Businesses that I hate UPDATE

1. Comcast sucks.
2. Fandango sucks.

New:
3. Tom Cruise sucks.

A cool thing about capitalism is that if a company sucks, you can stop doing business with them. If enough people think they suck and stop doing business with them, the business either stops sucking or dies. Plus you can tell your friends about bad experiences and help expedite the process.

So here are businesses that I think should either stop sucking or die.

1. Fandango - Movie tickets online. Fandango sucks.

I tried to order 2 tickets to the Narnia movie for tonight. This message has been on my screen for 10 minutes.

The page has no option for what to do if the screen never changes. The last 2 times I've tried to use this stupid site to order tickets this has happened. It is the online equivalent of some asshole telling you he'll meet you somewhere but he never shows up, never calls, and didn't give you any way of getting in touch with him. Unless they personally apologize to me and give me free shit, I'm not going to try to use them ever again. I doubt I care enough to email them about my problem, so chances are good that I'll never Fandango again.



2. Comcast - cable television and high-speed internet. Comcast sucks.

new: how to give comcast less of your money if you insist on sticking with them

Fandango's offenses are a minor nuisance compared to the astonishing sins of Comcast. Fuck Comcast. Fuck Comcast. I hate Comcast. Fuck Comcast. I was a Comcast customer for 3 years, and I consistently dealt with their terrible customer service and incompetent employees. I've blasted them before and I'm too lazy to look up exactly what I wrote before but here's a quick list of way I can remember being wronged by Comcast (FUCK COMCAST!):

• Installation in my new house took over week from their scheduled install date because the disgruntled install guy quit in the middle of the job. He showed up complaining, after a while told me he didn't have a part or something and that he'd come back, and never came back. Comcast sent somebody else out a week later, only after I called them wondering why the first guy never came back. (The 2nd guy was a disgusting slob and actually told me I should get DirectTV instead. Shoulda listened to their fat slob.)

• My TV and Internet connection went out. I called and they said it would be back within 24 hours because they could fix it remotely. 24 hours later it was still off, so I called again. Each call takes like 15 minutes to talk to a real person, by the way. This time they said they'd have to send someone out to fix it. Great, thanks for making me wait a day to determine that. "We can schedule someone to come out in 7 days." What the fuck, 7 days?? Sorry that's the best we can do. You can maybe call back tomorrow and see if a new appointment opens up. So I call back the next day and by some miracle they have an appointment a few days sooner. So I tell them to switch me. That day comes, and the appointment time comes and goes with nobody showing up. I call, and they have no record of me scheduling an appointment. The idiots cancelled my 1st appointment but never booked the new one. I have to schedule yet another one. Finally after 10 days it gets fixed, and nobody even had to come out to my house. They were able to fix it remotely, WHICH THEY COULD HAVE DONE ON THE FIRST FUCKING DAY.

• They didn't automatically credit me back for the 10 days of outage. I had to call for it. When I called they only were going to give me back the prorated 10 day portion of my monthly bill, when it specifically says on the monthly bill that I should get a credit for 10% of my total monthly bill for each day of outage. I read the statement from my Comcast bull to the moron on the phone, and he refused to give me the credit. I had to file a formal complaint with the Mongomery County Government's franchise board to make Comcast give me the money they owed me.

Those are the 3 most recent and flagrant abuses I suffered at the hands of the shitbirds at Comcast. I switched to DirectTV and Verizon DSL a few months ago, and hopefully I'll never have to do business with Comcast ever again. Everyone I've dealt with from DirectTV has been extremely nice and professional. My DirectTV install guy actually quit his job with Comcast to work for DirectTV. I have a burning hatred for Comcast now, and I mention it loudly and often. I hope they lose business because of me. FUCK COMCAST.



3. Tom Cruise - Actor. Tom Cruise Sucks.

First of all, don't anyone object that Tom Cruise isn't a business, because this guy is worth well over $200 million, maybe even over a billion dollars. He generated more movie revenue than any other Hollywood actor in 2005. Everything he touches generates a stream of money, so there is definitely a business of Tom Cruise.

With that out of the way, I'm still not quite sure how best to deal with my disdain for Tom Cruise. I've generally been willing to separate my personal negative feelings about an entertainer from my enjoyment of their entertainment. Lots of musicians, actors, and athletes are fairly despicable people or make ridiculous political statements. But I've usually decided to just enjoy their music, movies and games and ignore the rest.

Even with Cruise's idiotic religion, questionable sexuality, bizarre antics, and his recent role in the destruction of Katie Holmes, I probably wouldn't have felt the need to take a stand against him until he took a stand against South Park.

Most of you probably know the story, but the short version is that South Park ran a hilarious episode blasting Tom Cruise and Scientology, which led to scientologist Isaac Hayes quitting the show. Then apparently Cruise put pressure on Viacom, the company that owns Comedy Central not to rerun the episode by threatening not to promote Mission Impossible III, which is also a Viacom product. Viacom caved.

It was a great episode of South Park, and I'm bummed that I haven't gotten a chance to see it again. And while I've enjoyed a lot his movies, Tom Cruise is to blame, and I must respond.

I'm boycotting Mission Impossible III. I hope everyone else who enjoys South Park does too.I've heard that Cruise gets 30% of box office revenue and 40% of DVD sales on this movie. I don't know if that is true (actually I don't know if any of these stories about him are true), but I know that I don't want him getting a nickel from me for this movie. Mission Impossible II was pretty lame anyway.

This is a list of businesses that I hope either stop sucking or die. I'd prefer that Tom Cruise stop sucking (I wouldn't actually wish death upon him just for being an idiot, but if he keeps sucking I might wish death upon his career.) He's been in some awesome movies, and he'll probably be in more awesome movies. I doubt he'll get uncrazy, but maybe he'll at least get a new publicist that stops him from saying and doing crazy shit in front of the media.