Simpson’s cast on the Screen Actors Studio

Was just goofing off on the Internets last night and found these clips. I think the Simpsons is a really great show even thought I haven’t watched it a ton. Its really weird to hear all the voices of the characters coming out of the voice actors that do the voices. Each clip is almost ten minutes long so all together they’ll take a while to watch. Hope you enjoy.

Part 1

Part 2

Part 3

Part 4

Part 5

And This is Why I Hate Cable Companies

Generally speaking, cable companies are…well…bad. They charge you exorbitant amounts for services that don’t work near as consistently as they should. The most super-fun part of having cable is dealing with the customer service departments.

We are currently beholden to the whims of Cox Communications just outside of Washington, DC.  We have been using their HD service through one of their HD DVRs for about 10 months.  Last week we got an HD Tivo to replace the cable supplied cable company DVR b/c Tivo kicks the cable DVRs butt.  This is where the shenanigans started.  To use an HD Tivo the cable company installs a CableCard to decrypt the cable signal, replacing your typical set top box.  For a variety of reasons that finally make sense to me, we aren’t receiving the same number of HD channels we did before.

The reason I’m so peeved at the moment, is we asked the cable company numerous times what was going to change about our service and no one ever said anything about us losing channels.  So for the last three days I’ve been arguing with their customer service reps about what channels I should have.  They kept saying that we get a different line-up with the CableCard than with the set-top receiver, but couldn’t explain to me why.  I went through three levels of supervisors in technical support and no one could give me an explanation of why.  They readily admitted having no idea why it was that way, which honestly, didn’t instill a great deal of confidence.

So today, I called back for a somewhat related issue that I had to deal with in the billing department and ended up getting into the whole debacle with the billing rep.  She clearly and simply explained to me why the channels aren’t coming in, and then she tried to argue with me that the people in tech support knew the answer, as well.  Now, its great I got an answer, but two things bother me about today’s exchange.  1) Someone in billing shouldn’t know what someone in tech doesn’t know if its a tech related issue.  That’s not a sign of a healthy organization.  2) The person in billing tried to argue with me about whether the people in tech knew the answer.  If they did know the answer and didn’t give it to me, they’re stupid.  If they didn’t know the answer, they should have, and they’re stupid.  Plus, its really annoying to have someone argue with you about a conversation you had with a third party, when they weren’t around to hear it.

Bottom line, dealing with the cable company is like a trip to the dentist.  Despite all your best efforts to avoid it, there’s usually going to be pain involved at some point.

The high and low of my TV today

I did a bit more TV watching today than I usually do. That would be due primarily to the fact that I watched four straight hours of short track speed skating today. If you’ve never watched this sport, its freaking crazy. You basically throw a speed skating rink in the drier for a little bit, shrink it down so the turns are real tight and the straight aways are pretty short, put 4-6 people on there that wanna go real fast, and throw in a little bit of chaos for good measure. I was watching some World Cup circuit stuff on Universal HD, and anytime the US is competing in something, I’ll watch it. I’ve watched the America’s Cup sailing race, and I was even one of the 12 people that watched curling during the last Olympics b/c the US was competing. Anyway, for a little taste, I’ve included a link to a video of the US stud Apolo Anton Ohno (some of you might know him from Dancing with the Stars) racing last year.

Apolo Anton Ohno

The lowlight of my TV watching today was the little bit that I watched of the red carpet arrivals before the show while I was eating with my fiancee. What a load of rubbish this is. My fiancee loves to see all the dresses and fashion, but the interviews are just dumb. They’re so quick and forced and they basically consist of the interviewer kissing the butt of a star and ask what they’re wearing. Why don’t they just have them come to a spot, ask them what they’re wearing, tell them to look at the cameras and pose and let them go on their way. The worst of the bunch is Regis. He’s just bad at it. I won’t be sad if I never watch that again.