Now that I have your attention, where is everyone? Summer has just begun and everyone is missing in action. Sean have you fled the country? Eddie did you have some miss haps due to illegal beadless Cups? Ketchup have you gotten a girlfriend and don’t need us anymore? Jeremy is the new job keeping you away?

Have we just run out of things to say about Cups?

Bruce

I'm still here Bruce! I've been fighting the good fight with my ISP provider, my cable TV company, a modem manufacturer, my router maker, my digital video Recorder: TiVo and everything else you can imagine. It all decided to quit at once.

Then, just to add a little brown and stinky to the mix I bought a reel. A real nice reel. Only one trouble. The so called Magic shop that sold it to me, decided they didn't have anymore after all, well after they had me pay them. "A computer inventory mistake, we're sorry". Then they offered me a store credit for the amount of the sale and said that was all they were prepared to do. I mentioned in closing my talk with them, that I would be calling my lawyer in the morning. Suddenly the manager had a discussion with the owner and a refund payment was made to my credit card within moments.

Then the cable guy came and scratched his head for an hour trying to figure out how Comcast's switch-over to all digital signals had affected  my newly combined all AV digital system (sans Digital TV). I got the digi-box from them (digital converter) for the assured "Plug-And-Play conversion just 4 weeks ago. A combined 20+ hours with 4 manufacturers tech people finally got it all running in the AV department. Yesterday at 8:00am, PSDT, the local Comcast pulled the big switch to lose all the analog signal and migrate fully to digital. The 4 weeks of work with the AV system went up in a metaphorical puff of sulfurous smoke.  They came to try and sort it out. soon, 3 guys were here. The consensus was toss out your Tivo, toss your TV and get a digital TV and get their new Xfinity system.

I'm a basic cable subscriber. I have channels 1-66 ( with a few more I never go see). What Comcast did was ruin the compatibility of my system with every single component they gave me (boxes, remotes [I had 6 remotes by this time] just for video!). Yes, it was their consensus that the TiVo get tossed, all the digital cable boxes get tossed, the TV get tossed, and then have them install the Xfinity system. I don't have a cellphone! I don't want one! I don't want 140+ sports stations. I don't need 30 channels in Spanish, 12 in Asian, and 3 in languages that I don't even know what they are!!!!!!I don't hunt, fish, shoot mammals for sport, shop for jewelry, etc. I want just basic cable and this is what all concerned lied to me and said I would get.

The install of the TiVo box took 4 days by itself. Real plug 'n Play for sure, NOT! They shipped it to Best Buy without the new digital firmware. They figured it would cost too much to open each box up and flash the new firm ware onto each TiVo unit and it would be far more cost effective to let the consumer do that. Right. It took 2 different 2 day tech/phone sessions to get it all done. Had to hack into a neighbor's WiFi and use their phone line to do it It worked fine for 2 weeks.....then Comcast pulled the plug and now none of the equipment I bought or that they gave to me would work. This was becoming great fun with hours and hours of on the floor sessions , real good for an older persons back and other old-age ailments.

Tomorrow at 10:00am, I will call TiVo and cancel. I'll take the TiVo box and all it's stuff to Best Buy and get my refund (one day to spare, by Monday the 30 day guarantee/refund privilege expires). Then I will call Comcast and have them rip it all out. While returning the TiVo, I'll buy a digital TV. Then I call Dish network or Dish One or whoever is the least lying, gouging, stupid of the satellite TV companies.

I'm not going to lift a finger. If they can't get it up and running to my satisfaction, they can take it back too. If all this fails, I'll go to radio shack and buy a set of digital rabbit ears and go real old school.

I've had enough!!!!!

Beyond that stuff, yep, I'm here.....  

'night Bruce,

dsalley13

This magic dealer who sold you the reel wouldn't be located in Boston, by any chance?

I've had it "up to here" with Comcast. I was with Time-Warner starting in December of 1998, and stuck with them through Comcast's takeover.

Some of Time-Warner's technicians knew what they were doing. None of Comcast's do.

Life is too short to put up with bad internet connectivity and bad television.

Hey Doris,

I feel your pain technology wise… In my opinion things are changing fast and not necessarily for the better. It is amazing how the satellite and cable companies send out installers that don’t have a clue as to what end-users have equipment wise, let alone know how to integrate them with existing gear.

It is just not the TIVO boxes that go out with out the latest upgrades, its blu-ray DVD players and even some of the new TVs. Don’t get me started on the battle of who will control content… the big video manufactures want control, shutting out the audio companies. Soon we will not have discs as our source material… it will all have to be downloaded for a fee. Also the video companies want to take a page from Apple and sell us apps for our gear.

