Anonymous writes:

OH PRAISE THE LORD!! A construction crew in the United States that SPEAKS ENGLISH!! Oh my stars and bars what a miracle this is to find a company that speaks English in AMERICA!!! Look here “Gas”, you had better freaking speak English if you are in our country, and you better be hiring legal citizens, and you had better be paying your taxes or I am coming after you like shit on stink. How DARE you insult us with this garbage. This is AMERICA, we ALL speak ENGLISH here you tard! Where do you think you are? I encorage everyone who reads this to call their office and CALL BULLSHIT ON THIS!!

I have no clue what they are, so I keep spraying “Raid” all over the place.

Thinking “Bed Bugs” I go online and look them up. Sho’ nuff, we have bed bugs!!! First call is to a bug exterminator, next call to L.A. Mattress where we bought from.. Their reply, (in essence) “So sad, too bad, your warranty doesn’t cover bed bugs, and you can’t prove they came from our mattresses any way”

Say WHAT?????? Not only do I have to pay $228 to have our home ‘de-bugged’, but I have to throw way a $700 mattress and go out and buy another one. What kind of mattress company would want that kind of bad publicity?

I went to “Sit n Sleep” for our new mattress, they said if anyone ever complained of bed bugs after buying from them, they replace everything no questions asked. So…B.S. on L.A. Mattress!!!!!

Rob from Chambersburg, PA

Scene 1:
…Pulling up to the electro-fized, computer-ized McSquawk box. There is one car ahead of us, sitting at the box for a protracted period of time. At first I thought it was was of those dumb-@$$es we’ve all encountered who just can’t seem to get the hang of the drive-thru.Waiting. Waiting. The guy ahead of us just sits. He doesn’t talk to the box, or lean his head out, or attempt to read anything on it. He just…..sits.  We wait some more…..continue reading for this rest of Rob’s tale of BS.

Finally, he just pulls out and leaves. I chuckle to myself–’this dufus musta thought it was supposed to read his mind.’  With that, I wish him safe travels back into the primordial ooze from which he sprang.

Scene 2:
My turn at the squawk box.
I pull up, roll down the window, and wait. …and wait, and wait, and wait.  There are now 6 cars stacked behind me. Finally, I hear a voice requesting me to ‘please wait.’
A moment later, 3 of the drivers behind me throw in the towel, and squeal away. I wait. …and wait, and wait, and wait. The remaining cars leave, as well. We sit all alone at the squawk box. Eerie, indeed. FINALLY, a voice appears on the box: “I’m sorry about the wait. I’ll be with you in a moment.” Moment?? Moment!?!?! What the hell does that mean?! I’m the only one left out here!! What could POSSIBLY be going on in there, causing me to forfeit this time in my life?!?!?!  Little did I know, I was about to find out. I was in for a bout with unimaginable idiocy.

In the mean time, I have some time to reflect. My inner dialog offers up an apology to the guy ahead of me; ’sorry dude–I assumed…it all makes so much sense now.’ ….still waiting for the mystic-food-order-taker thingie to come to back life, and offer up wisdom. And a F#@&ing hamburger or two.

A while later,  I hear the familiar crackle, and ‘Welcome to McDonalds, may I take your order?’  At this juncture, I did not know it was a trick question. I should have thought a lot more carefully before giving my answer:
 ’uh, ok…I’d like a double hamburger, w/extra onion, no mustard….and a double cheese burger w/extra onion.’ We wanted a couple other amazingly complex items, like fries and apple pies, but never got that far. Perhaps another day. <sigh>

The screen on the squawk box starts displaying my order. Incorrectly. Fancy that.
I interject….’no, no, no….I wanted….’ [repeating the burger part of the order.] This interplay lasts about 6 exchanges. I’m apoplectic. I utter some expletives under my breath, and toss in some personal epithets for good measure. Meg wants to help, but I don’t let her, ’cause she’s not allowed to talk like that.

Meg suggests we just forget it and leave. No way. Not me. I’ve never experienced anything quite this dumb before. The curious child within wants to see how this plays out. This is such a special kinda stupid, I just hafta see what happens next.

So, like the cars before us, I just pull away from the squawk box with the RainWoman still bleating my order back to me (I’m certain, incorrectly), and pull right up to the delivery window get my god-damned hamburgers. There’s no way I’m letting Forrestina Gump get the best of me.

