Month: April 2010

Annoyed by my DVR

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Comcast recently updated their DVR software and I really hate, nay, loathe, the new auto correction feature. It drives me even more crazy every time I use it. So much so, that I e-mailed Comcast about it. I figured I’d also complain about the new history feature too while I was at it.

First, here’s how two of the new features are described in the documentation I found on their website:

Second, here’s the e-mail I sent. I was much nicer than I was feeling considering my husband works for them. I wonder if I’ll hear back, other than some silly form letter.

Please allow users to disable the new DVR Auto-Correction “feature” because it is annoying! I don’t appreciate my DVR assuming it knows where I really wanted to stop when rewinding/fast-forwarding. I want it to stop when I click play. End of story.

Now instead of fast-forwarding once, I have to do it several times while my DVR tries to second guess me and put me at a spot I didn’t want. I really do not appreciate that. Some of us have good reflexes and can stop the DVR where we actually want it to stop. Now it’s a game trying to anticipate where it will rewind to so I can over fast forward to get the desired result. It is frustrating, and not a good user experience. The fact that you forced it on people instead of making it optional is what makes it even worse!

Trying to rewind is even more frustrating. If I am rewinding, why does the DVR fast forward a bit when I press play? It doesn’t make sense to me at all.

Also, the DVR History option is nice, but a bit of a tease. Why can’t it allow you to un-delete something that was deleted in error? Maybe within a given time limit since the data might be overwritten.

Please consider these changes. Oh, and next time a message warning people of the upcoming changes and then after the changes are made would be nice. You send messages for everything else but not something useful like this. I’m sure it would cut down on customer calls too, particularly if you directed users to the document explaining the changes in detail.

Catching up & 4-days off

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Last weekend we took the kids to Medieval Times. None of us has ever gone before, or had the desire to go. Boy is it cheesy! But I will say, it was pretty fun too. I can’t imagine ever having the desire to go back, though, given how expensive it is. It cost nearly $140 for the four of us and it’s not like the food is high quality. But the kids had a good time, even K who was not looking forward to it, so that’s a success. And even though our team didn’t win, at least we had the hottest knight. ;)

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Monday Joe and I visited the dentist in the first time in… well, years. For him I think it’s been over a decade! For me it was closer to seven years, because I think I went to the dentist once since we’ve been together, but it was definitely before we moved to our current residence. All things considered, our teeth are in pretty good shape. He has two cavities and I have one – my first one ever! I guess that’s what I get for neglecting my not quite pearly whites. The assistant did my cleaning, but the dentist did Joe’s and Joe said the guy was giving him crap about having such good teeth because he’s not going to make any money off him. We have to schedule a followup to get our cavities filled which I’m not looking forward to doing. I’ll try to do it before another seven years pass at least.

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We’re on day two of our four day weekend but this rain is souring our plans. Yesterday we were going to visit a few nature centers but was too gloomy. We ended up getting a hitch installed on the Escape so that we can buy a bike rack and go riding this year. We also took my car in for an emissions test. None of it was fun, but at least took a lot less time than we expected. Good thing too, because we had the hitch installed at U-Haul and they don’t provide any chairs, or even a waiting room. We just had to stand around the retail portion of their establishment. As for the emissions test, it took two minutes, literally. The guy tapped into the on-board computer and that was it. Nothing like how it used to be!

On the way back from our errands we got Whoppers for the first time in a long time. I have pretty much given up on Burger King because their food sucks ass these days. The fries haven’t been the same since they switched recipes and the Whoppers are usually cold. Luckily the one we stopped at was relatively busy so the food wasn’t bad, but we skipped the fries anyway. Later that evening we met up with friends to play Bingo. We usually go to a local church, but this time we visited a local American Legion Hall. It was nice, even though we didn’t win. The odds are better, though, because there’s about half the number of people there than are usually at the church. Plus the inside temperature is more comfortable and they have cushioned seats so my ass isn’t sore at the end of the night. And it starts a half hour earlier so we got out closer to 10 than 10:30. I’m thinking we’ll end up switching off between that place and our regular joint if we continue to go. I’m getting rather tired of never winning especially when three different people from the same table won last night.

