Last night I came home around 5 and flipped on the TV, as is my usual pattern.<\/p>\n
A few moments of static came up, followed by the TV (detecting no signal) shifting over to a blue screen.<\/p>\n
Hmmm.<\/p>\n
Cycled the power on the TV, the cable box, etc. The cable box was feeding show descriptions, but not any shows.<\/p>\n
Hmmm.<\/p>\n
Called AT&T Broadband<\/a>, our provider (at least until we start getting bills from Comcast<\/a>). After stepping through the menus, a very friendly and apologetic lady got on and, after taking all my contact info, informed me there were no trouble tickets open in the area. <\/p>\n Then, after ten minutes on (silent) hold (thank heavens for speaker phones), she came back and apologized for the delay, that there was work going on in the area, a thousand apologies, we’ve been credited for today, apologies, everything should be fine later on. Oh, and sorry for the inconvenience.<\/p>\n They have that apologies thing down pat.<\/p>\n Okay, well, that happens. Hung up, and we lived the evening without live TV. Kitten watched a Dora the Explorer<\/i> video, and we ended up talking about vacation plans and going to bed early.<\/p>\n This morning, I got a call from Margie. Cable was still out. I got her the customer service number.<\/p>\n A bit later, she calls me back, fuming. Nope, no work being done in our area. Nope, no other reports of problems. Must be our cable box. They’ll send a technician out. Oh, but it’s too late to schedule anyone today, and Margie’s working tomorrow, so nobody will be able to come out until Friday. If only we’d called them back after 6 o’clock last night — they’d have been able to schedule someone to come out today.<\/i><\/p>\n “Um, it would have been nice if the lady last night had mentioned that.”<\/p>\n “I said that. The person I was talking to apologized.”<\/p>\n They have that down pat, as I said.<\/p>\n “They did credit us through Friday,” Margie continued. “That hardly makes up for the stupidity, though.”<\/p>\n So. Fortunately, Katherine has a decent supply of Blue’s Clues<\/i>, Dora <\/i>and Wiggles <\/i>(shudder) videos, and we have about 90% of the Disney animated film DVDs ever released. And maybe Margie and I can catch up on Firefly <\/i>before I have to get the tape back to Doyce for Friday’s show.<\/p>\n Or, of course, we can just have the TV off.<\/p>\n But it would be nice if it were our <\/i>choice, not the dim-bulb AT&T folks.<\/p>\n Feh.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Last night I came home around 5 and flipped on the TV, as is my usual pattern. A few moments of static came up, followed by the TV (detecting no…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[263,28],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3386","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-disney","category-media-moguls"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":128657,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2015\/11\/09\/the-potential-of-tv-outside-of-the-cable-box.html","url_meta":{"origin":3386,"position":0},"title":"The potential of TV outside of the cable box","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 9-Nov-15 11:46am","format":false,"excerpt":"If there's one trend I've seen in TV \/ video over the past five years that worries me, it's the fragmenting of the offerings (new content and old content), between the local cable \/ satellite vendor and a variety of streaming services. And in the last year the problem has\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131035,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/09\/oh-please-please-let-me-live-without-paying-for-espn.html","url_meta":{"origin":3386,"position":1},"title":"Oh, please, PLEASE let me live without paying for ESPN","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 9-Jul-16 5:27am","format":false,"excerpt":"With apologies to those occasional house guests who actually want to watch something on it, I'm frankly more than happy to live without having (or paying for) ESPN.Please. Originally shared by +Jack Seeley: That'll be the end of cable companies being anything but dumb pipes... ESPN reportedly breaking away from\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":132654,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/01\/26\/poor-benighted-cable-companies-no-longer-have-to-worry-about-competition.html","url_meta":{"origin":3386,"position":2},"title":"Poor, benighted cable companies no longer have to worry about competition","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 26-Jan-17 10:20am","format":false,"excerpt":"Why do we, as consumers, have pay a monthly rental for a cable box?Because the cable companies can do that.Why can't we use a different cable box, or our phones, or a third party device?Because the cable companies don't have to allow that.Wouldn't it be cool if we could get\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131002,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/07\/06\/netflix-will-show-up-natively-on-comcast-cable-boxes.html","url_meta":{"origin":3386,"position":3},"title":"Netflix will show up natively on Comcast cable boxes","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 6-Jul-16 5:19pm","format":false,"excerpt":"We actually access Netflix presently through a native app in our Sony BluRay player, but having it added seamlessly to the Comcast X1 box is even more convenient. Now if we can get Amazon streaming in there, I'll be really happy.(Yes, Comcast, this is a way to stay relevant --\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":131261,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/08\/13\/slow-tv-sounds-like-a-fine-idea.html","url_meta":{"origin":3386,"position":4},"title":"Slow TV sounds like a fine idea","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 13-Aug-16 6:25am","format":false,"excerpt":"We watch 90% of what we watch off the DVR, and the other 10% streamed from Netflix, etc. But that usually means between shows we are at the mercy of whatever is running in the background on whatever cable channel is on.I'd love to have Slow TV as that default\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":129351,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/01\/05\/the-plausible-future-of-tv.html","url_meta":{"origin":3386,"position":5},"title":"The (Plausible) Future of TV","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Jan-16 11:55am","format":false,"excerpt":"Here's a look at how the \"TV\" delivery industry (in terms of shows you watch and how you purchase them) may change over the next decade. It's optimistic in some ways, but also realistic: we're crossing some tipping points right now, unbundling is becoming big, and that's going to force\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3386","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3386"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3386\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":47664,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3386\/revisions\/47664"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3386"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3386"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3386"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}