30th Dec2010

Comcast: My own personal Hell II

by nickwan

If you have followed me on Twitter or have read my previous experiences with Comcast, you might be wondering How the hell is this guy still with Comcast???! Well, there is a very easy answer to that: I am and I am not. We were getting TV and internet from them at my apartment, but now we have cancelled the TV service because we have 1) found a better deal and 2) do not want to give them any more money than they should have. Unfortunately, there are no other cost-effective internet options in my town, so I am actually stuck with Comcast cable. They actually came out and fixed the lines for us so that we haven’t have a problem with it since September… but this is not about the internet anymore. This is about billing and customer service. For a company that seems to pride themselves on customer service, there is little to no follow through with anything they do.

Comcast is charging us for services we cancelled

First off, we cancelled our TV services back in October. It’s December and I’ve had to call them every month to tell them our bill is wrong. The bill they keep sending me is a bill which includes the TV services (which we cancelled and have not used since we’ve switched), which more than doubles the bill we are supposed to be receiving. They give me the same excuses every time I call them, citing that it’s a computer error or a billing error and that it will be corrected on the 7th of next month (aka on the next billing cycle). Then, as I receive my bill for the next month, I receive the SAME EXACT BILL. Over double what we’re supposed to be paying and now they insult us with a warning that we haven’t paid our last bill. Seriously? SERIOUSLY?? Has it occurred to the pride of Comcast, the customer service representatives, that the reason we haven’t paid our last bill is because it’s wrong? Why would I pay a bill that is double what I would have to pay normally if the person on the other side of the phone said not to worry and that it would be fixed next month. What about this month? What about every other month I’ve called??

Comcast has yet to fix my bill, even though I have called about a problem with their services MONTHLY since I’ve got Comcast

Second off, after calling and speaking to these Comcast representatives I’ve noticed that they can jot down notes and see past encounters with me and my account services. Just a thought: while looking at all the snarky notes next to my name how about FIXING MY BILL? It literally took four weeks to install the internet correctly, and that was work split between four Comcast people over the internet and three in-house visits. Not to mention, two reach-outs from quality assurance representatives via Twitter and this website, as well as a very touching and caring message from one Hermann James, some sort of executive something from Comcast’s Northern California branch. Well, Hermann James, way to do your job. Your shit still hasn’t flushed yet. I’ve worked customer service jobs where we can take notes as to what went wrong (and what went right) next to people’s account names. In this case, because I’ve literally had a nonstop nightmare with Comcast since I’ve moved into my new apartment, I doubt there are many good things next to my account. Another idea: FIX THE SHIT THAT IS WRONG. Like my bill.

Even though I’ve talked to fifteen Comcast representatives over the past four or five months, Comcast still seems to get something disastrously wrong

Thirdly, did I mention lack of follow through? They say they will fix this stuff right there, and you hear typing in the background and they give you a round-about way of logic as to why it’s wrong (it usually ends up with me asking them if they believe what they have told me is a good system and them saying “it’s the system that’s in place”. Way to have a backbone, assholes). After the phone call, you would hope it would be the last I would have to make. And yet. Like clockwork. Like a birthday. Like twelve Christmases. Each month around the 7th, I find myself having to sonically curb stomp some unlucky Comcast representative because their coworker couldn’t do their job correctly. And yet, every month I’ve had the coin flip against me. And yet, I’ve used more minutes calling Comcast than I have talking to all my friends and family COMBINED. Run and tell that, home boy. Solutions to “thirdly”: DO YOUR JOB. You have a computer. You have access to adjustments of my bill. You have notes next to my name saying I’m a very angry customer. Your job is to serve me. I have only been served a dish of shitsicles with a side of douchery. So far, I’m not looking forward to the next course.

Solution? Avoid Comcast as much as possible.

And with that, the verdict: never use Comcast. Seriously, a nightmare within a nightmare. If this were a movie, it would be the hybrid movie of Inception meets A Serbian Film. Most literally, this is The Nightmare After Christmas, and I’m Jack Skelington but instead of happily finding a winter wonderland I’ve found a worse version of Hell than the one I currently reside in. I mean, it was bad that we weren’t getting services we were paying for initially… but now we are getting charged for services we cancelled. I am most likely going to hate cancelling Comcast altogether it seems, since they’ll probably charge me quadruple what I actually owe right now for the rest of my life. See you in small claims court, assholes!

