Rant VIII: The Reckoning
- Thread starter Anonymous
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Well... yeah. It's the nature of planning anything, weddings even more so.
Courthouse wedding. Myself, her, my parents, my sister and brother, and sister's boyfriend. Wife has no immediate family (that she claims), so that was easy.
That being said, we'd planned on doing a vow renewal for our tenth anniversary (holy shit, only 3 years away), and I told her she could go as far as our budget could take on that one, to make up for not having a big ceremony.
That being said, we'd planned on doing a vow renewal for our tenth anniversary (holy shit, only 3 years away), and I told her she could go as far as our budget could take on that one, to make up for not having a big ceremony.
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Ours wasn't courthouse, but the attendance isn't too far off from O_C's (both sets of parents; his sister & brother-in-law plus their two kids; my aunt, uncle, cousin, cousin's husband, and their son.). We also talked about a 10 year anniversary vow renewal and big bash afterward with our friends in attendance. Maybe on our 15th instead if we can make it back to the mainland without having to each sell a kidney.
Is flying Space A an option? (Never used it myself.)
We also had a tiny ceremony in my folks' backyard. The most expensive item was my wife's dress. I used a suit I already had, bought a new tie, rented a vest. We bought a cake at a grocery store. Had a friend do the photos (his hobby). We had about 20 people total. Most of them were my mom's friends who she invited w/o telling us which irked us a bit. My dad even got the shotgun out for giggles. It was actually nice. Although, no one thought to get the camcorder out. 
I've considered it, but I'm wary of it. It sounds like a huge pain in the ass. My old neighbor and her kids waited 3 days to get a flight from here to either Travis or Edwards AFB. When they arrived she was told she and her kids could not go on to FL. It had something to do with not having orders or command approval to go to there. It's been several years since this happened so I don't remember exactly what she told me the reason was. At any rate, they had to wait another day to get a flight back here. They were gone a week and basically went no where.
Dave
Staff member
My cable company is Cox. I have been an avid supporter of theirs for a while now. Then today happened.
Late last year I switched from a two DVR setup to the Cox Contour whole home DVR. Theoretically, this was going to make it so that I could record all the shows I wanted from any TV, watch them on any TV or control everything from a tablet. But that's not what happened. Most of the time it just plain didn't work. The screens would freeze, the boxes would reset on their own and just cycle. It was terrible. They tried to blame my lines but my internet was fast and clear as a bell so that was patently untrue.
Additionally, the Contour is set up as a Client/Slave so that the one in the living room was the main and the one in my office was the slave. But I couldn't use the functionality of a DVR with the one in my office until I paused it first. So if I were watching a football game I'd have to be sure to pause it when I started watching or I wouldn't be able to rewind. And even then if I waited too long to rewind it would go back to the way it was and I wouldn't be able to rewind.
For this, our bill went from $240 a month (this includes phone and internet) to $270 a month. No problem. But here's where it gets good. I decided that paying that was just stupid for a service that didn't work. I first tried to have them look at the unit to see if they could fix it. They came out two times and neither time was able to help. So I told them that I wanted to go back to my other two DVR setup and go back to the way things were. No problem. Until this morning when I went to pay bills.
My cable bill for the month of March was $516. $120 of this was for the service calls that were supposed to be free since I pay a fee every month for this service. The remaining $396 was based on...I don't know exactly. I called Cox and after speaking with 3 separate people (and getting disconnected twice) I was able to work out that my March bill would be $369, which they say is what our services costs without any bundle discounts, which they say I lost when I switched to Contour. Oh, I had the Contour bundle then, but when I switched BACK bundle discounts no longer applied. They removed the $120 bullshit fee and then $27 because...just because? But they say I still owe the $369 - $130 higher monthly fee than I was paying before I "upgraded" my service. I did talk them down through "loyalty" to $288 a month, but that's STILL almost $50 a month more than what I was paying before.
So here I am, a very loyal customer getting fucked because their stuff didn't work. Had I not tried to upgrade none of this would have happened. When I used to call them, I'd get someone here in Omaha. Now I always got people in Houston. So they are cutting back on customer service costs and it shows.
So that's it. I'm cutting off Cox. My choices are either Direct TV or Dish because monopolies suck and I don't live in an area where I can have CenturyLink. I can't cord cut because my wife isn't behind me on it, but I'm going to be switching providers at the very least.
tl;dr: Cox fucked over a 20+ year loyal - VOCALLY loyal - customer and it was the last straw.
Late last year I switched from a two DVR setup to the Cox Contour whole home DVR. Theoretically, this was going to make it so that I could record all the shows I wanted from any TV, watch them on any TV or control everything from a tablet. But that's not what happened. Most of the time it just plain didn't work. The screens would freeze, the boxes would reset on their own and just cycle. It was terrible. They tried to blame my lines but my internet was fast and clear as a bell so that was patently untrue.
Additionally, the Contour is set up as a Client/Slave so that the one in the living room was the main and the one in my office was the slave. But I couldn't use the functionality of a DVR with the one in my office until I paused it first. So if I were watching a football game I'd have to be sure to pause it when I started watching or I wouldn't be able to rewind. And even then if I waited too long to rewind it would go back to the way it was and I wouldn't be able to rewind.
