People have a feeling of entitlement these days… I don’t get it. Case in point. Today I arrived at work and parked my car sometime around 7:30. I scored the super-star spot in Snively, we all know the type, where you can be guaranteed you will be able to get back in your car at the end of the day because no one can park on the driver’s side. When I parked in that spot, there was a car 2 spots to the right of me, and nothing in front of the car for several spaces. I did not count, I was still drinking my coffee. Some time around 8, a coworker came in and told me I needed to check my car, someone had parked and most likely damaged it. I couldn’t get out to the lot until lunch because of meetings. When I arrived, I found the following.

Now mind you, she (yes, I have seen the driver of this car many a morning as we typically arive around the same time of day) pulled into the spot some time AFTER I had already parked. Granted, my front bumper is in line with the white line, but like tennis, the line is in. I suspect this person would rear end someone and blame the person she hit. Just going out on a limb here. Either way, it’s another one of those instances where the checks and balances fall back to the world is full of idiots. Sorry society you just lost a point from the NOT IDIOTS column.

Please enjoy the rest of the photos, also notice the way in which the car is parked in the spot, all the way to the right. I returned the note, asking the person not to park in spots in the future they feel they can not park in, they could potentially damage a colleague’s car. No need to call the police, there was no damage done to my car. I did pull my car back in the likely event that this car should leave before me for fear of my bumper, license plate and anything else the person might rip from my car when they back out, of course, all my fault.

Ish. Well, I hate to do this, but I’ve had 4 spam comments in the last 3 days. I’d rather nip it in the bud before I have a lot to clean up. I’ve added the requirement to register to comment, and anyone can register. We’ll see if this stops it before it gets out of hand, if it gets out of hand.

Update Thanks again to Cliff for making me aware of a better way to remove spam. You no longer need to register to comment. I didn’t like the idea to begin with, bur I didn’t want to end up spending all my time cleaning spam.

Warning: Angry Rant follows

This Thanksgiving, we finally moved my parents on to a ‘high-speed’ cable connection. The only option available in Maine is Time-Warner, which uses Roadrunner (rr.com).

Now for a long time, I always thought that Comcast was a miserable company to deal with, at times with questionable practices. I was wrong, or rather, Comcast turns out could be worse.

The night before Thanksgiving, the self install kit arrived. With excitement, my brother and I planned on setting up Dad’s brand new Shiny Dell to get online the following day, when we could break away from dinner prep. Now my brother Tom, had called to get the self-install kit, and was led to believe that a cable modem would be included. No such luck. So with a quick drive to Brunswick, we pick up the only cable modem available at staples. Thursday morning, I go into the office with the kit, pop in the cd to set up Dad’s computer. What followed was absolutely baffling. All the CD did was bring up the MAC Address of the cable modem we had purchased the night before, and gave me a non 800, long-distance number to call.

With growing frustration, I proceed to call the number, where I navigate too many menu choices to remember, and sit on hold. To add insult to injury, during the 40 or so minutes of sitting on hold, I was reminded by the annoyingly friendly voice on the phone, that I should sign up for Road Runner High speed Internet service. ARGH!

Just about the time, I had thought about giving up, I finally got a hold of a human, maybe. My RR associate took my MAC address and told me that he would submit the work order to MIS to activate the modem, and that it could take up to an hour. I asked him if I could get some confirmation number to reference if I needed to call back. . . “Sorry, I don’t have anything to give you” was the reply. “O.k., whats your name?” I ask. I get his name and write it down, at which point he realizes he can give me the ticket # from submitting the work-order to MIS. I take the number, and we say our good days.

Now, to their credit, and the only positive experience with this two-bit hack service provider, in 30 minutes, we’re up and running on the interWeb on the Computer machine. We get a call from the associate that I spoke with earlier. Signal quality on all 3 measurements for the modem are in the red. I immediately assume it’s the internal wiring for the house. In case however, we schedule a service appointment.

Later that day, we decide that it doesn’t make sense to have a tech come out until we rewire the house with RG-6, so I get back on the phone to cancel the appointment. . . 25 minutes later I give up and hang up to go see family that came to say hi.

Now here we are The following Tuesday, and my brother is working from home and tries to cancel the appointment. He found email contacts on the RR site, and sends an email to the two addresses listed explaining we would like to cancel the appointment. Great, we should be set, right? No both address, which he got from the site remember, fail. 34 minutes of hold music that as he put it “will put a caffeine addict to sleep!” he finally got a human.

All of this for their high speed connection, which by the way is 256k Up/256k down. Yeah, you read that right. WTF?!

From my understanding from friends that have had this service for some time, Time Warner cut the speed of basic service to this speed, then turned around and offered the original speed as a premium service, for more.

This folks, is today’s Qual-i-Tee award winner.