Category : Complete Miscellany
Tags : , , ,
2 Comm
21st May2009

Hiding Your Click Track

by nickwan

Wtf, no video on the front page?

wittner_metronome

Sometimes, and I don’t know why this is, you can completely tell when a band has used a click track or not. Some bands are completely for it. Umbrellas use a click track and it doesn’t seem to bother them. Their click track actually is hidden under this whimsical backtracks. Some bands need them. Minus the Bear plays to a click track when you see Erin (the drummer) wearing those headphones. No, it’s not a fashion statement like the ever-so-popular Linkin Park guitarist. But timing those beepboop sounds that Minus the Bear uses to their musical splash is necessary, especially when two guys are playing their samples with their feet and the other one, Alex, is trying to coordinate the back track with all of it.

And then there are bands that use it horribly and don’t use it. At a show, a new local band was playing their highly technical songs, much akin to the Russian Circles type music (another click track loving band). Of course, without the track behind you, you have to rely on your drummer’s internal metronome. Some drummers are just machines. Some jazz bands that I’ve witnessed have no click track and yet their drummer is able to stay at a solid tempo while doing all this work about his drums. Back to this local band… mediocre music mixed with a poor timing live creates a show of disaster. Stopping too late or too early, missing cues, being a beat behind… it’s all miss and not a lot of hit.

Before I talk about hiding the click track, I might have lost a few people so I’ll try to get them back now. We’ve talked about a metronome and how a metronome is a machine that sets a specific beat per minute (bpm) and sticks with it for however long you want to play to it. It’s useful for solo artists who start getting really into their solo but lose interest in the time they are playing in. The head bobbing idea of music is that you’re getting into a predictable groove that makes you wonder what’s next. If you’re speed of playing, your bpm, is inconsistent it becomes harder to get into the groove mindset and throws the music possibly off-balance if your transition was not smooth enough. In an example, think of someone playing the piano and randomly speeding up their piece in the middle. It might be more interesting for the player, but it’s not ideal for the listener. Now extrapolate that to a 5 piece rock band. The music might not be as intricate but now you have to rely on everyone to play in sync. The drummer usually keeps a constant beat, but who keeps the drummer in check when the song is a little more complicated? A click track helps.

Now, back to how to cover a click track in a song. The common way to do it now in the digital world is have a click track and then just delete the track before the sum. Some times, however, the clicking noise adds something to the song. It’s like a song with handclaps… why are they there? Why are they so catchy? Think of Kevin Devine’s “Ballgame” without the hand clapping… you would definitely lose the groovy feel of the song, even if the song itself hasn’t been altered by much if the claps were removed. The idea behind keeping things like hand claps in is definitely to add that other layer of sound to the song, but some songs hide this even deeper. Using Umbrellas’ song “Boston White” you can clearly hear the oscillating hum of a keyboard or a synth in the intro of the song. Although faint, this synth sound actually resonates throughout the entire song. What it’s adding to the song is a really faint oscillating hum that you recognize throughout the entire song. It doesn’t really hit you until you realize that a lot of songs lately have been produced to include these hybrid backtracks.

A way that many DJs actually have been using these hybrid backtracks have been pretty innovative in what can be done in the not-so-electronical world. The idea of breaking the wall of the backtrack, as in messing with it in some ploy to focus the listener back into the song, is something that is rising in popularity. DJs have been mixing and breaking beats down since their inception, but not until recently have they been attacking the records that have been always spinning, proverbially. Hearing little murmurs and breaking beats, completely muting the track for a split second, or abruptly stopping and continuing with something very similar but removed somehow is becoming something that will soon be implemented into some production techniques in sheds around the world. To hone this technique, I will try to play around with some remix-sounding stops and starts for the new stealth project Ryan Tamborski and I have begun. Maybe it’ll see the light of day… maybe not.

Category : On the mind
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44 Comm