KHAAAANN!!
Nov. 18th, 2003 10:18 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
quislibetAlas, the day J. and I have long feared has finally come, and the sinister cruelty of cable television companies revealed.
When we first moved to Salem, our television reception (via antenna) was more or less nonexistent. As we wanted to be able to watch "Buffy" and "Angel," we finally (with some disgruntlement, at having to pay for something that should theoretically be free) had cable installed at its cheapest level, the "basic reception" package.
Well, the guy who installed it did us the "favor" of connecting more channels than we were paying for. We appreciated some of the options, notably AMC and TVLand, for those moments when we just wanted something to stare at vacantly, but something with some level of actual entertainment value.
In September, the new cable company informed us that we would soon be losing those extra channels, but we could of course keep them if we wanted to pay some ungodly extra montly sum.
A couple of weeks later, we lost two or three channels we didn't watch, and gained, among others, Comedy Central and the Cartoon Network. This was odd, but welcome. For the past five weeks or so, most of our television viewing, such as it is, has involved these two channels. We kept expecting the cable people to take them away, but as time wore on, we dared to hope, to dream.
Now, however, all is lost; the cruel campaign of upgrade-temptation that might have worked on customers with actual money stands ugly and revealed.
This morning (I am informed), the cable van pulled up to our house, parked across the driveway (for extra insult, but parking across our driveway seems to be a "thing," despite the ample availability of less annoying and usually contiguous parking places), and disconnected the pins that as recently as ten and a half hours before had brought us Jon Stewart weeknights at 11.
Now we are faced with the simple fact that we pay a monthly fee just to watch an hour of television on Wednesday nights, and with all of those new "Angel" episodes in a row there's almost sure to be an extended rerun slump any week now. I expect that if we have sound and can at least make out vague shapes on the WB then we will probably cancel.
When we first moved to Salem, our television reception (via antenna) was more or less nonexistent. As we wanted to be able to watch "Buffy" and "Angel," we finally (with some disgruntlement, at having to pay for something that should theoretically be free) had cable installed at its cheapest level, the "basic reception" package.
Well, the guy who installed it did us the "favor" of connecting more channels than we were paying for. We appreciated some of the options, notably AMC and TVLand, for those moments when we just wanted something to stare at vacantly, but something with some level of actual entertainment value.
In September, the new cable company informed us that we would soon be losing those extra channels, but we could of course keep them if we wanted to pay some ungodly extra montly sum.
A couple of weeks later, we lost two or three channels we didn't watch, and gained, among others, Comedy Central and the Cartoon Network. This was odd, but welcome. For the past five weeks or so, most of our television viewing, such as it is, has involved these two channels. We kept expecting the cable people to take them away, but as time wore on, we dared to hope, to dream.
Now, however, all is lost; the cruel campaign of upgrade-temptation that might have worked on customers with actual money stands ugly and revealed.
This morning (I am informed), the cable van pulled up to our house, parked across the driveway (for extra insult, but parking across our driveway seems to be a "thing," despite the ample availability of less annoying and usually contiguous parking places), and disconnected the pins that as recently as ten and a half hours before had brought us Jon Stewart weeknights at 11.
Now we are faced with the simple fact that we pay a monthly fee just to watch an hour of television on Wednesday nights, and with all of those new "Angel" episodes in a row there's almost sure to be an extended rerun slump any week now. I expect that if we have sound and can at least make out vague shapes on the WB then we will probably cancel.
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no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 10:04 am (UTC)Might've been more scary had there been a single television in the house. As it was, we just decided to never give the company a dime. I do still wonder how many people were bulled into buying. While it's hardly a dire scandal, I do think some leaked corporate memos about deliberate accidental hook-up policies would make great reading.
no subject
Date: 2003-11-18 11:55 am (UTC)