I Don’t Pay for Cable

(A note about this post.  It was delayed two days due to the fact I had no internet access because of the Broadstripe “high speed” internet outage)

Why is Seattle – a center for information technology and digital media – serviced by a third-rate cable company like Broadstripe?

The past five years I have been underserved and absolutely frustrated by Brownstripe (formerly Millennium) Cable.  Their prices are outrageous, their service pathetic, their product outdated.  Broadcrap sucks.

They are so bad, all customers I know that have Browncrap, actually wish they had Comcast.  Brownstripe is the worst service provider PERIOD.

Last week the FCC pulled the plug on analog broadcast.  Someone should tell Brownstripe.  Barely outpacing over-the-air broadcast, Broadcrap now offers a grand total of 32 stations in HD – that’s if the HD channels work, which is infrequent at best.  The NOT in HD channel listing includes such standards as HBO, CNN, Bravo, Travel Channel, and Comedy Central.

I am writing this post because I am advocating for the City of Seattle to nullify its agreement with Browncrap Cable.  For this to happen, Broadcrap customers do need to become vocal. . . and there is incentive for doing this.  You see, I haven’t paid for cable in 3 months.

Brownstripe’s service is so poor and their outages so consistent, that the company has no choice but to provide full months of credit.  I have enlisted the help of the City of Seattle Office of Cable Communications and provide regular updates via email to Councilmember Bruce Harrell and the Cable Office.  The Cable Office in turn advocates for me in accordance to the Cable Customer Bill of Rights and makes sure I receive the credits I deserve as specified in the bill.  Over the past 3 months, these issues have equated to full credit . . . meaning no charge.

So if you are subject to Brownstripe’s crap service, you too may be entitled to free cable.

For years cable providers had been able to operate as monopolies, providing them opportunity for artificially inflated profits.  Yet, Broadcrap is so incompetent, in an environment that practically guarantees success, the company had to file bankruptcy.

What most people don’t know is these monopolies no longer exist in Seattle. Previously, cable companies bought licenses that allowed them to be the sole provider of cable to a specific area of the city.  However, according to Michael Jerrett, Staff Member for City Councilmember Bruce Harrell, a few years back Seattle ended all such cable monopolies.  The issue is these monopolies created a legacy effect, establishing a barrier to a true open market and customer choice.  The two primary issues are:

1. Competing cable companies do not own infrastructure to deliver service in the same areas.
2. Building managers, believing that their property were subject to service by a monopoly service provider, signed long-term non-compete contracts.

Where does this leave the consumer?  In my opinion with opportunity and incentive to make change.

Incentive – by simply providing updates about the piss poor service of Browncrap Cable to the appropriate people, you could receive free cable until Browncrap is forced out of town.

Opportunity – since Seattle no longer permits cable monopolies, Broadcrap must perform at levels as defined in their service level agreements (SLAs) found in the various agreements with building managers.  If they don’t, the non-compete may be legally terminated, opening the opportunity for competition.  Additionally, Tony Perez, the Director of the Office of Cable Communications, informed me that each year the city does an audit of each provider.  If it is found that a provider continually violates the Bill of Rights, the city could severe its contract with the provider.

This week, my building manager sent a letter to Brownstripe outlining several violations of the SLA with our building.  They have 60 days to fix these issues or the agreement is nullified.  One primary issue is the SLA states that Broadcrap Cable is to provide 24 x 7 technical assistant.  Its difficult to provide round the clock technical service when your offices actually close.  At 7PM PST M – F, 5PM PST Saturday, and all day Sunday, Broadcrap is closed.  During these hours, a customer’s only option is to leave a message with an answering service.  My bet is on Brownstripe not being able to implement 24 x 7 technical assistance within the next 60 days.

Once the non-compete is severed, Comcast has stated they are willing to make the infrastructure investment to bring service to our building.