For this, our bill went from $240 a month (this includes phone and internet) to $270 a month. No problem. But here's where it gets good. I decided that paying that was just stupid for a service that didn't work. I first tried to have them look at the unit to see if they could fix it. They came out two times and neither time was able to help. So I told them that I wanted to go back to my other two DVR setup and go back to the way things were. No problem. Until this morning when I went to pay bills.
My cable bill for the month of March was $516. $120 of this was for the service calls that were supposed to be free since I pay a fee every month for this service. The remaining $396 was based on...I don't know exactly. I called Cox and after speaking with 3 separate people (and getting disconnected twice) I was able to work out that my March bill would be $369, which they say is what our services costs without any bundle discounts, which they say I lost when I switched to Contour. Oh, I had the Contour bundle then, but when I switched BACK bundle discounts no longer applied. They removed the $120 bullshit fee and then $27 because...just because? But they say I still owe the $369 - $130 higher monthly fee than I was paying before I "upgraded" my service. I did talk them down through "loyalty" to $288 a month, but that's STILL almost $50 a month more than what I was paying before.
So here I am, a very loyal customer getting fucked because their stuff didn't work. Had I not tried to upgrade none of this would have happened. When I used to call them, I'd get someone here in Omaha. Now I always got people in Houston. So they are cutting back on customer service costs and it shows.
So that's it. I'm cutting off Cox. My choices are either Direct TV or Dish because monopolies suck and I don't live in an area where I can have CenturyLink. I can't cord cut because my wife isn't behind me on it, but I'm going to be switching providers at the very least.
tl;dr: Cox fucked over a 20+ year loyal - VOCALLY loyal - customer and it was the last straw.
That sucks Dave. Cable-monopolies are lame. So, have you spoken to the Cox retention folks? I'd bring up your loyalty when you are discussing service termination. Tell them you run a website that get x unique visits a month and that you will advertise Cox ineptness unless they make it right.
That's not massive. one of the reasons I'm dreading proposing is my gf's family. her father's one of 8, her mother's one of 9. All of those uncles and aunts had children, minimum of 2, most 4 (did I mention they're middle-of-nowhere-small-village devout Catholic?). And her mother insists on inviting the whole "close" family for weddings. Admittedly, my parents-in-law would pay for food and rinks on "their" part of the family, but I just plain don't want or think I can manage a 300+ people party/feast supposedly in "our" honor. Gyah.
Retention always has more power than customer service.
Last month, my cable/internet/tv bill went up $50 because my bundles expired. When I called customer service, I was able to get a whopping $7.00 off that price.
After finding out what Dish would charge me for the same service, and expressing to my cable company that I was going to switch "100% because of price", I managed to get the bill down to $10 below it was when I first signed up 2 years ago, and a free upgrade from simple boxes to dvrs in the house.
Last month, my cable/internet/tv bill went up $50 because my bundles expired. When I called customer service, I was able to get a whopping $7.00 off that price.
After finding out what Dish would charge me for the same service, and expressing to my cable company that I was going to switch "100% because of price", I managed to get the bill down to $10 below it was when I first signed up 2 years ago, and a free upgrade from simple boxes to dvrs in the house.
It's right there in the name. They're going to be dicks.
...okay, after obvious joke is made, have to tried to get a cable card plan from a cable provider? A few months back, we wanted to cut down our cable bill, so Mr. Z bought us a TiVo and a TiVo Roamio, with gave us a similar set-up to what you're describing. This meant we only have to pay a $5 monthly rental fee to rent the cable card from our Fios/Cable provider. We bought a pre-owned TiVo box super cheap and paid the higher "lifetime" plan from TiVo, but no monthly fee from them ever again.
Admittedly, not counting wedding dress/make up/whatever, my sister-in-law apparently made a profit from the wedding.
Hurt my back something fierce on Saturday, from shovelling snow. It's gone from bad to better and now worse tonight. And the advil or ibuprofen isn't doing anything to help.
Saw my doctor about it today. He thinks I hurt the...stuff between my back discs. I don't remember the exact term. It's not muscle, which is why the meds haven't worked well. So he's telling me to do a hot pack, some light exercises, then a cold pack.
Either way, I'm out from work for awhile.
Saw my doctor about it today. He thinks I hurt the...stuff between my back discs. I don't remember the exact term. It's not muscle, which is why the meds haven't worked well. So he's telling me to do a hot pack, some light exercises, then a cold pack.
Either way, I'm out from work for awhile.
The stuff between the discs are your vertebrae. Hope you didn't herniate a disc or pull anything out of line. You pinch a nerve and it's just all kinds of unpleasant until you can relieve that pressure.
--Patrick
Did he give you anything for the pain?
No, it's like...fucking hell, I don't know. He showed me this diagram that showed muscles on the body. The stuff that I hurt was white in this diagram, indicating that there's little blood that goes to it, unlike muscle, which is why the ibuprofen wasn't doing anything.
You got ghosts in your back, dude.
Aussie could tell you about herniated discs. He hurt the L4 and L5 (lumbar, aka lower back), plus it caused an impinged nerve that made him lose feeling from his knee down in one leg from falling while on a ship a few years ago.
Is that your extra?
Yeah. I have six lower vertebrae.
She's only hugging you so she can cop a feel of your discs.Who said I minded?!
I'm sorry you have herniated discs. <hugs>
Also, those of you giving poe those hugs, you'd best hope that bowel stays obstructed.