tuner/DVR box. Grand total is around $75 a month after taxes.

Today I discovered I can't get the Sci-Fi channel. What the... that's not supposed to be! Every time I open the channel on the box I get "Not Authorized." So I call up Comcast and after 20 minutes of listening to hold music as they fought with their system (hell of a time for an upgrade) I got an answer: the "Digital Starter" package has been discontinued and it doesn't qualify as the basic package (that makes it... sub-basic?) in the digital lineup. So I asked what could be done about it. "Oh, we could move you to the Digital Classic package... then you'll get the SciFi channel. Of course, you'll be paying more.... and you won't get the Starz channel anymore... was this a promotion?" Yes, it was a promotion, I ordered it back in January of 2004. "Well, I'm sorry, but we can't honor that. You'll have to upgrade if you want the SciFi channel." Well, by my reckoning, that's not an upgrade... that's a downgrade because I'll be paying more and losing my premium channel in order to get something that, as near as I can tell, I'm supposed to have already by the simple virtue of having a digital package. I politely declined this "offer."

While I was on the phone I also asked about this five-dollar-a-month charge they have for their "High Def" package. The rep begins to list all the channels that are included with it... several of which I can access just fine already. Why would I need to add $5 more to my monthly fees just to get something I'm already receiving (apparently my ability to tune the Discovery HD channel was a technical fluke this weekend, what a pisser of a deal that is). Again I declined and I thought to myself, Comcast can blow me. After thanking the rep for their help, I hung up and pulled up DirecTV's site to start comparing prices.

DirecTV is just as expensive and actually charges more to turn on HD content. Additionally, it appears that I will have to get an HDTV antenna if I want to receive the HD broadcasts of the local network affiliates (NBC/ABC/CBS/FOX/PBS). I'd be trading up to a Tivo for a DVR, which would be good... but then I'd have to mount not one but two antennas outside, which is not an attractive option in the least. As near as I can figure from their web page, it's $10.99 per month for HD content and I have to get the package that starts at $41.99, so there alone I'm at $53 before tax. I'll have to pay even more money than that (or at least I think it will be more money because they won't let me see how much it costs a month) to have the HD Tivo service. Ugh! If they won't put your pricing up front where I can find it after 30 minutes of prodding at your site then you fail at marketing. So let's run the math here: $53 + unknown cost for the DVR + unknown taxes = ??? Yeah, sign me up for that deal! Thus, DirecTV can also blow me.

Guh. When did television become such a wonderful world of suck?

Construction on what I have lovingly dubbed the "Great Wall" continues apace behind my property line. As autumn looms over our valiant construction crew for the new NTB, the foreman has apparently realized that their delayed start is threatening the completion date of the project. Because of that they're now working 12 straight hours a day. That's right, they start at about 7 AM and finish at around 7 PM now. I get to wake up to the sound of grinders, skidloaders and hammers and then I get to come home to it as well. Congratulations, NTB, you've annoyed the living hell out of me after stepping all over my toes to get into that lot to begin with. NTB can achieve a trifecta with Comcast and DirecTV when they blow me as well.

action bills

Current Mood: annoyed
Current Music: Aqua Teen Hunger Force - Dumber Dolls

I call bullshit on that! I dare say I got the zoning and planning commission's full attention with my petition, which represented a one hundred percent opposition to the proposed project from all the neighbors adjoining the parcel in question, and a seventy-six percent opposition from homes across the street and nearby. When the vote came the entire commission bowed out, tabling the issue and asking the construction firm to hold a meeting with the neighborhood to see if a compromise can be reached.

The phrase that paid tonight? "If the residents don't buy into this, you can scrap this development plan."

The upcoming three weeks are going to be a very interesting time in this neighborhood.

Current Mood: accomplished
Current Music: Neil Young - After the Gold Rush

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Entries tagged with ntb

The village can blow me.

Let there be LIGHT!

BLOWFEST: Comcast can blow me. DirecTV can blow me. NTB can blow me.

You can't fight city hall?

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April 2020

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