HDTV

Comcast showed up today to install my cable TV and internet. I've been watching a football game on ESPN this evening. The game itself is quite boring, but I've been constantly flipping back and forth between ESPN's regular and HD channel. The difference is astounding.

I can't wait to watch NHL in HD, and specifically the NHL winter classic at Wrigley Field (Detroit vs. Chicago).

Cars and Clothing in Capitol City

I spent a wonderful week in the Washington DC area with my brother. One of the objectives was to part with my car. My brother despeartely needed another car since his current car may only have a few months to live. I decided to give him my car rather than try to sell it since I didn't want my brother to blow his small down payment fund on a lemon.

Now that I've been back in Philadelphia for a couple days after a whirlwind month of moving and traveling, it's pretty weird not having a car anymore. Living in the city, I don't miss it at all. Walking 8-10 blocks to the grocery store is not a big deal. However, I don't think the lost freedom/flexibility of a car has really sunk in yet.

Another objective for the visit was some serious shopping. I needed a new suit for work (something I can wear 1-2 times a month). My current suit was purchased back when it I was a freshman in college. While it still fit, it was starting to fall apart.

The holiday sales for clothing was amazing. Almost all of Banana Republic was 50-80% off. While I was not planning to buy a suit at BR, I can never simply walk past that store without checking it out. I found a great winter coat at BR (which I need). It was marked down from $250 to $130. Unfortunately, thy only had XL and S sizes. I like great deals, but the clothing needs to fit. Instead, I bought other stuff that I didn't need as much.

Back to the suits. My brother loves to buy his suits from Brooks Brothers, so we went there first. I figured that the suits would be more expensive than I wanted to pay, but I thought Brooks Brothers would be a good starting point to compare against. The deals at Brooks Brothers were so incredible that I ended up only shopping there (and nearly bought two suits). They had their custom made suits on sale. Originally priced at $600, they were selling for $400 (through Jan 5th in case anyone else is looking for a suit). Since I was in the store before 1PM on 12/26, I got an additional 15% off that deal. If they would have let me take an additional 15% off for opening a new Brooks Brothers credit card, I would have bought two. They were also selling dress shirts 3-for-$160 (plus an extra 15% on 12/26). I've never seen clothing so cheap at Brooks Brothers.

I'm excited for my new suit! It won't be made and ready for pickup until the end of January. I'm less excited for my credit card bill (moving cost, TV, clothing, etc).

It would be blasphemous to write about a trip to DC without mentioning my baby nephew! Baby Eli is now four months old. He's much more interactive than he was the last two times I saw him. 4 months is a great age for babies!! My brother gave me a mouse pad for Hanukkah with this picture on it.

This is not a Pattern

I've posted three times (four counting this one). Chalk it up to a rather quiet day than a re-birth of the blog. I'm going to visit my brother and his family for the next week, so no posts again for a while. I'm also going to see Bright and CableGirl Monday night for dinner. Perhaps the three of us can get the 2nd annual TMMB ski trip planning back on track for 2009 since people are starting to flake out.

It's Not Funny...Because It's True

This article does not surprise me one bit, but it's still frustrating to read this.

Mitch Albom is such a wonderful writer. His comparison of William Clay Ford Sr. to "Fredo" in The Godfather is brilliant. WCF Sr. is so against firing loyal workers that he'd rather have a NCAA Div 1 caliber football team play NFL teams in half-full stadiums than hand the reins over to a more competent leadership team.

Why am I unable to fire the Lions as my favorite football team? Maybe I have my own problems with loyalty...

Pictures

I'm going to put pictures of my new apartment up on Facebook today.

RoopDogg - if you still read this, consider it another reason why you should join Facebook...

Brunch with Comcast

Now that I've completely moved and have a lovely 40 inch Samsung LCD TV sitting in my apartment, it was time to call Comcast this morning and set up my cable service. I've had my battles with Comcast in the past after they bought their way into the Ann Arbor market while I was in college. I did not have to deal with them at my last place, but I was prepared to deal with them again here in Philly since they are my only television option if I want more than ~6 channels. Besides, I figured that since they have such a major presence here, they might even service the area well (huge building 5 blocks away).

To no surprise, I was wrong.

I knew exactly what package I wanted and what I was supposed to pay. I figured that a company that advertises an easy to remember phone number of 1-800-COMCAST would be able to help anyone who called that number asking for service. After all, this company is notorious for providing great service to prospective customers and pathetic service once they have you onboard. I spoke to five people from Comcast this morning. The first two were unable to help because their system did not have access to addresses in Philadelphia.

I then went to a flyer I received in the mail advertising various cable deals and noticed that there was a different phone number on the flyer. I called that number. When I reached a live representative, the first thing I asked was whether he could service the city of Philadelphia. He said yes, and I proceeded to give him all my information. After I gave my full address, he said 'not sure how you got transferred to this office in Massachusetts, but you need to talk to someone else'. ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME!?!?!?

He transferred me to a 4th person that did not speak English very well. The same whole song and dance was repeated with this guy, and he told me that according to his systems, my zip code/address was not served my Comcast. I mean, come on! I live five blocks from your fucking headquarters. I know you service my building. I demanded to speak to his supervisor since someone at this damn company should be able to help me give them money. After 15 minutes on hold, I hung up. Why does Comcast have such a hard time servicing customers practically begging to give them money for the right to watch TV?! As the prospective customer, I'm the one who should receive good service?

I went online to confirm once again that they can service my building. I really wanted to make my purchase over the phone so that I could confirm pricing and channel options. I noticed yet another phone number to call after I entered my zip code. Not sure why Comcast is working with so many different 1-800 phone numbers, but I decided this number was worth calling. With this number, I was finally able to get through to someone who could help me. VICTORY!!

