Rounds For The Week

  • We had a brilliant time celebrating birthdays this past weekend with the Children of the 25th, the Child of the 19th, and associated family and friends – as recounted here and here.
  • Laura is currently spending a week in Barcelona for the International Space University Summer Session Program, only this time, as a lecturer. How cool is that?
  • Upon returning from the birthday festivities, we arrived home to discover our cable out. This has been a more frequent occurrence of late, and is invariably due to an “area” outage, instead of something particular to our house or account. As we both rely on the cablewebs at home to get our respective work done, and when the connection goes down, its more than just a mere inconvenience. As I am want to do, I expressed my feelings on this latest Comcast debacle via a rant on Twitter. What was interesting was that I was then contacted by someone on Twitter who is, apparently, a Comcast service representative, who offered assistance. This recent Slashdot thread points out other reports that Comcast is proactively trying to reach out to disgruntled customers through blogs and Twitter, perhaps as a way to improve it’s dismal service reputation. I chose not to follow up with said rep, as I was working with the local support people, but service wasn’t restored to our area until two days later. Sorry, Comcast – helpful customer service overtures do not make up for multiple frequent area outages and a reduced channel selection that supposedly, as per your notification letter, somehow “enhances my viewing experience.” Verizon recently installed FiOS hook-ups on our street, and I think we’ll be giving that a spin in the near future.
  • There is a seekrit project I am working on for the weekend. I’d tell you, but… it wouldn’t be so seekrit, now, would it?
  • Despite their advancing age, there are con recaps aplenty that will be gracing this space soon, and more content in the near future.
  • Dragon*Con is looming on the horizon. There will be much more to say on this.