If you don’t want to be held hostage by Browncrap Cable, if you are interested in potentially not having to pay a cable bill for a few months, if you simply want to have your rights, as a consumer, to choice in service providers, follow this four-step program:

1. Anytime you have an issue, you need to log it at Broadcrap’s tech assistance: 800-829-2225.
2. Once logged, immediately communicate the issue to the Seattle Office of Cable Communications.  You will need to email Brenda Tate, Customer Advocate, and cc Tony Perez, Director.  Additionally, you should cc Bruce Harrell, the City Councilmember responsible for the Browncrap agreement with the city (ironically, if I had won the City Council seat, I would’ve owned the agreement.
3. Contact your building manager.  Detail the issues you have with Broadcrap and ask if the building has a non-compete signed with Brownstripe.  If they do, see if they will advocate on your behalf regarding their inability to meet their SLA.
4. Contact Comcast.  They need to make sure there is an ROI for any capital outlay of bringing the cable to the building, so the more they hear from potential subscribers, the better.  The best contacts are John Harvey Commercial Sales Manager and Gary Maisel Director of New Business

Repeat this program every time there is an issue (which is often).

Good luck.  With a few phone calls, some follow-up emails, and, possibly, a few months of free cable, Seattle could be removed from the tyranny of Browncrap Cable.

Titletown USA . . . Seattle!?!?

Apparently inspired by my last post (Has It Really Been 30 Years? – where I call Seattle a pathetic sports city), the UW Women’s Softball team went out last night to prove me wrong and won the Women’s College World Series championship.

Though not a professional team nor a major sport (as defined in my last post), I for one hit the streets last night and partied like it was 1979.

I never really watched women’s fast-pitch softball until last week.  But you can now count me a fan.  Its a good sport and fun to watch.  I guess because I play co-ed softball, I relate to it.  But this is on a completely different level.  The pitch zooms to the plate at speeds upwards of 70 MPH which, considering distance, is the equivalent of a 100 MPH pitch in baseball.

UW was carried to victory on the shoulders of national player of the year Danielle Lawrie.  She is a freak.  She has pitched every pitch, in every inning, in every game for the UW since April 29th.  She ended the season with 13 straight complete games.  Over that span, she went Negro League.  In a throwback to the the old barnstorming days,  she pitched both games of the doubleheader – twice!  To increase the difficulty of that feat, each doubleheader featured an extra inning game.  I’m talking Satchel Paige.

Shannon is a sports fan (she is a bartender in a sports bar), but I never seen her as much into a game as Sunday when the Huskies lost in extra innings to Georgia.  No problem for Lawrie.  After pitching over 160 pitches in that game, she came back in the evening game to pitch another 120 to beat Georgia and clinch a birth to the final series.

Earlier in the series, she shrugged off a morning loss (inwhich she of course pitched a complete game) to pitch in the evening must-win game.  15 innings and 251 pitches later, she completed her one-run game and advanced the Huskies to the Super Regionals.

Bedard, are you listening?  Thanks for another 6 1/3.  Lawrie is the definition of staff ace and workhorse.  Here are some stats:

• Lawrie is credited with 42 of the 51 Huskies’ wins.
• She pitched 353 of the the 437 innings that comprised the UW season.
• She started 50 games, completing 46 of them.
• She started the Dawgs’ final 13 games, pitching every pitch in every inning of those games.
• She pitched and completed a game everday since Thursday, except for one off-day Saturday.  She of course followed up that day off by pitching nearly 300 pitches in both ends of the doubleheader on Sunday.

Mariners.  Trade Bedard.  And give Lawrie that vacant spot in the rotation.

Has It Really Been 30 Years?

Shannon was born on the day the Seattle SuperSonics defeated the Phoenix Suns in game 7 of the Western Conference Finals in the Kingdome. Since that faithful trip to the NBA Finals, ending with Seattle’s only men’s major professional championship, Seattle has sent a men’s major professional sports team to a championship game and/or series a grand total of two times.

Today is the 30th anniversary of Seattle’s only* major professional championship.  On June 1st 1979 the Seattle Supersonics beat the Washington Bullets in game 5 of the Finals.  Though the team was in Landover, MD, a frenzied fan base back home in Seattle took to the streets in a rowdy and spontaneous celebration.  Seattle had to wait nearly 30 years for the city to experience a celebration of that scale – upon the announcement of the results of the November 4th 2008 General Elections, Seattle was so starved for a victory, people took to the streets as if the Seahawks had actually won a Super Bowl. (I was in Florida, celebrating with the volunteers and community of Riviera Beach, so I still have yet to celebrate victory in the streets of Seattle).

