{"id":7226,"date":"2023-09-20T23:00:58","date_gmt":"2023-09-21T04:00:58","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/?p=7226"},"modified":"2023-09-20T23:00:58","modified_gmt":"2023-09-21T04:00:58","slug":"deal-with-the-internet-devil","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/2023\/09\/20\/deal-with-the-internet-devil\/","title":{"rendered":"Deal with the Internet Devil"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I had a really hard time getting started this morning. I was sleeping heavily, and had no energy at all. Kim was out, so I spent all day locked up in my office again. It was nice and quiet, I had some good coffee, and I spent nearly the entire day trying to re-adopt the USG-Pro-4 into our network. I was not successful, but to be fair the documentation was absolutely nonexistent.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Paul from TCW called to sell me some internet service. When I talked to him before, he said it would be ready last week. Today he scheduled an install for two weeks later. I didn&#8217;t love the idea of a two year contract, especially after all of the buyer&#8217;s remorse I&#8217;ve had with the new house, so I agreed to pay $10 per month to stay out of a contract. I figured $65 per month for 500 megabits was worth it just to leave Optimum, but then things got weird.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">He collected a $50 deposit that would go toward my first bill. Then I got a contract by email that they wanted me to e-sign. The contract had a link to their terms of service, which outlined a whole bunch of things that I like to do that were prohibited. They also offloaded all liability for their own equipment onto the customers, and even threatened to cancel service without notice if you promote a competing internet provider. I decided not to sign the contract, and instead called to haggle with Optimum. They gave me gigabit service for $70 per month and a $200 gift card for signing up. In retrospect, that&#8217;s their normal pricing for new customers, so I wish I had haggled harder.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The Optimum service would also be set up before the end of the week, which was nice. I called TCW back and was transferred right back to Paul, which made me appreciate them as a small company. However, after a friendly conversation to cancel my installation appointment, he told me that the deposit couldn&#8217;t be refunded. No service had been rendered, and in fact, I called to cancel just 45 minutes after he had called me to solicit their service. He refused to budge, so I&#8217;ll just have to dispute the charge as soon as it clears my Discover Card.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">I didn&#8217;t take a break for lunch, and then left a little bit late. I made it home to change, and then immediately took off to my parents&#8217; house for a quick dinner before going to the new house to clean carpets. Eaddie showed up with a couple of friends and some boxes from the old house, but then acted like she was embarrassed to live in a no-shoe household. Nearly all of the houses I ever visited growing up didn&#8217;t allow shoes past the front door, so I don&#8217;t know what her issue was. These girls act like they were raised by wolves.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Once I finished shampooing the carpet in the final closet, I stripped caulk from around the tub. There was quite a lot of it under the seam in some areas, so hopefully pulling that all out won&#8217;t mess with anything. I&#8217;ll just have to re-apply it with a heavy hand.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">The girls were pretty well settled in by the time I got to the old house. Summer had a few more things boxed up and ready to go, and everyone was ready for bed. I wrote a pretty scathing review of TCW, and then headed for bed myself, later than I wanted, as usual.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em>What kind of shady crap is this? And who still uses Usenet, anyway?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I had a really hard time getting started this morning. I was sleeping heavily, and had no energy at all. Kim was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[51,83,6,27],"class_list":["post-7226","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorised","tag-cleanup-on-aisle-5","tag-home","tag-reviews","tag-work"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7226"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7227,"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7226\/revisions\/7227"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7226"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7226"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/gallopingcow.net\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7226"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}