Right Wing Nut House

I finally did it.

Mediacom proved their incompetence once too often and I have made the switch to satellite TV - Direct TV to be specific.

The straw that finally broke the Three Toed Sloth’s back was the total breakdown in Mediacom’s automatic bill pay. After taking about 4 months to get set up - signing up time and time again to have them deduct the bill automatically from my checking account - auto pay finally kicked in last April. For exactly 4 months, it worked fine.

Then in July, Mediacom never deducted anything from my bank account. I probably should have noticed but didn’t. Neither did the company make a deduction in August. This time, I received a notice last week that we would be disconnected unless the July bill was paid.

I called and talked to three separate people - two customer service and one in the collection department - who swore that their records showed the bank had denied their efforts to elicit payment. When I offered to pay online, I was told not to bother, that the situation had been corrected and that auto pay would deduct for both bills last Wednesday. The collection employee was cross, argumentative, and treated me like dirt.

After calling the bank only to find out they were all either lying or incompetent boobs because the bank had absolutely no record of any requests for withdrawal from Mediacom, I decided to wait to see what would happen on Wednesday before doing anything.

Meanwhile, a collection call came every day - each time we had to explain all over again the problem. Each time the Mediacom employee said there was no record of anyone calling previously - including no record of my having called the week before to volunteer to pay the amount immediately.

Wednesday came and went without the amount being deducted from our bank account. When I called on Thursday, it was to inform them that I had paid the past due amount and that I was switching to the dish. The customer service rep was laughing under his breath at me. I could hear the amusement in his voice as I related the entire story of incompetence and lousy service.

With that kind of attitude, Mediacom better hope they can maintain their monopoly on cable TV in the areas they are licensed. Otherwise, they will disappear faster than you can say “Mediacom sucks.”

Today, Direct TV installed 250 crystal clear channels that have already left Mediacom in the dust. The introductory offer includes the whole NFL package - free for 5 months. Every movie channel - premium or otherwise - every sports channel, every artsty fartsy, science, history, news, channel known to the English speaking world.

The picture quality is jaw dropping. Just a few days ago I was saying to Zsu-Zsu that we must be getting too used to HD TV because watching the paltry 30 channels Mediacom offered in HD was getting boring. Well, it wasn’t that it was necessarily getting boring - it was that the signal from Mediacom was coming from 100 miles away. We also got extremely tired of pixelated screens on a regular basis, extremely poor standard def reception, and the constant frozen frames that would sometimes last for minutes.

I was not prepared for the difference in picture quality. It’s like we didn’t have an HD set for the previous year. With 130 HD channels, digital sound on every channel (Our Bose sounds incredible), I can see the follicles on Wolf Blitzer’s face. The nose hairs of Chris Matthews are brought out in stark relief. In short, I am going to watch football in a few minutes and I am sure that I am going to see the bloodshot eyes of Ray Lewis as he eats the opposing quarterback alive.

I was an idiot for not doing this within two weeks of moving out to Streator.

One other big change in our lives; a new arrival:

Meet Lucky. And yes, he is. Not just for finding a home with us but also for being alive at all.

It seems that lucky was born in the wild, child of one of the many strays who hang around, scrounging for food and looking for sex with kitties lucky enough to have their own slaves. Lucky and her littermates were fortunate enough to have been found by some special needs people who live in a group home down the street. Last weekend, one of the teens was going house to house looking to give the kittens away and we decided to take a chance and bring one into our home.

We have two grown cats, of course, who are very comfortable with each other.

So the new arrival was a chance to show their magnanimity and interpersonal skills in adopting the newcomer and welcoming him with open arms.

Wel,, Aramis and Snowball were perfectly willing to be friends but our wild little Lucky had other ideas. Every time either one would approach, he would let out the most ear piercing growls and hisses you can imagine. Yes, they will eventually work out living arrangements but it is so pathetic to see the two of them walking away in bewilderment after Lucky warns them not to approach. I really think they want to be friends but will just have to be patient with the little one until he gets his paws under him.

Meantime, get plenty of rest and we’ll go looking for more trouble tomorrow.