Tuesday, November 07, 2006

Technology sucks

Yes, I'll go back to novel writing in a moment.

We went to watch last week's Gray's Anatomy on Saturday, and the screen was all garbled and pixelated. In between gasps of "WTF?" and "WAAH!" I also noticed that half my guide grids had "TBA" in them. Something was not right. So I called Comcast customer service.

They said there was nothing they could do, the box needed to be replaced. Which means we lost about 40 hours of television we had yet to watch, including every ep of "The Nine" which I really wanted to watch but didn't have time yet.

I asked to speak to a supervisor. I wanted compensation. I wanted a free month of Gold channels at the very least. All he would give me was a month's credit of DVR service and about two dozen, "I'm very sorry for the inconvenience ma'am"'s.

I hate when people call me ma'am.

He also said any other cable company would do the same thing and I told him that was bullsh*t because whenever my sister complains to Time Warner they kiss her ass and give her a free month of HBO.

Now, I never get like that with people. I never haul up my cajones to ream someone on the phone. But I was possessed.

To top it all off, last night, after watching Heroes, I went back to writing because I needed about 200 words to keep up pace. Hubby needed the power cord, (as mine broke last week and we are sharing) so I wrote as long as I could (as my battery sucks) and saved, closed the file, and closed the top of the laptop. When I went back to open it and write more, it was frozen, so I had to shut it down. When it rebooted and I opened my novel file, it had reverted to a copy I had last saved at like, noontime. I freaked. Seriously freaked. I had written about 400-500 words since then. Thank god I at least had backed it up to a flash drive, and that had stuff until about 5:00pm but not about 3/4 of a scene I had just finished before shutting it off before. I know I saved. UGH! I was hysterical. I know it seems ridiculous, but every word counts and it was 11:30PM. I re-wrote it, met the daily goal, and went to bed at like 1:00 AM.

God I'm f*cking tired.

Oh, Americans: Go exercise your right to vote! VOTE democatic VOTE democratic VOTE!

This post brought to you by today's fun Google search hits:

"What does 'ciao giovanna' mean"

"combining percocet and valium"

&

"foot fetish"

6 comments:

Dave Amirault said...

Comcast sucks. I have to use them here in Boulder and their services are...
1. Overpriced.
2. Compressed (hd signals look like shit)

Anonymous said...

I wish I had the guts to say what was on my mind more often. It seems when I stand up for myself (at work) someone reports me to my manager. *sighs*

pgh

Anonymous said...

Ok, so I'm not online every day, but I'm here to support your writing efforts (you can do it!!). Sounds like you are sticking to your daily word count. Though sometimes scene counts can perhaps mean more than word counts, but I understand you're trying to reach a certain word count goal in a certain timeframe. Keep at it!

And, yes, I voted! (and thank goodness the campaigning is over!)

dw

Anonymous said...

wouldn't week counts be less stressful?

Gina said...

Well, not necessarily. It's so easy to fall behind. If I need to average 1,667 a day to be on track, and I come up 300 short Monday, and then don't make it all up and am 100 short of that Tues, next thing you know it's Friday, and you should be at 13,336, and you're only at 1o,555. It's mentally discouraging to see a deficit like that appear. to me anyway, ymmv.

Unknown said...

Ga! How frustrating on several accounts!

I tried to vote. I think my vote will count. Maybe. Go read about my experience. You make the call.