the dead zone
every once in a while, i think it would be nice to have net access at home. if my house were wired i could download the bit-torrent of the Closure DVD, pump my post rate on the MZD and spiral forums, skype with adam, and surf all the nasty porn i wanted without worrying about Inscrutable Chinese Man discovering my secrets. worthwhile stuff, see.
but i'm not wired. DSL and FiOS aren't available, phone lines from the 30's make dial-up even more impractical, and the installation and monthly costs of satellite are outrageous.
get cable, said quasar. even if the installation is expensive, comcast will probably eat the cost to get you as a customer. NOBODY can't get cable, he professed.
so a call to comcast cable triggered an "evaluation," which generated this welcome letter from Paul DaBaldo, Construction Supervisor:
Dear Mr. Finn,
We want to extend a warm welcome to you as a possible new member of the Comcast family. Your request for cable service has been evaluated and our Construction Department determined that your service location falls outside of the company's standard installation guidelines. The non-standard installation cost would be $16487.17. Due to the rise in equipment costs, this price is valid for ninety (90) days from the above-mentioned rate. This cost does not include the standard installation charge to activate your service at a later date.
To initiate construction, please forward payment to the attention of Tiffany Stinson at Comcast, 5 Bellecor Drive, New Castle, DE 19720.
riiiiiight okay, i'll just go on and forward that $16K to tiffany. what else was i going to do with my life-savings, anyway? but i better hurry before the price goes up!!
jesus christ comcast, the least you could do is offer to comp me the standard installation charge.
it seems wireless is my one remaining hope...
5 comments:
what the hell? i thought no-one in the developed world could not get decent internet! you in the developed world, finn? nah, silly me, you're in the usa hah hah. even we in backward old oz can squeeze broadband (ok not very broad) down an ordinary bit of wire.
humpph. i wanted to skype, no-one to skype with. all that money out there waiting to be saved 'cos it's free and i can't do it.
got a pal in brazil, says by email he's been diagnosed with cancer, he was my best buddie at school, says skype is not a priority at the moment ... jeez, i'll have to pay for calls to brasil as he calls it.
i caught up with one of my cousins for the first time in 50 years the other day. turned out they were out here in oz a year ago but could not trace us as we had moved home, phone number, isp etc. found him in 2 seconds with skype.
you'll have to move finn. find a new place to stay that's got the internet. or here's an idea, make a home at work on the samples of faux grass that must be still kicking around.
pfffffffft!
by the way, we've got your cheney lad out here at the moment no-one knows what for. oh i remember, it's an election year here and the incumbent toad has learned the politics of fear. you want him back or shall i go and nobble him?
this cheney guy gets up my nose, even here in oz. and consider this from the huffington post:
Dick Cheney, the man who is accountable for nothing, is the person who will tell other countries what is "consistent" with a peaceful image in the world?
If you haven't spent a lot of time outside the United States recently, you may not been made aware in a painful, humiliating way of how grievously America's moral standing has suffered because of Guantanamo, Abu Grahib, and the general carnage in Iraq. It's hard in general to get non-Americans to listen to lectures about seemly behavior these days. It's hardest of all when the lectures come from the man who, to the rest of the world, personifies America's squandering of the qualities that made it special.
Dear Mr. Vice President: there may be valuable things you can do. But telling anyone else how to cultivate a peaceful image is not one of them. Go home, and shut up.
Hmmm. This is teh sux.
So, does your town have public wireless (pretty rare) or do you actually need to leech off some neighbor's unprotected wireless router? (bleah)
Maybe if you have a geeky neighbor you're friends with, who has a really nice strong base station & wireless savvy, you could go into some sort of cost-sharing "wireless co-op" arrangement.
ADAM
NOBBLE HIM FOR GODSAKE NOBBLE HIM ALREADY.
[and i'm sorry about your schoolfriend in brasil.]
teho, a half-mile away lies my nearest neighbor, an inbred dupont scion who's been known to take pot-shots at trespassers (or, depending on your POV, neighbors who're doing a little.... exploring). not the type i can envision getting co-op cozy with. but maybe i'm wrong.
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