I swear, I really hate me some telecoms at times. I just got Mom’s HD cable receiver online. But that’s not the whole story. Lets rewind a couple of months.
She got a letter in the mail saying that her current internet modem was going to stop working due to a network upgrade and to contact Cox so they could send a new modem and downtime would be minimized. Great plan, on paper at least.
At any rate, she decided to upgrade the plan and get VOIP and HDTV. Sounds simple, and it should have been. (Spoiler alert, it wasn’t). The installer showed up and proceeded to hose it all up. First, unhook everything except the main TV. Second, relocate the modem to the basement, which required pulling wire from the computer room on the second floor (by the end user, or me specifically). Third, install a low def receiver box on the 720p LCD TV.
I pulled the cat-6 and got the internet online without too much grumbling. A pain, and a time sink, but nothing too difficult. Then Mom told me about the snow on the TV’s in the kitchen and upstairs. WTF? Tracing the coax was pretty easy, but hooking it back up the way it was took a little while and some head scratching. It got done.
Now fast forward a couple of months. Mom redecorated a room upstairs into a den. I donated an Xbox and a small HDTV. I was happy when the TV picked up a number of HD channels all on its own without a cable box. Woot, a freakin victory. It’s kind of cozy up there now.
So, one night she’s down stairs watching NCIS on the large TV. I used to watch NCIS, so I hit the couch. Then I noticed she was watching it in low def. I asked her why, and she said she didn’t know the channel number on the box. I poked around the guide and found it was 707. Well, that shit didn’t work. The TV flipped out and wouldn’t display the video track. Sound worked, but no picture. We finished watching NCIS, and then I dug in and found out that the TV had to be on Ch3 for the cable box. Guess what, Ch3 is low def. And on top of that, the box had no HDMI or component outs. Only composite and coax. Now I’m truly pissed.
On top of hosing up the wiring, the installer put in a low def box on an (obviously) HDTV. Thanks a bunch there Retardo. Oh yeah, and they were charging for a HD package each month, which with the provided equipment, would not display on the TV.
We got another box (HD this time) and I just fucked with that thing for the past hour or so. This one does have all kinds of ports, some of which don’t make sense, but they’re on there anyway (like a firewire and two USB ports, and some others). So, I hooked this thing up to the TV with an HDMI cable and fired it up. Side bars and a 4:3 aspect ratio big as shit. I farted around with the remote, but the only buttons that worked were power, and the channel buttons. Nothing I did would change the aspect ratio. Time to RTFM. Oh, you gotta call and have the box update it’s settings, which takes a whopping 20 minutes. Ok, whatever. It is however displaying HDTV on the TV now, just scrunched up to 4:3.
Back to messing with the remote (since there are zero buttons on the box itself. I finally get the settings menu up, and there’s the output setting. Only problem is that nothing will change it off of 1080i output to 4:3. You evil fuckers. I hate you. Thank God for nicotine. I got the idea to step down to component cables and see what would happen. Long story short (too late), as soon as I fired it up on component, HD was at 16:9 full screen.
Life’s good. Puppies and rainbows are being pooped left and right. I still hate telecoms. And once again I’m reminded why I don’t have cable/sat down home. That shits nothing but tears and sorrow.
Oh yeah, I should have put an “epic post” warning at the top of the litinay of rage.
As if kids today were’nt stupid enough, they gotta go do this:
I guess the war on drugs is going pretty good, if kids can’t score, so they’ll just go the whole starve my noodle till I pass out route.
Seriously, I’m not all that suprised. It all started when they took these off the market because ithey were too dangerous for folks:
Darwin was right. Given free reign on their actions, the stupidest of the herd will find ways to get killed/eaten/or simply removed from the gene pool.
Once upon a time, I had a piranah (you know, those little fish with the teeth). I had it in a 70 gallon tank. Now these fish don’t really like pellet food, more like live sushi is what they prefer. So, I would get 100 ct bags of goldfish. The rule was, it had to finish all of them before I’d get another load. Here’s where I really saw Darwin in action.
When I’d first put in a new batch, the tards of the herd would poke around and try to go make friends with the huge thing with the teeth. They were the first to go. Then it would boil down to a bunch (probably 80% or so) that would school in a big ball, trying to act bigger than the thing with the teeth. It worked right up to the point when my piranah would get hungry and decide to get some take-out. So the ball-o-goldfish would slowly get smaller each day. Then the ball would disappear. Here’s where I could tell the Einsteins of the batch. They’d be hiding up on the driftwood stump, or in the leafy plants, not moving, not being noticible. They’d munch on alge and try not to get eaten by that thing with teeth. But eventually, my piranah’s hunger would drive him to look for the easter eggs and then those too would disappear.
