I've had no luck with Charter and Directv Customer service over the past month.Here's a letter I sent to Charter this morning via their website. "I'd like to know how Charter is going to make me a happy customer. Here's my story.During the storms in July I lost my Directv service. They were unable to come out and restore my service in a timely manner, totally missing an appointment. I called charter, was told I could get a DVR, Digital Cable, and HD service installed at my house the following week, all for a good low price based on the fact that I was leaving Directv.Fast forward three weeks, that's today. So far all I have is a digital cable box, no HD and no DVR, and a $350 bill from charter. When the technician came to install the DVR and Cable box he showed up without either piece of equipment and told me I would have to go to charter's offices myself. I went there, and was told I couldn't get the DVR. That $350 bill includes charges for the DVR, cable service, and $100 of installation charges. I was told when I signed up my installation would be waived due to me switching from Directv.I'd love for someone from Charter to call me and schedule an appointment for my DVR to be DELIVERED and INSTALLED. I tried picking it up myself two weeks ago and was told I couldn't as it had to be professionaly installed. Then, last week I was told they were out of stock in STL, though when I ordered they were in stock.I'm extremely unhappy with the level of service I've received thus far, and if these matters are not corrected, all the promised equipment installed and working by Friday the 18th of August I'll be cancelling ALL my services with Charter and going to SBC and Dish networks.Unhappily,Chris...
I took the oil pan off the L28ET motor tonight to try to get inside and see what all I could find out about the motor. I've posted a few pictures over in the 240 photo gallery, check them out, let me know what you think of what you see.
http://sccaforums.com/photos/christoc/category1053.aspx
Here are some of the recently uploaded...
Apparently there is some actual justification for not allowing Cell Phones on...
ChrisHammond.com has gotten a long over due software update! With the update there are quite a few changes with the skins.
I'll be making more adjustments later this weekend, stay...
My sophomore year of high school at Maconoquah High School I got to perform in a band. We were called The Flying Gimps, and we performed a whole two times that year. Maconoquah had a talent show every year called Pow Wow.
Derrick Smallwood, one of the other members of the band got me a copy of Pow Wow 1993, and I've gone ahead and ripped the video to a WMV file. I've got two files, linked below. The first one is the original footage of The Flying Gimps performing Helmet's Unsung, the audio on this is horrible, but it's the original recording, I'm going to have to say the lack of quality is due to the positioning of the camera in front of the bass player's amp/speakers.
http://christoc.com/video/TheFlyingGimps-Unsung-93.wmv 18.4mb
The second video is what we should have sounded like! I've dubbed in the song from Helmet over the video.
http://christoc.com/video/TheFlyingGimps-UnsungDubb-93.wmv 19mb
UPDATE: I've moved them to a server with much better...
Just archiving a link for me to read...
XM Radio signed Oprah Winfrey to a 3 year deal worth 55 Million dollars. That's awesome, not that I will ever listen to Oprah, but that is a great move for XM Radio. Down with the Sirius and that dumbass Howard Stern!
Long live XM...
As in my previous blog post I ordered 3 Bags of Crap from www.woot.com the other day.
Today they showed up!
4 Panda Express Panda Bears 10 DVD+RW Discs and Cases 2 Packages of Fake Legos 1 Camo Gun that makes noise and lights up. 15 Feet of Air Packing Bags ...
Just a quick post to aid in a little bit of search indexing for...
I've been trying to track down a copy of Pow Wow '93 for the past few years, but have been unsuccessful in doing so. Pow Wow was the annual talent competition held at Maconaquah High School in Bunker Hill Indiana. I was in a band back in 93, my sophemore year, called The Flying Gimps. We performed in Pow Wow, playing Helmet's "Unsung". We ended up winning $100 from the competition. At one point I had a copy of Pow Wow for that year but it got recorded over by something a few years later. I've tried contacting the school, but the media teacher who ran the show for many years no longer works there and no one there has an archive of the old shows.
A few weeks ago Derrickfound me on Myspace.com. Derrick and his brother Sean were in the band as well, Derrick actually wasn't going to play in the show but do to some unfortunate circumstances had to take Sean's place and fill in. I asked if he happened to have a copy and he gratiously offered to dupe me a copy and send it over! It should be here in the next few days! I'm hoping to digitize it and get it online, as well as get a copy for Lindsy as she also performed in a different part of the competition.
More on Pow Wow...
If you're watching the Olympics this year, I hope you're watching it in HD!
It's amazing watching so far in HD on NBC or on...
Charter is scheduled to come out tomorrow to "reconnect" the cable. Hopefully they call first, as I don't need them to come out anymore. I hooked up the cable modem and got everything provisioned tonight (should have started before 1:15am though).
I'm not paying any "installation" fees for this...
Tickets for The Phantom Of The Opera went on sale for it's St. Louis stay this morning. The show will once again be at the Fabulous Fox theatre here in St. Louis. I've purchased two pairs of tickets for a show on the 18th of June. Should be a good time! Though I'm not sure how many times I've actually seen the Phantom of the Opera? I think this will be the fourth time, and second time at the...
