Jodie Foster is scum

    Yes, I know that's a pretty provocative headline there. But I think it's justified based on this interview with her in The Hollywood Reporter :

http://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/jodie-foster-mel-gibson-i-167894

    Of course, the fact that she continues to defend Mel Gibson becomes less surprising, when you consider she just finished working on a film with Roman Polanski, another waste of human flesh. What was her response when the fact was brought up that this man had drugged and raped a 13 year old girl ? 

    From the article : "As for Polanski’s complicated character and the resurrection of his rape charge in the U.S., “That’s not my business,” she says."

    Really, Jodie ? That's not your business ? You didn't have to go to Paris to work with him because production costs are cheaper there or he wanted authentic shots of the Paris skyline. You had to go there because France is where he ran to after sexually assaulting a child !! Tell me, Jodie, if one of your sons was raped by a famous director, would you still work with that director ? Or is it only ok as long as it's someone else's child ?

    You disgust me, Jodie. I don't believe in an afterlife, but if I'm wrong, when you and Roman die, I hope you end up sharing a room in Hell.

   

New name, same lousy service

      Today, I'm just going to do a little bitching about one of my least favorite companies, Comcast, or as they're trying to re-brand themselves now, Xfinity. They apparently think people are so stupid that they won't realize that the only thing that's changed is the name and they're still the same awful company. I can't stand them. I can't count how many times my internet service or TV service has gone out or I've had certain TV channels go dark for several hours for no apparent reason. And then, of course, there's the fact that they have over the last couple of years taken channels out of the package I was paying for without any warning and, of course, without reducing what I was paying even though I was getting fewer channels. In fact, I believe what I pay has gone up at least three times in the last couple of years. And for what, more content, better service ? HA !

      Anyway, for the last couple of months, at least once a week, it seemed, I had been getting mail from Comcast telling me that I could switch from the Expanded Basic package I had now to Digital Starter for no extra cost. I was not interested. At the last place I lived, I had a problem when I moved out and canceled the service. I had bought my own cable modem and had been using that, yet Comcast tried to say that I had been using one of their modems and that I had to return it or pay them for it. So, the last thing I wanted to do was have any equipment I would have to give back to Comcast when I move (or as I keep hoping for, when Verizon comes to my area. I don't know anyone who's switched from Verizon to Comcast who isn't extremely happy they did.)

      My wife said that they might force us to switch to digital at some point, that they had done that to someone she worked with. Sure enough, last week, I got something in the mail saying that as of March 22, they would be changing their signal and if you didn't have a digital converter box or digital adapter hooked up to your TV, you wouldn't be able to get your channels anymore. So, yesterday, I went online and ordered the necessary equipment. I chose the option of picking the equipment up. I didn't want to have it mailed to my house and be sitting on my front porch for somebody to take and Comcast wanted to charge to have someone come hook this stuff up that we had no choice about getting. After work, I went by one of their locations and after standing in line for half an hour, I picked up a converter box and two adapters. 

      I got home and hooked up the converter box. At first, it seemed to be working, until I tried to turn on ESPN2. At which point, I got a message saying that I wasn't authorized to receive that channel (keep in mind, with this "digital upgrade", I was supposed to still have all the channels I had before "and more") followed a few seconds later by a message saying that I wasn't authorized to use the set top box I had just picked up !!

      I called the number on the screen and after going through 5 or 6 menus, I finally got to speak to a real person who was able to send a signal through and get the box working and all my channels to come up. I was still getting a message that I wasn't authorized for On Demand, which was also supposed to be part of this "digital upgrade". I mentioned this to the guy on the phone and he said it might take a little longer for that to come up.

      This morning, when I got up, I checked and found that I was getting the same message. Figuring that 12 hours was more then long enough to wait for the On Demand to be there, I called Comcast again. Now, if you've seen some of the commercials they've been running lately, they've been trying to indicate that they're all about the customer, they want the customer to be happy. Bullshit. They never have before and they're not starting now. But they're sure trying to sell that idea. When the woman I spoke to this morning answered the phone, it wasn't just "Thanks for calling Comcast". It was at least a 5 second spiel (wish I could remember the exact words) that basically came down to "We sure love the customer here at Comcast, please don't switch to Verizon despite all the good things your friends tell you about it.")

     She told me that the reason I wasn't getting On Demand was that nobody had switched the "code" in my account to indicate that I was now supposed to have Digital Starter service. So, let's review, I went to the site they included in the mail they sent me about this "upgrade", logged in with my account and ordered the equipment. Then I spoke to someone face to face who pulled up my account before handing over the equipment to me. Finally, I spoke on the phone to someone about issues I was having with this new equipment and, at no time, did anyone bother to make the necessary changes to my account. I might understand it not being automatically changed when I ordered the stuff online, but the guy who gave me the equipment doesn't think to do it ? Certainly, you would think the guy on the phone who knew I was having  a problem might have picked up on it. But, of course, this is Comcast we're talking about, so expecting competent service is really too much to ask. I HATE Comcast and I will be so glad when I'm able to switch to Verizon and tell Comcast goodbye forever.