I met up with a group of Denver magicians today who meet weekly at Perkins. All nice guys every one of them. I was blown away by one of the group, David Neighbors… he showed me some coin work that just blew me away. Brandon who invited me to the get together brought his new set of RNT2 Mini PF Cups in chrome to show me, what beautiful Cups they are. The feel and fit and finish were fantastic. Don at RNT2 did a great job on those Cups… I see a set of the combo version in my future. Doris now I know why you like your set so.

Take care,
Bruce

Bruce,
Yes you guessed it, work is so so busy. I didnt get home till 11pm lastnight. Im a COMCAST field tech. dsalley and Bill sorry to hear about your troubles. In Florida we have not started to put the new boxes in, maybe late this year. Im trying to find some time take pic of a new rare chop cup. Blue gun steal, on the out and Brass on the inside, strolling chop type. Its so nice perfect weight. Well guy's until then.. dont put all you ball in one cup.

Jeremy

Jeremy… the Lord loves a working man; I did not mean to give you a dig about my installer comment. I am glad that you checked in. Your CC sounds like a good one and will enjoy seeing photos of it.

Bruce

Jeremy -- it's not the installers and ground techs that I have had problems with. It's the folks in tech support on the phone.

The phone message that basically sums up the problem with tech support is, "If you are having problems with your internet connection, you can contact us by voicemail or online at www.comcast.com."

Yes Bill, the dealer is in Boston. Funny you should ask that. It must be all the beans?   


dsalley13

Back in the 80’s I use to order from those guys after being disappointed with the guys in NY City. I had a problem with a defective item that they would not take care of so I stopped doing business with them. I have had much better luck with the guys in Kansas and Maryland (don’t you just love talking in code).

Bruce

Oh yeah.....I tossed the TiVo, canceled Comcast, got Direct TV, bought a 40 inch SONY-HD and a Blu-Ray disc thingy. I'm waiting for the Satt. service to come do the dish thing this evening. WOW! I never had a big screen TV before, much less HD and Blu-ray stuff. I may even like Magic DVDs better...........nah, I'm a reader.  

I got a new modem for the 'puter system and a new router, as separate units. Now I don't have to dump both when one part quits, like you have to do with a unitized unit. It's like a printer/scanner, if one part breaks, you have to toss it all out and get a new combined version. I guess the unitized stuff takes up less desk space, but what a price to pay. "Stuff breaks, always!" (A quote from my dad)

We've been watching all our old DVD movies  and Magic  DVDs for days for our evening entertainment, while I practice Magic. Our Comcast system was out for many days before I pulled the plug. The good news is that now we are going to get BBC America with the Satt. service's middle tier and be able to see new episodes of Dr, Who!!!.

Even gooder news is it costs way less than the new Xfinity stuff Comcast was trying to shove in any available orifice we have. The Dish sales guy said that Comcast lost over an estimated 20,000 homes/apartments over this last weekend in Northern California alone, and that was on last Saturday. I wonder what it is today? I took the box of their equipment back Saturday and the line was out the door. 6-7 people out of 10, where there doing the same thing I was doing....saying "Goodbye Forever". The others I asked were they to settle billing issues. Nobody was there to buy into Comcast's new "Great Glimpse of the Future". A lot of people got mad enough to dump the idiots.

dsalley13 / a "Whovian" always and forever


"If you really want to pay the combined media azzoles back, dump everything and start over......works for politics too! (maybe?)

Bruce,

Here's what I got at Best Buy (I love those guys, no pressure at all and they make sure you get the latest stuff, if that's what you ask for. My sales-guy even upgraded me a bit with the latest Blu-ray, not even on the floor for sale yet. Same with the TV.

Here's the what I got, the numbers and letters will mean something to you:

Sony Blu-ray player: BDP S570

Sony Bravia LCD TV: KDL EX501


They tossed in a Blu-ray disc disc of "Alice in Wonderland", with Johnny Depp from a promotion they were running until yesterday. I've never seen anything that's the quality of this set-up, at least not ever in our home. It uses my WiFi too, but we haven't tried to do that yet. We're just amazed at the pretty pictures.  

As far as signal provider, that and the DVR are in Direct TV's hands. They say they will upgrade me as they move upstream and gave us free HD for life and new boxes and stuff as needed.

I looked at the 3D TVs too. Incredible pictures that made my head swim. Maybe in 5 years, when the price gets "Real", we'll look into that. Right now, HD looks like 3D to me, almost.


 dsalley13

PS: I have no hard feelings for the Comcast field techs either, it's the corporate heads that I would like to see roll. The techs I've had in my home were courteous and fine gentlemen. Even the guy that struggled for 3 hours to get the system working and finally gave up. I called the next day to cancel the service. End of problems...for now.........

PPS: The Direct TV crew just showed up. YAY!!!!!