Scene 3:
…pulling up to the window. She opens the glass, and utters something I cannot comprehend.  It was definitely in some form of ‘dropped-out-of-school-in-the-6th-grade Americanese.’   I was expecting the ever ubiquitous teenager-with-a-bad-attitude, but it was a lady in her 40’s. This was for sure, a big surprise– I didn’t know you could be THIS stupid, and not ‘git yerself kilt’ by now.

Anyway, I don’t respond to the blather she just chirped on my lobes; I simply (emphasis)  re-state my order from the beginning. I manage to utter the 1st part of my order, when she abruptly closes the window. I can see her through the glass, punching buttons on the See-And-Say cash register, specially built for life-time minimum wagers. She’s also scratching her head.  I half-way expected her to lick the glass, like the other kids who ride the ’short bus’ do.

The window opens again, and she asks about how I wanted the burgers. I repeat…again.  (you gotta be F#@&ing kidding me!)  She closes the window…again. She punches buttons on her See-And-Say…again. Scratches her head…again. This entire segment happens 4 times, with her occasionally heading into the kitchen to confer with the culinary staff.

A few minutes later, the window opens, and out comes my order. We pull into the parking lot to inspect the contents of the bag, as we were absolutely certain the order could not be right.
But…it was. Meg and I had a good belly-laugh about the order actually being correct.

The total time from pulling up to the squawk box, to biting my burger? 14 minutes.

Whilst waiting for this ordeal to conclude, I noticed several more cars pulling up to the squawk box, waiting, then leaving after getting no response from the burger oracle.
There really was no way they could have. ‘She’ was too busy scratching her head, fighting with the See-And-Say, and, I’m sure, wondering why her parents never tried swimming in the deep end of the gene pool.

Look people, I have invested well over $10,000 in equipment, the wedding shoot you want I typically charge $2,000 for, this is going to take an entire day of shooting and several days of post processing to deliver the high quality images I strive for and you have the balls to think I should do all this for FREE just to help “build my portfolio”. How successful are you at getting your auto mechanic to do work for free so that they can say they have experience with your Toyota Celica? Do you barter with your gardener so that he can have pictures of your lawn?  Do you pay your pool guy with the “opportunity to gain experience”? But you want to turn over the photographs for the single most important day in your life to someone with so little experience that they would be willing to work for free? Come on people.

If I took my car to the shop for major repairs and he said he would do it for free because he has never worked on an engine before, I would run away from there before he could finish the sentence. But you devalue photographers and would work with someone that thinks so little of their own work that they can’t bring themselves to charge you.
In case I haven’t made this clear enough:

• No, you aren’t that hot
• If I wanted to make less than I was worth, I would go work at Carl’s Jr.
• Why would anyone do work for anyone that puts zero value on their investment and costs
• Having you in my portfolio is not going to jump-start my career
• Did the minister do his job for free?
• Did the flowers come free?
• Was the DJ free?
• Was the cake free?
• Did the designer give you the dress for free?
• Did you get the rings for free?

So, to all you cheap bastards on Craigslist who want photographers to work for free….I call BS on that!

Carl’s Jr on Lake Forest and 405 fwy
I go to fast food because I am in a hurry, that’s the “fast” part of fast food isn’t it? So I pull up to the squawk box and place my overly complicated order for a #4 with a diet coke and criss cut fries. Yes, I realize how difficult it must be to understand me when I speak slowly and pronounce my words carefully “a … number …. four ….. medium … DIET coke…..criss cut fried” - “that was a number 9 with a coke?” - NO…. a FOUR with a DIET coke! SIXT times I had to repeat the order, being very careful to make sure I was perfectly clear. I end up having to drive to the window to explain this tough order. I then repeat it while showing 4 fingers to the person in the window. She turns around and announces “numero quatro”. NO! I did not order a quatro, I ordered a freaking number FOUR from Carl’s Jr, freaking all-American hamburger joint for Christ’s sake!

Come on. Barely anyone in the entire store could understand basic English. All orders to all employees had to be given in Spanish. I don’t care who you hire to work in your busness so long as they meet some basic requirements:

1. They keep clean
2. They don’t screw up the orders
3. They are legal to work in the USA
4. They speak the native language

Having employees that ALSO speak Spanish is certainly a plus but English should be a requirement. I have called and complained multiple times as I can’t seem to stop eating those $6 burgers but my patience is running thin with increased errors in orders and having to deal with people that don’t speak a word of English.

So Car’s Jr, I call BS on yout!

Overview
I know we pay too much for TV service, if you have satellite or digital cable, you pay too much as well, but what can you do but suck it up and pay for it. We started with Cox digital cable, switch to DirecTV because of the dual-tuner Tivo ability that wasn’t offered on any other service at the time. Now, in a quest to save money I began researching my options.