Just as the fifth contact at Comcast was summarizing the promotional and ongoing rates for the service I was selecting, my phone went dead. I had drained the last half of my battery after spending 1+ hour on the phone with Comcast this morning. Oh was I pissed at the thought of starting over again with this headache. Thankfully, the fifth Comcast representative was very good and called me back about 2 minutes later. Maybe this explains why they have such poor customer service. Only one in five representatives was helpful today.

One last piece of BS was that Comcast was going to charge me a $60 installation fee for internet and cable. $60? Are you for real? I mentioned that it seemed high and asked what I could do to minimize that fee. For reference, Cox let me go to their local office to pick up all the materials I needed so that I could install the digital cable and internet myself (15 minute job - seriously). Comcast's response was to lower the fee to $30. Not great, but I can accept $30 for a home visit.

Something tells me this won't be my last morning wasted on the phone with Comcast. As soon as another viable alternative is available, I'm dumping Comcast. I'd be willing to pay more to someone else just to not to have to deal with them. I'm crossing my fingers that Verizon FiOS will get into Center City quickly (they are just starting to hit the surrounding areas).

I'm already paying Comcast more for less relative to what I paid for cable service with Cox in CT. For an extra $10-15 per month (after tax), I get ~30 fewer channels from Comcast, though I am adding HD service. The six month promotional rate is admittedly very good ($30 less than what I used to pay), so I'll have to see how I can get that partially or fully extended in June.

Success!

The move is a success! I was able to convince with Joyce Van Lines to deliver without making any threats. I think they just wanted to wait until Monday, but they didn't fight me hard when I mentioned that it was important that they deliver my stuff today. I treated the movers well and tipped them nicely, so they have nothing to complain about!

I received a nice welcome gift from the external brokers I work with in my new job. To welcome me to Philly, they brought me a care package today. A 2008 Philadelphia Phillies world series champs baseball cap, two pint-sized Philadelphia Phillies beer glasses, and a 24-pack of Yuengling beer. Nice. Not so subtle hint about which city I need to root for now.

Of course, being the anal person that I am, I wonder whether the gift exceeds the $50 gift limit established by our corporate ethics folks at work. I'll need to be careful about that with this job...

I am surrounded by boxes. It's going to be a long weekend of unpacking my life. Pictures of my place to follow, though I'll probably just put them up on Facebook.

I Need to Vent

Back for a special posting, mainly because I need to vent to no one in particular. Here's a long post about a long day.

Today was a fantastic day of work until ~5:10PM. I was finally given the green light to tell my business partners that I was rotating to a new position and moving to Philadelphia. I had to keep quiet for a long time since they don't yet have someone lined up to replace me. Of course I still told my friends, but that was it until today.

It was a little weird sending out my own informal organizational announcement. I mean, am I supposed to thank myself for all my hard work over the past two years? However, I received so many genuinely kind and thankful responses back from my business partners this afternoon. I was in such a great mood after hearing so many nice and unexpected comments. One of my more senior business contacts who is located in Philly even offered to take me out to lunch once I get settled in as a thank you for all the support I've provided over the past two years.

However, I received an e-mail shortly after 5 from the company that is moving my stuff to Philadelphia on Thursday. Our written agreement is that they will pick up my stuff on Thursday and deliver it on Friday. We specifically picked 12/4 as the move date because they would already have a shipment ready to send to Philadelphia at that time on the same truck. I had another estimate from another well regarded company for a same day move (c/o www.movingscam.com, a fantastic website if you ever need to make an interstate move). I chose Joyce Van Lines because they were close enough to come to my apartment to give me an estimate and were willing to also deliver my stuff the very next day (close enough to same-day for me).

The e-mail from Joyce Van lines, sent 36 hours before my move, was to inform me that their other shipment to Philadelphia that day fell through and that they wanted to deliver my stuff on Monday. That's flat out unacceptable. Their original estimate was for a 72-hour delivery window, but I agreed to a higher price for the faster delivery. I don't want to spend my first 4 days in Philadelphia without my stuff. I have to work the week of 12/8 and expected to have this upcoming weekend to unpack. What nerve does Joyce Van Lines have springing this change on me at the last minute?

I wrote them a cordial e-mail reiterating why I chose them as my mover and how important the fast turnaround was that we signed in our original agreement. Sadly, movers are not in breach of contract until they are 30 days passed any agreed upon delivery date. I plan to go back to the company that offered same-day service to see if they can still move me on Thursday or Friday at the price they quoted me a month ago.

Joyce Van Lines is going to reach back out to me tomorrow, so I'm optimistic that we can work out an acceptable compromise and that this is much ado about nothing. I'm open to a Saturday delivery and will accept Sunday morning if they lower my moving quote. However, it's been a stressful evening. Not something I expected from such a well-regarded moving company.

At least the day ended well. I won a silent auction for the United Way at work for the right to play a doubles match with the CFO of our largest business segment. The three of us that chipped in for the auction had our doubles match this evening after work and had a great time. The CFO was a surprisingly good tennis player, especially since she only picked up the sport about 5 years ago. My favorite comment was when she said 'no girly serves' before the start of the match, afraid that we would either go easy on her or perhaps hit weak second serves to avoid double faults. I think she was genuinely worried that the winners of the silent auction would be bad tennis players. All three of us who won the auction were better tennis players than the CFO, but she held her own and won one of the three doubles sets we played.

I played on a clay court for the first time ever! The experience was a little overrated given the 2+ decade buildup in my mind of how awesome it would be, but still a unique experience. She gave us a standing invitation to hit with and her husband anytime (apparently her husband is quite good).

Too bad I'm moving to Philadelphia in less than 36 hours.

Philly!!!