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July 2005

5 July 2005

Went up to Greensboro overnight to visit the folks after putting Mark on a plane in Raleigh. This may come as no surprise, but my cable internet service was still down upon my return an hour ago. It may be something fairly major, as all of Time Warner’s phone lines are busy now, so I can’t even call for an ETA or update. Heaven forbid they should have system status updates on their website like Pair and any number of ISPs do…

Dang, dialup sure is slow. Especially when you have actual work to do…

Cable Problems

It’s been 24 hours since I’ve had any cable internet connectivity through Time Warner, and the customer support line mentions system-wide outages due to Friday’s storm. It was a pretty good storm, but nothing really out of the ordinary, so I’m wondering if this is a really common problem with cable internet service. Is it going to be like this EVERY time there’s a storm?

I’ve always had (generally reliable) DSL in the past, so if anyone could offer comments, I’d be most interested in reading them…

Randomly Sunday

Random thoughts for a Saturday morning:

  • Evidently, we’re not the only people fleeing the City of Doom. Per Census Bureau estimates, San Francisco has lost 32,000 people since the 2000 census. And if you believe the population signs as you drive into the city, almost 50,000 people have left since the 2001-ish estimate of 793,000 was published. Somehow, though, I bet the signs won’t be changed to reflect the current estimate anytime soon…
  • Charlotte, on the other hand, is looking pretty darned healthy…
  • Chutzpah: that’s what the Bellsouth telemarketer I spoke with yesterday had. Or maybe it was just brain damage. After (1) asking me what I though about my new phone service and (2) sitting through the ensuing tirade about how I’d been sold DSL service as part of a package without ever being told that DSL wasn’t available in my new apartment, and (3) listening apologetically as I told her I was strongly questioning whether or not I wanted to continue using Bellsouth AT ALL, she then proceeded to try and sell me an UPGRADED service package. Jeez…
  • Ladies and gentlemen, we have a new contender for worst local newscast in the country. I thought I’d seen the bottom of the barrel several years ago with the short-lived show on KBWB in San Francisco, but I think this is even worse. Aside from being stupid and annoying and trite, they don’t even have the technical proficiency thing down, with music cues and pre-recorded stories invariably drowning out the last three words of every sentence by the anchors. And here’s a hint: a “musical guest” may be appropriate on your morning show, but it just don’t fly on a primetime news show, especially when the musical guest (invariably) sucks ass…
  • A summer thunderstorm in North Carolina is a wonderful thing, and I’d forgotten how wonderful. Yesterday about 5:30, it sounded like the world was about to end, and we probably got as much rain in one hour as San Francisco gets during a week in February. The only down side is that the satellite has a tendency to go out…
  • Oh yeah. The hometown paper interviewed me again yesterday. It’s amazing how newsworthy I seem to have become in Greensboro for doing, well, nothing particularly important…