Seattle is the most pathetic sports city in America.  Rivaled only by Cleveland – the Mistake on the Lake.  Cleveland hasn’t won a major sports championship since 1964.  Even with the “King” dominating the NBA, Cleveland can’t make the Finals.  The Mistake on the Lake is a loser town, but they at least fight to keep their teams in the city.

When Cleveland’s NFL franchise left  after 1995, Cleveland battle the NFL and won the rights to the Browns’ name, colors, history, AND a promise of a new team within 5 years.

When Seattle lost its NBA franchise this past year, the city settled with the NBA outside the court of law, where we won the rights to the SuperSonics’ name, colors, history, AND a promise to willingly relinquish all these rights if we DON’T land a NBA franchise within 5 years – which the NBA will not support unless we build a new arena.  Seattle is a pathetic sports city.

We are such a pathetic sports city that locals aren’t even aware of it.  If you cite that Seattle has never won a major professional championship since 1979, most people in Seattle will name a litany of times we actually choked, but they will state it as if we actually won.  For example, you will get the following list:

• 1993- 1994 SuperSonics ended the regular season with the NBA’s best record.
• 2001 Mariners tied a record for most regular season wins.
• 2005 Seahawks ended the regular season with the best record in the NFC and held serve through the Conference Playoffs, earning a trip to the Super Bowl.

Hearing these examples, as well as all others – besides the 1979 SuperSonics (and the ’95 M’s, for obvious reasons) – I think of disappointment, failure, and chokes.  Seattle sports fans just don’t get it.  The ’93 – ’94 Sonics were the first NBA 1 seed to lose to an 8.  The ’01 M’s didn’t even sniff the World Series, losing to the Yanks in 5 during the ALCS.  And the Hawks.  Fuck, that one still hurts.  We outplayed the Steelers, but thanks to two defensive breakdowns, a tight end with more mouth than skill, and a poor decision by Hasselbeck in Steelers’ territory, we are left with only excuses that the refs jobbed us.

Come on!!  That’s pathetic.  Other towns; that would be unacceptable.  It’s on our teams to win.  Thanks to a history of weak front offices backed by miserable owners, we are left with a few almosts and an excuse.

But I shouldn’t dwell on our failures, not today.  This post is meant to celebrate our one season in the sun.  The ’78 – ’79 Sonics were the last championship by a major sports team that truly connected with community.  Like the Charlestown Chiefs of Slap Shot, the players hung out in the community and with their fan base.  There was no entourage.  There was no security.  There was no separation between the fans and the players.  The players drank, drugged, fought, hung, and partied with the locals.

I know this because my Dad was the same age as most the players.  As a little kid, I would get to hang out with Paul Silas, J.J., DJ, Downtown Freddie Brown, and Coach while their wives shopped at our home during my Dad’s sample sales.  A fucking sample sale!!  Campus mother fucking Casuals!!!  That’s what the players were buying for their wives back then.  And the players came during the same hours as everyone else.  No special treatment.  They had to wait inline, with everyone else, until my Bubbe was ready to ring them up at the cash box.

It is a time long gone from professional sports.  When a city not only could embrace a team, but could live with it.  When a fan could cheer from the upper deck in the Kingdome during the game and then share the complimentary dish of pickles, vegetables, and peppers and a drink at 13 Coins with the players after the game.

Here’s to the 1979 SuperSonics.  Seattle’s one and only major professional championship.

*There are 4 major professional leagues in the US: the NFL, NBA, NHL, and MLB.  Seattle does have other professional sports championships, but I don’t consider them on the same level.  Two noteworthy champions are:

• The 1917 Seattle Metropolitians, winners of the Stanley Cup.  But no one remembers it and they played for Pacific Coast Hockey Association.
• The 2004 Seattle Storm, winners of the WNBA championship.  The team and the championship is a huge element of pride for our city, but as noted, I don’t consider the WNBA one of the major professional sports leagues.

A Decadent Dirty Thirty

By the time I turned 30, I had already long accepted it.  For nearly a year, any time someone asked me my age, I told them I was 30, though I was actually 29.  I didn’t do it on purpose; 30 just came out naturally.

