While most of the articles here pertain to dating, I thought I would post this tale about my experiences with Comcast, which is by far the worst company I've ever dealt with.
I ordered Comcast High Speed Internet in December 2007, taking advantage of their 16/2Mbps offer, the highest tier of speed. I paid significantly more for this high-speed upgrade. I play a lot of games online through XBox Live, and my brother plays games on the PC. I download all sorts of content to the XBox, and my brother buys all his games online. The games can be as large as 10 gigabytes for a single installation, and that isn't counting the bandwidth necessary for voice chat. I also have a paid subscription to the music service Napster, which I always have running while I'm making dinner and cleaning and working.
Comcast called on June 3 with a "high priority message," instructing me to call back ASAP. When I did so, a technician told me that I was using too much bandwidth and that I had to reduce bandwidth usage in order to remain being serviced by Comcast. I pointed out that they never pointed out limitations in their usage in their advertisements and that I had paid a significant amount for a higher-bandwidth connection. When the technician refused to back down, I thought I would find out what the bandwidth limit was so that I could see if the policy was reasonable. I asked for a definite figure as to how much usage I was permitted. The technician, rather rudely, wouldn't say, stating that I only had to "significantly reduce" my usage to remain in compliance with this under-the-radar policy. If I didn't, I would be disconnected.
I sent a letter to Comcast's CEO, and got a call from someone who told me that "excessive use" was defined as "13 million E-Mails per month." They forgot to mention that an E-Mail could be as small as one character, or could contain attachments of hundreds of megabytes each. They completely refused to tell me what the limit is.
In response, I reduced my service level to the lowest possible amount of bandwidth (6/384 in this case). What's the point of having a higher bandwidth rate if you will go over their invisible cap by using it? Comcast engages in deceptive advertising by touting their no-frills Internet service, and then buries in their terms of service somewhere a clause that allows them to harass their customers over bandwidth usage. I can understand that Comcast needs to keep its network operating at full capacity, but what I cannot understand is why I could not obtain from a technician the exact limit that I should abide by. How am I supposed to adhere to a policy when I don't know what it is?
Because I don't know what the limit is, it's only a matter of time until Comcast disconnects my service. Until Comcast decides to end its unethical business practices, I suggest you avoid their game-playing as much as possible. If you have Internet service through them and have a reasonable alternative, switch providers. For TV, almost everyone can switch to satellite TV, even if you live in an apartment (the landlord is required to allow you to install the dish, but (s)he can dictate where it is placed). I sold my stock in Comcast and hope that it continues its current slide.
It will be interesting to see how Comcast does in light of the complaints that continue to mount against it for this policy. Game-playing like this generally goes unpunished in the social world, but my prediction is that someone will soon sue Comcast and Comcast will publicize its limits. Now, if only one had an outlet to get that kind of action in the social world.
This post has been moved to
AWTeen Reborn at http://shoemakervillage.org/awteenreborn/index.php?/archives/4-A-workable-system-of-government-for-AWTeen.html#extended, where it is more relevant. Look back in the archives on October 26, 2007.
The seduction community frequently simplifies the concepts taught by many of its members into one- or two-word slang terms. There's a lot of this slang floating around in books and Internet forums; the
Fast Seduction site lists a dictionary of hundreds of such terms. Since most of the discussion on the forums frequently refers to the same concepts, it's helpful to have a sort of dictionary to reduce the number of words in posts.
However, there's a funny thing about slang: it becomes so commonplace that it loses its meaning and, for lack of a better word, intensity. For example, the word "kino" is thrown around the forums as if it's just another step in a process. But when you look at how people are acutally using the term, we find that "kino" can mean anything from holding hands to foreplay. Certainly, the term fails to accurately convey the emotion behind the latter. One could argue that it fails to convey even the former.
So it is with another term, "social proof." Social proof is basically a synonym for being "popular;" if a lot of other people like me, you will probably like me too. It's a concept that I believe is a poor judge of character, because there are a lot of jerks who make more and more friends simply because they already have a lot of friends. Regardless of my opinion, however, the concept does exist, and I encountered a powerful demonstration on Friday, June 16.