Update on "They just keep giving"

Apparently, I was right.  

http://mediamatters.org/research/201103070026

They just keep giving

      I'm beginning to think that I could just watch Fox "News" every morning and I would never have to worry again about having something to post here. This morning, the BHBB on "Fox and Fools" was interviewing Dr. Brian Weiss about his book, "Many Lives, Many Masters". It's a book about past lives and using past life "regression" to fix problems people have in their lives. One example he gave (and I'm not making this up) was if you had neck pain that it may be that you were hanged in a past life and by helping you "remember" that, you can cure the pain. ARE YOU KIDDING ME? This is what FOX considers news, some quack peddling nonsense? It's bad enough that they put their own slant on real news stories, including flat out lying about things. But this, really? I admit it's not as if Fox "News" had any credibility before anyway. If they ever did, though, this got rid of it for sure.
      Sorry, folks, but you didn't have any past lives and you're not going to have any future ones. Just look at it from a strictly mathematical standpoint. There are MANY (we're talking literally billions) more people who are living today than lived in the past. Are there some people who have lived before and other people who are new souls? If that's the case, how is it that every person who goes to a quack like this Dr. Weiss is told that they had a past life? You would think once in a while they'd come across someone who didn't have any past lives. In fact, the difference between the amount of people living before and those living now would make it likely that most of the people they "treat" would NOT have had a past life, but that never seems to be the case. And, always, at least one of the individual's past lives was as somebody famous, again something the odds would be against. Why then, is this always the case? Oh, that's right, because the whole thing is BS.
     Oh, and let me ask you this. If someone opens fire on a group of people killing some and wounding others, what would you call that? I ask this because right after the BHBB's ridiculous interview, she mentioned the stories (and, really, if there's ever a time where that is the appropriate word for news, it's when it's something on FOX) was going to be about how President Obama won't use the word terrorism in reference to the shooting of U.S. airmen in Germany. We've heard this before from them. Obama never uses the word terrorism (which isn't true) and of course, this means he is really on the side of the terrorists (at least, that's what FOX tries to imply). You know, I don't watch FOX "News" that much, so maybe I missed it when they covered the story on TV, but I did a search on their website using quite a few combinations of "Arizona" and "terrorism" or "terorrist". Based on the results I got, it doesn't seem that they referred to the shootings in Arizona as terrorism even though it was very similar to what happened in Germany. Hmmm, why would that be? Maybe this table will help :

Germany shootings                                       Arizona shootings

Lone gunman                                                   Lone gunman

Attack on U.S. citizens in public                       Attack on U.S. citizens in public

Multiple deaths                                                 Multiple deaths

Shooter was not a U.S. citizen                         Shooter was a U.S. citizen

Shooter influenced by violent                           Shooter influenced by violent
rhetoric of Islamic extremists                           rhetoric of right wing politicians
                                                                         given airtime on FOX

      Gee, what are the differences that might be causing them to label one as a terrorist attack and not the other? As I said, I could be wrong. Maybe when the Arizona shootings happened, they reported it as a terrorist attack and they just don't refer to it as such on their website, right? Yeah....right.
      FOX "News", the gift that keeps on giving.

Said I wouldn't do this, but....

     ....I have a little bit of a new audience. I posted a comment on another blog and according to my stats, some people (not a lot , but a few) clicked on the link I included and checked out my blog. If any of those people are still coming back to check the blog out, I'm asking for any comments you have. It can be about a specific post or about the blog in general, what you like about it, what you don't, that kind of thing. I know I said recently that I wasn't going to solicit comments. But if I've got some people checking this blog out, maybe some of them might not be lurkers and would be willing to speak up. I think it's time to admit, to myself and anyone reading this, I would like people to read what I have to say. I wish I could say that I'm writing just to write, but let's be honest, if you're writing something and putting it out there and nobody's reading it, what's the point ? If you're going to write just for yourself, you should just keep a diary, not have a blog. I think feedback may help me get an idea of what's working and what isn't and allow me to do things that will get more people reading.
     Of course, I've already heard (and have successfully made use of the suggestion) that I should comment on blogs I read. And, yes, I know, posting a little more often would help. I'm working on it. I'm mainly looking for ideas about the writing, the layout, the about me page, etc, basically anything about the blog itself that I could tweak.