It’s even crappier outside today than yesterday which is why we’re not at Joe’s brother’s house like we originally planned. Instead we stopped at a local arts & crafts fair in the morning. It was lame, though, so we went to the mall. I got a coupon for $10 off a $10+ purchase from Kohl’s and figured I’d buy some new clothes. I couldn’t find anything I liked that fit me, though, but Joe did. Story of my life. At least the coupon wasn’t wasted. We ran a bunch of errands, including getting some hair dye from the beauty supply store. I need to get my hair cut first, but I can’t decide if I should go with the same style but shorter, or add some bangs to the mix. The problem is I can’t stand the way hair on my forehead feels, but I do think I’d look better with bangs than without. It’s a tough decision because it’s going to take awhile for them to grow out if I decide I hate them. I might go with fringe bangs since they aren’t true bangs but might give my hair the lift it so desperately needs on top.

Project Mantis

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Project Mantis has been a colossal failure. WTF am I talking about? Our attempt to raise a praying mantis.

It all started a month ago when I received a catalog from Insect Lore, the same place where I got my butterfly kit. As soon as I saw their Praying Mantis Pagoda, I knew I had to have it because the Praying Mantis is one cool insect.

The kit I got came with a live egg case which hatched last Thursday. It actually scared the crap out of me! It was after work and I was cleaning out Bonzai’s tank when my eye caught movement. I looked over at the container where I had put the egg and saw ton of mantids crawling around. I jumped back in shock, then took a photo and texted it to Joe, who was with his kids at the time. I believe my exact words were, “Holy shit, they hatched!!!” There had to be at least fifty of them in there, if not more (the site estimates between 75-200 nymphs will come out of one egg).

Not expecting them to have hatched so quickly, we had no suitable food on hand. A newly hatched mantis is about the size of a large mosquito and they only eat live bugs, so I was worried how we’d feed them. We waited until Friday after work to look for bugs outside, but we couldn’t find any of the aphids they would eat, so we released the majority of them in plants around our patio, but kept three in the included enclosure.

On Saturday we visited a very cool pet store out in Marengo, IL. The place is huge and very clean! It was like visiting a mini zoo. Unfortunately, they didn’t have the pinhead crickets they advertised on the site, but they had some relatively small ones, so we bought a bunch of them and put three in the enclosure with the mantids. None of them went after the crickets, however. We kept trying to catch fruit flies, by leaving fruit outside, but dammit, it wasn’t happening. We got ants, and tried those, but still, nothing happening. By the time Monday rolled around we had three dead mantids, some dead ants, one dead cricket, and a bunch of live crickets. With much disappointment, we let the remaining live crickets free.

At least some of the mantids we released are still alive – I keep checking on the big potted plant on our patio and there are at least two in there right now looking even more lively than they did originally. I read that they don’t stray far from their original hatching location, so maybe we can grab one when it gets bigger and try again.

I think next year I’m going to do tadpoles!

Photos on Flickr

Easter

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I spent Easter with the flu this year. I woke up on Good Friday knowing something wasn’t right. I had a fever, chills, hot flashes, etc. So I called in sick to work and spent the entire day in bed not eating or drinking. I didn’t throw up, which is always a good thing, but I still had other stomach issues. I spent the next few days barely eating, feeling extremely tired, and sleeping a lot. We still tried to show the kids a good time while they were here, though. Friday evening E opened his birthday presents and enjoyed brownies instead of cake. Saturday the kids had an Easter egg hunt, and Joe made a nice Easter dinner (which I did eat a little).

Sunday after the kids had left Joe and I got around to coloring a few eggs. Things started off innocent enough, with us creating eggs with our names on them, and then making cute eggs, but they got progressively naughty, culminating with some vulgarity worse than posted here. Yes, we’re like children, thanks for asking.

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