The Personal Blog

Well as you can see, I made a change to the layout slightly here on my blog, and I think it looks pretty nice. Everything is pretty much exactly how I want it now. Let me know what you guys think about it.

I started a podcast and vidcast earlier today, but had to stop because something of great importance came up. I'll be posting when the make-up show will go on here soon.

I haven't talked much about my bowling lately, and for good reason. I've been in quite a slump here lately and haven't quite figured out what is different than before. I've let my averages slip, but I'm slowly gaining ground again. I shot about average tonight, and we barely squeezed 3 games out of the set. One thing that I know will help me is new equipment. I'm a Storm guy all the way, and I know what I want. It's just a matter of getting the money to get it. I'm using a 4 year old Flash Force and a 2 year old Fired Up. Don't get me wrong, they were awesome when I first got them, but they've become worn over time and just don't hit like they used to, especially the Flash Force. I'm really looking forward to the day that I can get my new equipment and get back into contention again. Hopefully it'll be sooner than later.

I'm happy to say that our DirecTV system is working out great. We have yet to have a problem with anything, and the technical support agents have been absolutely wonderful. We found out that the HD DVR we have is the newest box they offer, and has a Media Share option built in, which basically turns it into a media extender. So, we can send movies, pictures and audio from our computers in different rooms over to the box to watch on our big screen. That's one nice feature right there. If anyone out there is trying to decide against Comcast or DirecTV, my personal opinion would be to ditch the cable and get the dish! I mean, we had the dish installed in the rain (the installer guy was awesome) and the sky was heavily overcast, and the installer told us that we might have about a 55 to 60% signal during storms like that. He ran a check on the signal, and we were at 88%. He looked at the screen and said "wow!" So did all of us. It's just a can't miss deal.

That about does it for my ramblings for today. If you have any comments for me, feel free to post them on here or shoot me a message on any IM or social site listed on the right side of the page. Pce!

Well the DirecTV system is hooked up. It took almost 2 hours to figure out where we could put the dish because of this huge oak tree in our front yard, but we found a temporary place for it until we get some limbs cut away to put it where we want it.

The system is pretty nice. The only thing that I wish I had in every room was the On Demand feature on every receiver, but maybe one day we can all have the same receiver. Nothing too big though. The guy that set up the service was VERY patient, and was determined to set up our system. He even called his supervisor out here to have another opinion on what he needed to do before giving up. Then set up the dish and ran a replacement line outside in the steady rain. He was basically freakin' awesome!

I also got a message back from Comcast asking for my phone number so he can look at the account. I really don't think there is any reason to do so, because I'm very satisfied with the quality of DirecTV and even if Comcast came out and did everything they need to do, we still wouldn't be as happy as we are with this service. Now all we need is for AT&T to provision our line and activate it and we'll be completely rid of Comcast.

So basically, here's the breakdown of DirecTV and AT&T compared to Comcast:

DIRECTV AND AT&T
Equipment: $15 (HD DVR, 3 standard receivers)
Choice Xtra Package: $50 (Over 200 channels including HD)
AT&T FastAccess DSL; $48 (6.0 MB\S)
Total: $113

COMCAST
Equipment and Basic Digital Programming: $92 (Around 150 channels, not all available due to inadequate cable, HD DVR that we didn't ask for)
Comcast High-Speed Internet: $53 (6.0 MB\S)
Total: $145

Now which would you choose? It's a no-brainer.

As many of you have noticed, I haven't been posting on here much lately.  Well, honestly, I've been pretty busy.  I haven't really been here at home to post anything, and when I am at home I have been busy with things around here.  But I have taken the time to say that I will be offline for an unknown amount of time, possibly up to a week.  We are switching from Comcast to AT&T FastAccess DSL and apparently, the activation process can be a bit lengthy.  We also changed our TV service over to DirecTV, but they'll be here in a couple of days.  I'm looking forward to the switches and I know they'll be for the better.  Good riddance Comcast!

Have you had problems with Comcast in the past?  Have you had a bad customer service experience or been the victim of a rate hike?  Post it as a comment and let your frustrations out.  As soon as all of the figures are ironed out, I'm going to post a comparison between what I had with Comcast and what I'm getting with DirecTV and AT&T.