Google even tells me so!
http://www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=excellent+programmer <--currently 5th on the search results for excellent programmer.
I will be number one, I will be the most excellent programmer of them...
Well, it looks like I'm going to have to upgrade the site sooner than I thought. I just deleted 100+ comment spam posts from some jackass posting a link to his article. Luckily they weren't approved yet so no one else saw them, but it's a pain the ass for me to have to delete them all.
The next software upgrade with have some better controls to make sure it's actually someone entering a comment, and not an automated...
Are you looking for an Excellent Programmer? You've found him! If you're looking for mad programming skills from an excellent person, you've come to the right place!
(inside...
I've been here in Lexington, Kentucky for the past 4 days. I was fortunate enough to meet two of the brightest minds in the industry! Also, I can't forget Chad Hobson (checkout that killer site, what mad skillz).
Anyways, back to the brightest minds. I got to meet Shaun Walker, founder of DotNetNuke, and Scott Willhite, one of the Board members for DotNetNuke. I of course got them to sign my DotNetNuke book while they were...
Sometimes, it's great to get to work with the best minds in the business and see how they work! I do lead a very good...
Lost is back! Thank goodness for the Tivo! I didn't realize it was starting back up tonight, but Tivo saved the day. I was at our DotNetNuke meeting tonight during the time Lost was...
At CES yesterday Microsoft announced they've made a partnership with Directv and their Windows Media Center platform. I hope this turns out to be an awesome arrangement, as I currently subscribe to Directv and their HD service, and currently Windows Media Center lacks HD capabilities except of off the air broadcasts.
I realize it'll be a while before this all comes to be, but it should be an amazing platform once integration...
At CES this evening it was announced that the Xbox 360 will get a HD-DVD external drive attachment later this year!
Good news for 360 Owners. Now if they would just upconvert regular DVDs as...
Bill Gates' webcast is still on for his Keynote at CES in Las Vegas today.
So far they're just discussing Windows Vista, which I expected. I read a rumor online that they may announce an HD-DVD upgrade for 360s, it looks like that was just a rumor.
Sure I'm excited about Vista, but who really cares until it's available? I try a beta on a test machine sometime in the next few weeks, but honestly, I'm a what can you give me now kind of tech guy.
Hmmm, they made some sort of preview of MS Flight Sim, but of course my SBC DSL dropped the connection during that outage.
update: looks like Bill just announced the new Treo Smartphone is selling tomorrow. I don't know if that was announced previously.
update2: Awesome news! Directv and MS partnership! Media center is going to rock once you have Directv access as well!
update3: Xbox360 update coming shortly!
update4: third manufacturering partner announced for the 360.
update 5: external HD DVD announced for xbox...
http://christoc.blogspot.com/
http://spaces.msn.com/members/christoc
http://weblogs.asp.net/christoc/
are mine, to name a...
I just wanted to make a quick post to try and guide anyone in St. Louis who may be looking for Highspeed internet service.
DON'T go with SBC DSL! I would highly recommend going with Charter's Pipeline service. Though Charter is more expensive there is no contract, and from my experience dealing with Charter's support is a lot less painful than dealing with SBC. Also, their service works better and has better uptime!
So, take it from a pro who has been burned. SBC DSL sucks! :D ...
Christmas was good this year! Natalie and I both spoiled each other rotten!
I just installer her new car stereo into the F350. The stock stereo was hurting! It only had AM/FM, no CD or Tape! I got her a nice Sony CD Player for the dash, two new kicker speakers for the front doors, and an XM Roady2 for the must have Satellite radio. There's no Sirius in this household, down with Howard Stern and Sirius Radio! I installed the CD player this evening and made sure everything worked. It's a very clean install, you have to love Crutchfield for including everything you could need to install a radio ordered from them. The new CD player went right in the old unit's place courtesy of the Crutchfield mounting hardware.
I also picked up some fine jewelery from Krekeler Jewelers for Natalie's Christmas gifts. Thanks to Jeff for all the help picking a few nice things out!
Natalie spoiled me with some new Oakleys, a cool North Face Jacket, and the Klipsch floor speakers I'd been asking for! The new speakers sound amazing in front of the 50" plasma! I've ordered the Klipsh C-3 center channel speaker from Best Buy using some great gift cards I received. Sometime later this year I'll get the new receiver and 4 surround sound speakers to complete my new and improved home theater setup.
My parents sent me money to purchase an aircompressor and some tools for the garage, so I was out looking at Sears today. I did realize however, I'm going to need to take the truck next time I go, as the air compressors won't fit in the 350Z!
Thanks to everyone for the great Christmas. Natalie and I spent our first of many Christmas' together, hopefully next year we'll be able to see our parents though, it was my first Xmas away from my family :(
More to come in...