Lest anyone forget how much I hate Comcast...

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.

How to pay less for your Comcast

Recent words of support reminded me that I meant to add this information to the Businesses that I hate.


When I called to cancel my Comcast account, they asked for a reason. I told them bad customer service. Then said they'd hate to lose my business, would I be willing to stay if they reduced their monthly fee?

I urge everyone to quit giving Comcast your money. But if you stick with them, at least call up and bluff that you're leaving, and they'll almost certainly give you a discount. The worst that can happen is they don't offer you a discount, and then you can say you changed your mind about switching to DirecTV.

Use the extra money I helped you save to fund an account at one of the poker sites I advertise.

Or use it to buy tickets on Fandango. Fucker.

So long, Comcast

Under its Franchise with Montgomery County, Comcast of Montgomery County has the following rebate policy: In the event of a Service Interruption... Comcast shall repair the Service Interruption as soon as possible. This obligation is satisfied if Comcast offers the Subscriber the next available repair appointment within the 24 hour period following the Service Interuption... If the Service Interruption is not repaired at the time of the scheduled appointment the Subscriber will receive a credit of 10% of the Subscriber's normal monthly bill for each 24 hour period, or segment thereof, that the Service Interruption continues.

I called today to cancel my Comcast service. I had DIRECTV and Verizon installed yesterday. Sunday NFL ticket is going to be sweeeeeet.


"Sir, we'd hate to lose you as a customer. Can I ask why you are leaving?"

"Consistently terrible service."

"Oh, well that's too bad. Could you give me an example?"

"Well if you look at my file, you'll probably see that I had to file a formal complaint with the county goverment because Comcast refused to give me the full rebate according to the policy that is clearly printed on every bill that comes to my house."

[They wouldn't give me the rebate after my cable was out for 9 days, due to a problem that they didn't even end up having to come to my house to fix. My On Demand service wasn't restored for over a month. They eventually gave me the 90% credit after they received the paperwork from the county government.]


"I see. Well would you change your mind if I could offer you a discount on your..."

[interupts:] "No chance."

ugh

I'm back. I hate Comcast.

Fuck Comcast

I can't believe I actually said something nice about Comcast recently. I take it all back. My internet and cable have been out since Saturday (7/2) morning and won't be back before next Tuesday (7/12) at the earliest.

On Saturday I called and they told me it was a temporary outage in my area that would be fixed in a few hours. It seemed believable since the same thing had happened the weekend before. Sunday morning it was still out, so I called again and after 15 minutes on the phone they couldn't figure out what was wrong and concluded they'd need to send someone out. Oh yeah and the earliest available date was a week away. Great, I'm an internet poker player without an internet connection for over a week. They told me I could maybe call back and if someone cancelled an appointment maybe I could move mine earlier.

So Tuesday I called and they told me they had an opening the next day. PRAISE ALLAH! Half an hour after the scheduled time, nobody had shown up. So I called them again. Every call takes at least 10 minutes before I speak to a person, by the way. "We have no record of an appointment being scheduled for today." WHAT?? "This shows that you called to inquire, but no appointment was actually made. Next Wednesday (7/13) is the earliest available time."

Wow. And this brief summary doesn't include all the various transfers between people over the phone and bizarre stories some of them made up. Amazingly bad customer service.

The only real internet and TV alternatives are Verizon DLS and Direct TV, but Comcast really does have the best deal. So I'm just bending over and waiting til Wednesday.

Batherings

• My cable went out this morning for a few hours. I called Comcast to report the outage, and I actually talked to a friendly and professional representative. I've long been vocally anti-Comcast, but between On Demand, the Comcastle, and my first ever good encounter with a Comcast employee, I might be softening my nay-saying stance.

• Plumbing problems suck.

• In spite of my various predictions (Mavs, Rockets, Heat, etc) if I had to bet all my money I would have put it on the Spurs at any point in the season or postseason. I predict with my heart, but bet with my head.

  In the words of Dr. Farthing, "Hindsight is 20/20 my friend!"

• If you play limit hold'em and want to improve your game dramatically, read Small Stakes Hold'em by Ed Miller immediately. That and Hold'em Poker for Advanced Players are the best poker strategy books I've ever read.

• After reading this, Kira asked her mother, a native speaker of Tagalog, if there is a word in that language that sounds like "Betty" and means "drunk." Ma said she didn't know of any, but maybe it is some slang she doesn't know. She also pointed out that "Kira" means "gullible" in Tagalog.