Cox Satellite Myths
Cox cable’s website has a list of the top 10 satellite TV myths and claims they are all false. Let’s examine each “myth” one by one and see what a great value Cox digital cable service is.

Myth #1: “You get more channels with satellite TV than with digital cable.” 
Cox offers up to 260 channels, Dish Network offers up to 280 - Confirmed

Myth #2: “Satellite TV offers a better HD channel lineup.”
Dish Network offers significantly more HD channels than Cox with more coming - Confirmed

Myth #3: “Satellite TV offers more for the sports fan.” 
DirecTV blows away Cox in terms of sports channels - Confirmed

Myth #4: “Satellite TV is less expensive than cable.” 
After MUCH research, to get comparable packages, DirecTV and Cox are within a few bucks of each other and Dish Network is about $30 cheaper - Confirmed

Myth #5: “I can get video-on-demand service with satellite TV.” 
Ok, well, this one is a technicality. You cannot get TRUE on-demand with satellite TV although their PPV shows start so often it’s pretty darned close. Is it true on-demand, no. Cox is technically correct on this point.

Myth #6: “Cable companies raise prices more than satellite TV companies.”
In the past four years my cable bill has gone up and so has my DirecTV bill. Did it go up more often? No, did it go up less often? No. They raise prices about the same. Moot point.

Myth #7: “Satellite beats cable on reliability and picture quality.”
In four years of having regular cable and DirecTV, I have never had a problem with DirecTV and picture quality is perfect. In the same amount of time I have had basic cable go out twice. So in MY experience, yes, satellite had better reliability. - Confirmed.

Myth #8: “You can get local weather on the 24-hour weather channel with satellite TV.”
Huh? The Weather Channel is national and I get local channels. I routinely check on satellite for local weather and Cox is saying you can’t find out about local weather. I can’t figure out what the hell they are talking about. - Confirmed

Myth #9: “It’s easy to install a satellite dish and all of the related equipment.”
Both DirecTV and Dish Network send out knowledgeable installers that hook everything up for you. From that point it is not more difficult to hook up than a cable system. So yes, it is easy to install a dish and related equipment. - Confirmed

Myth #10: “Satellite TV is a one-stop shop for entertainment and communications services.”
There simply isn’t the technology available for satellite to offer all of the services of cable. With Cox cable you can get high speed internet access and digital telephone service. You simply cannot get these services from satellite. - Busted

So out of 10 myths that Cox is trying to dispel, they blow it on 7 out of 10. Their attempt to steer people away from satellite is totally unfounded based on their arguments.

Cox Tried to “Save Me Money”
I explained to the helpful salesperson EXACTLY what I wanted, what channels we watch, how many TV’s, what premium channels, etc, etc. He put together a package that would save me about $25 a month over my DirecTV bill. This made me happy. I ran to the local Cox store, grabbed my new DVR’s and ran home to hook it up.

After going through and setting up season passes for all of our favorite shows (and I have to point out that their DVR interface leaves a LOT to be desired here) and not being able to find HBO or Showtime, I called into tech support. To my surprise, I got ahold of someone at 10pm who said she just needed to refresh the receivers. After a few minutes the systems came back to life and HBO and Showtime were now available in all of their digital glory. But wait….crap…it totally reset the systems and whipped out all of our settings. We start re-programming the system and now all the other “normal” channels from our “everything” package are now missing. No Discovery, No BIO, No FOOD, No Science, No Lifetime, etc etc etc…so I now call Cox cable back and explain this to them. I am now informed that it is going to cost me another $30 a month to get all those channels back I just had moments before because I “wasn’t supposed to get them”. So now, to get what I was getting on DirecTV is now going to cost me MORE than it DirecTV was charging.

Dish Network to the rescue
A friend and I actually went through this whole process together this weekend and both decided that Dish Network was actually the better deal. At close to $40 less than my DirecTV bill with more features than I had before, this is certainly a good decision. Their prices are the best, their packages are complete, there are very few options so you get what you expect to get, they can install within 1 - 2 business days (in our area), and their DVR is one of the best available.

Summary
Cox is full of crap. Plain and simple. They are losing ground to the satellite providers and are spreading FUD (fear, uncertainty and doubt) and lies about how their service is better for you. Because of this I will even be switching my phone lines away from Cox as well for their bad business practices and how they handled this whole issue. Unfortunately I can’t beat their high-speed internet service so I am stuck with them for that for the foreseeable future but for TV service, they simply are not on the same level as either Dish Network or DirecTV.