MAKE BEN FAIR

I am in Amarillo, got a call from the folks last night that my grandmother wasn't doing well. When we arrived into town she had just passed away. I will blog more about her, she was a funny lady. I have some good stories to share. Please keep us in your prayers.

This blog entry is way past due, but better late than never. I went to the Austin City Limits Music Festival again this year. I must say that out of three days of music and this being the third year the festival has existed, it was by far the worst year yet. The main redeeming factor was WILCO! Friday and Saturday were so hot and crowded, the sound was bad and the huge tv monitors weren't working. So unless you were right up front, well you didn't get to see anything. So you just stood in a crowd of 90,000 people listening to a crappy sounding band while sweating your butt off. I went with Harris and Scott on Friday. We met up with Matthew and Stephanie and Meg. Friday night Sheryl Crow played. She is so awesome. It was overall a fun time, but at the end of Saturday I was thinking that I might not go back for the last day. Well, I did and man am I glad. Sunday's line-up was so awesome and all the people I wanted to see were on the stage with good sound. When we got to the festival, we watched Ben Kweller. Then we headed over to get a good spot for Jack Johnson. We were about 40 "rows" if you will back. Jack was awesome. G-Love came out and sang with him as did Donovan Frankenreiter. Then Jack finished and we pushed our way up to about the 10th row. That picture that I posted is me in the wilco crowd. We had an unbelievable spot. It was awesome because we could see everything and hear great. Wilco was unbelievable. I don't know how to describe something so awesome...there are not words... So all in all it was a great time and I am glad I went.

If you get PBS every Saturday night they run the program called Austin City Limits. It has an amazing line-up this year including Damien Rice and Patty Griffin this Saturday night. check it out. Here is a list of all the bands we saw at the festival.
Friday: Rosanne Cash, Patty Griffin, Terri Hendrix, Broken Social Scene, Gomez, and Sheryl Crow.
Saturday: The Wailers, Marcia Ball, Dashboard Confessional, G-Love and Special sauce
Sunday: Ben Kweller, Jack Johnson, Wilco, Cake, Ben Harper

We finally took the plung into the world of digital video recording. For those of you who are not familiar with the DVR, it is basically TIVO except instead of having to purchase a TIVO machine and pay for the service...you get it from the cable company for the same price as the monthly tivo fee. It has already seemed to make life alot easier. We can record tv and watch it whenever we want. We can also pause live tv, pretty nice when the phone rings or when you have to go pee.

Now I know that as a reader you didn't think that we could have just called the cable company, scheduled a set-up, have them come out and set us up and it just work good. That would be absolutely crazy. Anyone who has ordered cable at least once in their life knows that cannot happen. Let me try and explain what I am talking about. Pay special attention to the words "cable" and "programming".

When i called to order the dvr, i asked if I could get the dvr and keep analog cable? They told me it was impossible. I asked them how tivo can do it or how come my friends with another cable company can do it.? The lady told me, "sir, it is a digital box, it has to have digital cable. The cost will be $9.95 for the dvr." Then she told me if i wanted to schedule someone to come out and try it with analog cable i could, it wouldn't work but we can try. So i told her ok. My thinking on this is that the DVR itself is recording the info being sent into the machine in a digital format. It doesnt' mean that you have to send it a digital signal, right? When the technican came to set it up, he said that it was impossible to keep analog cable, and he was right...as was the lady on the phone. Here is where the confusion part starts. The technican told me that the dvr boxes actually double as a digital cable box and a digital recorder, so that is why it has to be a digital signal..and how it differs from tivo. So i said to the technican, "this means we have to have digital cable" and he said, "right, but you get all these extra channels now" I know that some of you at this point might be asking, "why don't you want digital cable?" The main reason is how slow it is...so slow. But i thought, if i am getting the ability to record and i get all these extra channels, it is worth it, especially for only $9.95 a month. So this morning i was watching tv and decided that while making my lunch i would put the tv on MTV 2. I was really excited about getting this new channel because it is all music. When i flipped over to it, it wasn't there. I called the cable company and explained what happened. They told me," sir, you said that you didn't want digital cable, you only wanted the dvr." To which I replyed, " but you told me it was impossible to do that and then proved it when you hooked up the box." "So, if i am going to have this dvr and have to endure the digital cable, why am i not getting all the channels?" "then the guy said, oh well you are right, you do have to digital cable, but not digital PROGRAMMING! That cost extra"

So to make a long story short, after going round and round with the guy about how that is a huge miscommunication on their end.. we now have a DVR with DIgital CABLE but no Digital PROGAMMING. All i got out of this huge misunderstanding is a free trial month of the digital programming. I feel like I lost. It just doesn't seem fair that everyone can refer to something with one term and it is understood what the term means... "digital cable" and then someone just come in and add a new word to the mix "digital programming" to make the miscommunication my fault. I am thinking about calling and talking to a supervisor and trying to get some free cable...especially after they tore up my backyard buring my cable line. Dumb cable company, yet another case of "THE MAN" bringing us all down. cheers