Rinse, repeat.
That may sound cruel, but that’s nature. That’s how things work in the real, cold, world. Ever see a stupid country dog? Not old ones, if you have.
Ok all you mathtards, here’s a word problem:
Read it HERE
Back? How long did this chase go on (in time)?
I wonder if they had to use stop-sticks to end the madness. Also, why do I see that scene from Austin Powers in my mind (the one where he’s on the compacting roller).
The evidence before the court is
Incontrivertable, there’s no need for
The jury to retire.
In all my years of judging
I have never heard before
Of someone more deserving
Of the full penaltie of law.
Due process, due schmosses. Glad I don’t live in TN.
Read about it HERE
LoL, I knew it. Damn gold farmers.
Read about it HERE
Note: This is a parody, but does have extra meaning since it was posted prior to 12/24/09 (March ‘09 in fact).
This is why we must soldier on. This could be your home town. Those could be your friends and family. This is what we fight. This is why.
I know some folks will think I’m being a dick, but this story just got to me.
Go on, give it a read.
Back? Ok. The first thing the city officials should do is check to see who gos to, or went to, the Burning Man event here in the states. I mean come on, it’s a large effigy that is constructed from highly flammable materials, what other possible fate could this thing have.
Well, there was that one time where the legs got cut off, so I guess a hovering legless goat is one fate. Maybe call it a goat float.
But where the WIN is, is in this sttement:
This year the city Web site offers users a chance to follow the goat’s fate via a Webcam, Twitter page and a blog — in both Swedish and English.
Really? Twitter? I can just see it now comming over the feed:
Latest from @SweedishBurningGoat
OMFG!!! I’M ON FIRE YALL. CALL THE FIRE DEPARTMENT! HURRY!
OMFG!!! Jag er PÅ ELD YALL. KALLA Elden Avdelning! skynda på
And it’ll all be on live webcam feed too.
And then there’s this:
In 2005, the goat was burned down by two arsonists dressed up as Santa Claus and the Gingerbread Man. They were never caught.
I bet ole St. Nick was mumbling something about pegan symbols and burning witches.
Kinzie loves her some noggin. I have yet to figure out why she does this, but she’ll keep licking my head until I get up and leave. Then she acts all hurt. Must be a dog thing or something. Once you get over the gross factor, it is kind of relaxing and she’s pretty thorough about full coverage. I just wish she wouldn’t obsess about the eyes.
X’s&O’s Loves me a sugdog.
I’ve seen a fair share of disaster flicks in my time, but this one is so full a fail I don’t even know where to begin. I’m still kind of numb from the experience. My disbelief has been suspended so far, I’m going to have to file a missing persons report on it tomorrow. Gee whiz. WTF was that?
To start off, the first third, no half, is like a trip through the head of a 13 year old with a terminal case of ADD. I started mumbling things like “yup, they’re gonna die”, and “when are they gonna just die already” at fairly random (yet oddly regular) intervals.
Most disaster movies have something epicly bad happen to a set of characters. Then they battle adversity and finally triumph at the end. Not 2012. It just keeps ramping up, and ramping up, until your head assplodes. Did the old monk really have to die, yet nearly the whole african continent got off pretty much scott free? Really? And Gordon? Sure, he was kind of douche, but he made good near the end, and a had a Russian hottie in tow. But they both had to die? Right at the end? Yet some Chinese construction worker made it, and he was only in the film for about 20 minutes? Granted, that dude looked kind of like Jackie Chan, or was that Jet Li, nope, it was Bruce Lee, yeah, that dude, but still…
Then there was the arks. Bigassed battlestar looking things (but without the pontoons). I couldn’t help but shake my head when the (supposedly hyperintelligent) bridge crew said the hydraulics were jammed keeping the goatse door open and preventing the engines from engaging. Yet there were no hydraulics, only large non-osha approved grind your ass to figgy pudding GEARS. And hydraulics don’t tend to jam, but gears do, but we don’t want to sound too steampunk so we’ll say hydraulics anyway. And these guys are going to save humanity. We’re fucked. If there had been real hydraulics operating the doors, they wouldn’t have jammed, and thus extend this steaming pile of cellulose another 30 minutes. And they rammed Mt. Everest any-freakin-way.
So, if you get off watching the world (and pretty much everyone on it) die for 160 minutes, by all means dig in.