I had the same problem with him when I tried to purchase a set of Gazzo cups, right after I started doing some serious collecting.

I called the company, got one of the "gnomes." I  asked if they had the Gazzo street cups in stock.

"Yes, we do."

"Can you see them from where you are standing?"

"Yes."

"Can you put your hands on them?"

"I have them right here."

"Then put them in a box and send them to me 2 day express, and charge it to my Visa card."

Two weeks later, no cups. So I called back. Asked  about the cups. "They are on back order."

"WHAAAATTT? You said that they were in stock and you had them IN   YOUR   HANDS!"

"I was mistaken."

"Let me speak to the head gnome, then."

I told the head gnome that I did not appreciate being lied to. He said that was a bit strong of a word. So I told him the whole set of details. He said, "Well, Chef Anton doesn't have any in stock."

So I  'splained to him that I didn't like being misled like that, and I asked for a refund. He said he would refund the money. It took SIX WEEKS.

Like everything else the level of service has changed over the years. When I first got into magic there was a magic shop that was in the Pennsauken Mart located in Pennsauken NJ (I believe it was called The Magic Shop). They went out of their way to make sure that they did not sell you bad stuff… they would take the stock catalogs from Robbins Wholesale and with a rubber stamp, mark the effects that they thought were not up to par with “NOT RECOMMENDED” in bold block letters. If something broke or just did not work out they would go out of their way to exchange or correct the problem.
As I got older, my parents would take me to Tannen’s in NY City, there they would steer you in the right direction if you asked the right questions for the most part, but that kind of changed at the end of the 70’s.

In SLC UT there was a good magic shop called Showplace Magic, Dee, Dan and Eric were great to work with and again Dee would go out of his way to make you happy and work for your business. That changed with Dee’s passing on and the new owners became very profit driven bringing in more novelty crap.

Thanks for letting me reminisce,
Bruce

Dsalley 13,

It sounds like when it is all said and done you will have a fun system to view videos on. Just remember that for HDTV to look its best ,the source materials must be up to snuff. Personally, I can’t stand to watch old VHS tapes or even old magic DVDs on some of the high definition gear… all the flaws are shown and I can’t get past it. I have the same problem listening to music encoded as a MP3 or Apple formats, though if you use Apples lossless some of those are acceptable.

Hold off on buying 3D just yet… let the market decide whose system will become the dominate one. The last format war was between Blu-Ray and HD DVD. Early adaptors got burnt.

Bruce

I should explain....we're not rich. We used to be comfortably middle-classed (2-teachers combined incomes) and like most of you, our incomes are being eroded daily by corporate greed and the worship of their great God, "PROFIT AT ANY COST", more and more each year. We didn't buy these TV devices on a whim. We've been waiting to do this for a long time. The mess with Comcast and TiVo, drove us over the edge and we reacted. I'm glad we did!

Several years ago, we started a budget plan that involved a lot of give and take, mostly give. Every time we would normally go out to eat dinner, we put that money aside and stayed at home (2X a week for about $40.00 minimum per week) That goes into a special savings account. For movies out and movie rentals, we used to spend $20.00 per week. My husband now packs a lunch for work every day. That's a tidy sum since lunch out has become a minimum of $5.00 per work day if you eat just junk. That's $100.00  per month in itself.

All told, we save about $3,500.00+ per year. That's the emergency fund for things just like this. Last year we had to buy a new refrigerator and kitchen range. Ouch!!! That ate a whole year's entertainment savings. The year before, the AC/Heating system needed rebuilding. There is always something, but the rainy-day pad we have makes things a lot more doable.

I always urge friends to do the same. There's a whole lot of money that we waste without thinking about it over much. Control that and the bigger expenses that come up (and they always do) are far easier to handle.

The satellite TV install went very well. Now we have more channels than we will ever use. The picture on the TV is wondrous and the entire system was learned by us both on the same evening of delivery. I highly recommend Direct TV. I don't work for them. They want me to proselytize their service and get $$$ credits for bringing in more customers. I leave the decision for you to make personally. They have a real good system and we both are delighted with it. I can simply recommend it if your cable-TV provider is getting stinky, like ours was.

Now, off to work..............

It's been a great pleasure communicating with you all here. It's decidedly more adult than the Café forum. Thank you for inviting me to be part of the cupscon.com family.


dsalley13

Bill, I feel your pain........mostly I get out-sourced and wind up talking with sing-song voiced Pakistani, Philippino or East Indian tech reps. American big business seems to be wanting to put Americans out of work by out-sourcing everything they can. They already eliminated us as a manufacturing source of most everything. Fight the good fight my friend, we all will be doing the same.

Also, yes, Boston still hasn't come up with my refund. I'm getting ready to take it to the next level and call/e-mail the BBB.