Continue reading "Social Proof"
Karen, recently, has been posting about how her love life is going nowhere. The string of rejections has been stretching on since February or even earlier. She's tried speed dating, but nobody indicated they were interested. She responded to a guy on the radio, but he eventually ditched her for someone else. And she's even walked her dog to meet men, but saying hi and talking about dogs is as far as it goes. It looks like, unless we provide some "expert" assistance here, Karen might meet someone when she turns 70, and even then the odds won't be good.
Therefore, I suggest that we take matters into our own hands and hook Karen up ourselves. I'm going to create a new category, "Karen's Endless Search," where we can post all about Karen and her myriad faults. Hopefully, a guy will be lovestruck by Karen's warm personality and caring heart, and will decide to arrange a date with her. Everyone wins: I'll have something to write about once again, the blog will get more page impressions, and we can talk about how women attract men (most of the discussion here seems to be the other way around). But I think the end goal is much more important: Karen will actually be able to enter a relationship that lasts longer than five minutes.
Continue reading "Let's hook Karen up!"
As you may have noticed, over the past few months I've been writing fewer articles than usual. A number of factors are at work that have caused me to slack on bringing the most interesting commentary to you in a timely fashion. Today, I've decided that the time has come for me to take a brief hiatus from writing for this site. I'm not sure whether the hiatus will last for days, weeks, or months, but I do intend on returning at some point.
Until then (and perhaps permanently, if she wants to continue indefinitely), I've asked Karen to become the administrator of this site and have given her full reign to do whatever she would like to continue improving
Games up to the best it can be.
Continue reading "Taking a brief hiatus"
I just wanted to pop in and let everyone know that yes, I am still alive. Unfortunately, a lot of factors have contributed to a busy week. Things look like they'll settle down after the weekend.
Maybe Karen or Adam will post something, or if not, then I'll be back as usual next week. Until then, feel free to browse through our archives and discover some of the 400 posts that have been made here over the past year!
"David's Response: If you don't want women, or you want women that control you and make you do everything that they want, be yourself. And that yourself that you are talking about is probably a wussie that is trying to control a woman in a wrong way. If you approach her being a nice guy you are doing it because you want her to like you. And I don't really car [sic] what you say about me because you are going to keep doing the same things until you open for some other possibilities."
The above paragraph was posted at 7PM Monday evening on
Wikipedia, an encyclopedia written by everyone that's now the 18th most popular website in the world. The premise of the site is that anyone can edit any article. One result of this philosophy is that many articles have become extremely well-written and a comprehensive source on their subjects. Other articles, such as
George W. Bush, have become the target of so-called "edit wars" where people continually change the article to support their own views or to prevent others' views from being distributed. But thousands of paragraphs like this are posted every day, and most aren't noticed, so why is this one even worth mentioning?
This comment is interesting because it's posted in direct criticism of this site, probably at me in particular. Could it be possible that David DeAngelo himself not only read his own Wikipedia article, but also visited this site in passing?
Continue reading "An article about David DeAngelo"
Since I moved three months ago, I've spent some of my time attempting to meet new people while reconnecting with old friends at the same time. One night, I was thinking about who would be a good choice to contact after not having met for several years. I finally narrowed that list down, but then was stopped by what might seem like a simple question to many: what should we do to get reacquianted?
Indeed, I've encountered this problem not just with people I haven't seen in ages but also with people who I do things with regularly. Usually, the first suggestion comes up is to go to the movies. I don't have any problem with going to the movies - in fact, that's EXACTLY the problem. I've probably been to fifty different movies at a theatre in my lifetime. The experience remains largely the same over the years: you get in the car(s), drive to the theatre, stand in line for tickets, buy popcorn, soda, or nothing, chat a little while you watch the commercials, watch the previews, watch the movie, walk back to the car(s), and go somewhere else or go home.
Continue reading "The same things"
Before I allow the "Love as a mental illness" debate to die, I thought I should throw one final argument onto the table. The general conclusion seemed to be that it is simply not possible to be truly happy without a romantic partner. Most participants in the debate agreed that it was possible to change one's attitude towards life greatly, and even learn to become "neutral" because of inner factors alone. However, nearly everyone felt that a yet higher level, of "true" happiness, could only be achieved with the help of a romantic partner.
To disprove the theory that love is a "magical" part of life for which there is no substitute, I point to one profession where members are expected to forego the romantic part of life in all its forms, both just through sex and also through avoiding marriage. While there are many jobs that either require or suggest chastity, the job of Catholic priest is worth mentioning because of the recent controversy that has gripped the religion, at least in the United States.
