Comcast Caps?

I was reading the Mercury News this morning and saw an article about Comcast's plans to raise rates and cap downloads (250GB/month). Interesting, very interesting. I suppose this is in response to the FCC dinging Comcast for blocking BitTorrent downloads. Or is it.

Is it possible that it's an attempt on Comcast's part to get people to use its video-on-demand service and its IP telephone offering?

Think about it.. We use Skype for our long distance service - it can't be beat really. It costs $30 a year for unlimited domestic long distance, and about $0.021 per minute for calls to Europe. In contrast, Comcast's phone service clocks in at around $33/month (assuming the $99 "Triple Play"). But Skype uses bandwidth..

Moving along, we have video... We occasionally use Amazon's unbox service to download and watch movies. In the near future we might be moving to Netflix - via Roku or maybe some comparable device. We download SD videos now, they don't use a whole lot of bandwith. But should we start using something that does HD, we can probably expect about 4 - 5GB per hour. If we wanted to watch 2 hours of TV a day, we'd go exceed our cap every month. True, we would never watch that much TV, but I can imagine there are people out there who would.

So, Comcast, fess up. Are you really trying to police the Internet with this new policy, or are you just trying to incent people to pay you for the same services they can get elsewhere?

And speaking of television, I noticed a few digital converters for sale lately - they were usually $59.99 minus the $40 government coupon.  We don't need one, but I was thinking about getting one, just to screw the government out of $40.  Any other takers?

FedEx Up

Ethel and I signed up for the Sunset Wine Club last year. I seemed like a good idea - each month, they send us two bottles of wine along with a couple of recipes that pair nicely with the wines. But like many "good ideas," the devil is in the details.

Our first shipment showed up on our porch as expected. No signature required (despite all sorts of warnings on the box about a signature being required).

The next few months were less "cool." The delivery needed a signature (it's the law, wine is alcohol) - no one could explain why the first shipment was left with no signature. So once a month one a tag would appear on our front door and the next day one of us would work from home and wait for the FedEx guy to show up with the wine. It wasn't ideal, but it was workable.

But then in May, no FedEx door tags showed up. We decided that the program we had enrolled in was only for a year. We were wrong. In mid-June, we got a door tag. WTF. Out of the program, back in. Things were busy, so we just decided to let the FedEx man make repeated attempts at delivering, and then we'd go to their depot to pick up the wine.

But he never came back. We waited a couple of weeks and then called FedEx. Check it - the delivery guy decided we were never home, so why bother trying to deliver the wine (how about "because we're paying you to do it asshole?"). Not only that, but he (she?) also said we had refused the shipment, so they sent it back to Sunset.

The wine people called us to ask what was going on, I explained the story. They mentioned that our July wine had just been returned as well (FedEx - I'm keeping score - you're 0 for 3). They suggested switching to UPS, or calling FedEx to ask them what was going on.

I called FedEx - they apologized and told me they had two shipments and said they would make arrangements to have these two shipments waiting for me at their Home Delivery terminal for Saturday pickup. Surprise, Saturday arrived and only one of the shipments was there. The lady there asked if I wanted to take that one, or to save myself a trip and come back for both at the same time (uhm, duh!). The other was back at the "not open on Saturday" depot.

I called again and was told "oh, yeah, we sent it to them, but they sent it back." Great, thanks SFB ("Shit For Brains"), you might have called and mentioned it so I wouldn't have wasted the trip. SFB also said "if you have the shipper label the package as 'for home delivery' it will go right to the "open saturday" Home Delivery terminal.

Surprise.. The box that the most recent shipment came in (converted to a cat toy) is clearly marked "Home Delivery."

I gave up and called the wine people and opted for the potentially slightly more expensive but hopefully more reliable UPS delivery..

Earn and Burn

Ethel and I are heading off on vacation in a few days (right - what! again?). It wasn't our first choice, but we decided to go with Continental Airlines, it's not as if the Star Loose Association Alliance ever gives us a chance to use accrued miles anyway, right..

Needless to say, we were kind of stoked when we Continental announced that it was joining the Star Loose Association Alliance, as we thought our miles accrued on this trip would go into our respective Star Loose Association Alliance accounts.

Think again. That would be logical only from the perspective of the person accruing the miles. From perspective of an airline, it's treading on dangerous ground, as it gives customers a chance to accrue miles faster (one single account, vs one account per airline).

...
Will the frequent flyer programs be combined?
There are no plans to combine the programs at this time. Each would function with reciprocity under the Star Alliance umbrella.
...
Will customers be able to combine Continental and United frequent flyer accounts?
No. Customers will keep an account with one airline and use the reciprocity between programs to "earn and burn" on other airlines.
...

From experience, "earn and burn" really means "earn and desperately try but fail miserably to use before expiration"

Writing Career

I've spent a lot of time lately writing - documentation for work, letters to the city. Everything, except for here (sorry). I enjoy writing, so I've started to think that I should write a book or a story or something. Maybe a takeoff on an old classic:

Juliette: O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?
Romeo: I'm in the living room with the guys watching the game, can you bring us some beers?

Maybe I'll go by the pen name "William Shakesbeer"..

Ok, day job it is..