After Spaniard Alberto Contador captured the Tour de France, I realized it was a sweep for Spain in the major international sporting events of the summer. A Spanish rider winning "Le Tour" is not a surprise. And Rafa Nadal capturing the Wimbledon crown cannot be considered an upset, although the Spainish usually excel on clay. But Spain also won the World Cup for the first time in it's history!
Congratulations to Spain on a historic month in sport.
THE GOOD, THE BAD, and THE UGLY (a new feature for me. We'll see if it sticks)
The Good: Netflix. I started a free trial to catch up on some movies, especially old classics before my time, and good films I wanted to share with the kids (Roxanne, Soylent Green, Urban Cowboy, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers-Donald Sutherland version, Oh God, Abbott and Costello meet the Mummy, and several others).
What caught my eye was the ability to watch movies instantly through a game system (Wii, PS3, Xbox) when it is linked to the interet, in addition to exchanging discs through the mail. It took about 3 minutes to set up, and the interface works very well. They don't have a lot of the movies/tv shows available "instantly", but there are allegedly 20,000 items available this way, including several items from 2009 and 2010. I have watched many movies in the first 10 days of the trial, and a few tv episodes. This includes the entire first season (ten 21 min eps) of Archer, an irreverent international spy/comedy/comic that aired on FX this winter. Think Kimpossible for grownups. I plan to include it in my 09/10 tv season review, if I ever blog it. It will be a review since I dragged my feet too long on the preview.
Overall, I give Netflix an A+ as both delivery methods are quick and reliable. I will become a regular subscriber.
The Bad: Walgreens. I have been a longtime investor and fan, but they have been swinging and missing with me a lot lately.
I went to pick up a prescription I had dropped off weeks earlier. They could not fill it at that time because the insurance company said it was too close to the last date filled. No problem. They told me to come back after a certain date. I did. Remarkably, it still wasn't ready and would be done in a "few minutes." How many days does it take to put pills in a bottle?
So I looked around (which is one of the reasons prescriptions "take a few minutes"). There was a store remodeling sale going on, which was nice since the remodeling was causing some issues. The sign on the door said 50%-75% off clearance items. However, the reality was it was 50% off the second item when the first was purchased at full price. A bit deceptive. Really a 25% discount to buy in volume.
The last straw was when I was overcharged for candy by my preferred candy supplier. Good N Plenty in this case. They advertise the "3 for $3", but the cash registers consistently have trouble with this. Granted, it was only a 60 cent overcharge that I didn't notice until I was gone, but this is not the first time.
Three strikes in what should have been an easy less-than-five-minute stop? Disappointing.
The Ugly: Comcast. I'm sure any of us could go on for hours about their local cable tv provider, so I will try to keep my rant brief. As an investor, I always found monopolies appealing, but as a sheep customer, they just suck.
The current "service enhancement" requires cable boxes on every tv, even though technology overcame this need about 25 years ago. This allows the cable company to better control who is getting/paying for the signal, and also allows them to charge monthly for required equipment. Kind of like going to a restaurant, ordering the soup, and then being charged an additional per minute fee for the use of a spoon.
This "simple" installation of the boxes required re-configuring tv/vcr/dvd/gaming system set-ups, and even dismantling an entertainment system to get to everything and make it work right.
The end result:
- 3 of 4 tvs working with the new boxes (the 4th one isn't directly Comcast's fault because I can't get the tv and vcr to work together, but it was working fine before I was forced to take it apart).
- 9, or 14, or some other number of new channels I don't care about. Hey, how about giving us back SyFy Network (formerly SciFi)?
- Another! remote for each room. May possibly be able to consolidate in one or two cases, but seeing my friend's family rooms doesn't make me optimistic.
- Another! plug to find an outlet for in 4 rooms (very green Comcast!).
- A lost Saturday afternoon for three people.
- An additional monthly charge.
The benefit? Other than the opportunity to dust in some normally inaccessible places, it appeared we would now get OnDemand. But there is an error message saying we need to call them again after spending 20 minutes on the phone already trying to "activate" the new service.
I feel Comcastic!
I was trying to think of what the entries for comcastic would be in a thesauras, but my therapist is insisting I take a few deep breaths and think pleasant thoughts right now. Any suggestions for thesauras entries from the readers?
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