Continue reading "On priests and chastity"
I recently stopped playing Halo 2 on Xbox Live as often as I used to because I became frustrated about the constant foul language and generally abhorrent people one would meet while playing the game. It seems that someone actually carefully jotted down what everyone had to say and created graphs on the subject (
here, the words in question are printed on the site). It's shocking, to say the least. For example, he found that, on average, you're likely to hear someone say the F word at least 10 times per hour.
Most of these people are probably upstanding citizens in real life. What is it that causes people to degenerate into this mindless filth once they start up their consoles?
A friend, who had read the article I posted earlier on this blog entitled
Love as a Mental Illness and did not comment on the blog, regarded the viewpoint I took in the article as extreme. In fact, nobody who did post comments agreed with any part of what I had to say. Even
Karen, normally soft-spoken, said that some "slip" was showing (if that's even a real term).
Thus, I decided to return to shed some more light as to how I could have come to write such a post. First, I should state that part of the reasons for posting what I did was to draw some ire from the community here, and Eek certainly was irate. However, if you're looking for me to recant what I said and change my mind, you'll be disappointed.
Continue reading "Some background"
Earlier today, one of CNN's anchors posted an interesting article on one of the network's
blogs. The article in question refers to a study conducted earlier in the decade by one British scientist Dr. Tallis, and now confirmed by a researcher named Lucy Brown. The old research was performed by interviewing people who had fallen in love, while the newer study was conducted by scanning the brains of people who were in love while they looked at pictures of the objects of their affections.
Many people label the results as shocking. In fact, when I searched for blogs that mentioned these studies, almost everyone discounted the study as "psychiatry run amok" or "science intruding upon our everyday lives." I have seen few topics on the Internet where so many people are in agreement. Yet, I still disagree with them all.
See, the studies show that romantic love is almost identical in physical symptoms and in brain response to obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD).
Continue reading "Love as a mental illness"
Every once in a while, useless junk starts to accumulate around here. There comes a point when the accumulating depreciation of the items makes laziness seem less attractive. Yesterday was one of those days, and therefore I spent a good portion of the day listing
items for sale on eBay.
I don't recall how getting rid of this stuff would have been done before eBay existed (the trashcan, probably), and I don't care to remember. It's amazing how people will buy anything, and usually at prices far higher than you thought possible. Two years ago, I sold a box of old 386 and 486-era computer parts, which even then were horribly obsolete. My brother had salvaged them from a school that was throwing them away. One should note that I explicitly stated that I didn't know whether or not the parts actually worked and that there wasn't even enough variety there to build one whole computer.
They sold for $42.00.
Continue reading "The anonymous world"
Men talk frequently about how they like fancy, expensive cars. Often, they live under the assumption that the amount of money spent upgrading one's car or buying a new one is directly proportional to how positively women think of them. Most people, however, completely pass over the idea that women would actually want to show off their own expensive toys to the guys as well.
I had an odd experience earlier this week. It was on a Monday night, the time of the week when most people are exhausted after a long day at work and just want to get home. It's hardly a time most people party. On my way to the gym, I stopped at
this intersection. If you zoom in, you'll see that the huge conglomeration of highways in this area comes to an end with two left-turn lanes and four through lanes.
Continue reading "What do people think of your expensive car?"
Here's a warning: this is one of those blog-defining posts. 13 months ago, I posted that I had major problems with the state of dating today. I was even able to describe some of them to you: the expectation of society that men do all the work, and women who took advantage of that fact regardless of the cost. I pointed out some likely culprits: the seduction community, David DeAngelo, and the women's rights movement. Until now, however, I wasn't able to make a concrete suggestion as to why things are the way they are. I was not and still am not convinced that vague, uncontrollable forces such as "evolution" and "nature" are entirely at fault for this state of affairs.
That was until yesterday, when I finally pieced together at least some part of why my opinions are received so negatively by many people. I owe the revelation to watching an interview with the author of
Self-Made Man: One Woman's Journey into Manhood and Back, which I saw on CNN and later decided to buy the book. The premise of this book is different, to say the least: it details the journey of a woman who decided to pose as a man for 18 months.
Continue reading "Stop basing your life on what women think of you"
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