I figured it was because I was in grad school.  I was going to turn 30 prior to graduating, so my life was not going to change as I passed the threshold between my twenties and my thirties.  So I guess I had subconsciously accepted that I was already 30.

Thirty is supposedly a major milestone in our lives.  It marks the transition from our twenties.  The twenties are a point in our lives when we are still trying to figure ourselves out.  A point where we are testing careers, seeing if relationships will lead to families, and starting settle into where we fit in the pecking order of the world around us.

Thirty marks a maturity point where much of that – I suppose – is figured out.  I thought much of my figuring out would take place upon graduating from grad school.  Well . . . its 5 years later and a television is really the only thing I own (its my first television and I am damn proud of it).

To me, our generation seems to be more pragmatic, if not paranoid, about making concrete life decisions.  My Bubbe (grandmother to you non-Yiddish speakers) was consider to have married late, when she married at 27 and had her first child at 28.  My Mom followed suit at 25 and 27 respectively.

My generation does not seem be as quick to wed and replicate.  There are several reasons why this may be.  Our parents generation’s high divorce rate?  More than a decade of an unstable economy resulting in financial confusion and instability?  I can’t be sure of the factors.

But most of my friends are over 30 and the majority are either not married or waited until they turned 30 to get married.  It could be the circles I run in – I know the friends I keep are by no means a representative sample of the average American.  Nonetheless, from what I can tell, my generation is marrying and settling down latter in our lives.

We celebrated my girlfriend Shannon’s 30th a few weeks ago.  Thirty was a big deal for her.  She did feel she was crossing the great divide between youth and adulthood.  Shannon was hoping to celebrate this milestone with her friends at an elegant dinner – a dinner that would indicate a level of maturity and sophistication.

Of course, my brothers Corey and Joel, thought a trip to the Gorge for The Dead, Allman Brothers, and Doobies concert, where we could camp in the parking lot and partake in whatever activities avail themselves at such an event, would be a better way to mark the transition to adulthood.  Shannon didn’t agree.  For some reason she believed regressing back to what she did at 18 was not an ideal way to spend her 30th.

Outwardly, I decided to play dumb.  I was aloof to her emotions and wants for her birthday, pretending to merely plan a normal dinner out for just the two of us at restaurant we occasionally frequent.

A word of advice for people considering such a surprise for a person they cohabitate with; be prepared to experience a week of misery as your partner builds anxiety, disappointment, and quite possibly hate towards you for being such a shitty, asshole boyfriend.  And trust me, these emotions build as the big day nears.

Besides a few leaks (Casey & Briana) I was able to pull off the surprise.  A week of misery was worth witnessing the joy Shannon felt when she saw her friends, brother, and sister waiting for her seated and drinking around a table in a private dinning area at Crush.

Shannon was ushered into adulthood with a private menu entitled ShayJay’s Dirty Thirty Decadent Feast created by Chef Jason Wilson featuring a four-course meal with wine pairings.

It was a gluttonous meal from the start.  The first dish was Stealhead caviar laid over a type of crème fraîche.

Followed by a choice of Maine Lobster Gnocchi

or Potato, Leek, Lovage Soup with Shigoku Oyster

The third course was a choice of Glazed Painted Beef Short Ribs

or Hawaiian Sea Bass & Brown Butter Jus complete with sweetbreads

A delectable meal was rounded off with a White Mousse with Lemon Ginger Cake

Any delusions we may have had of finally achieving adulthood with this meal would fade away as the evening wore on.  After a shot or two at the Hideout to cheers Shannon as she crossed the chasm from her twenties to thirties, we headed to Studio 207 for late night Rock Band.

Like a bunch of drunken teenagers rockin out on plastic instruments connected to the Wii, we launched into our alcohol soak after hour session with raucous duet of “Don’t Stop Believin’” by Shannon and Linda (of 80:20 fame).  A few notes played and a room full of 30-something teenagers started screaming at the top of their lungs the lyrics to everyone’s favorite Journey song.

Pounding Rainier and jamming on plastic instruments connected to my video game system; I can’t think of a better way to celebrate my thirties.  My parents and their parents don’t know what they missed.  Adulthood can wait.