If you are paying $180 for cable and Internet access do you think it’s a good or bad idea to screw up your product offering enough that a customer has no alternative but to call for customer service, reminding them that they are in fact spending over $2,100 per year whether or not the service works in the first place?

Yes, Comcast has finally made my List of Hate… they can stay off the List of Great Hate but it’s going to be a tricky thing for them to pull off, given the hole they’ve dug for themselves.

A while back they switched from Microsoft-based software to TV Guide-based software. A mostly seamless upgrade, for me. True, I suddenly had shows that I was recording that weren’t even in my list. Yes, I had to go through each “season pass” and fine tune the settings. But the majority of my scheduled recordings came over; so did all of my already saved programs. Some other people had massive troubles… schedules gone, gigabytes of saved programs gone… ouch.

And the new software… some of it is better than the MS version, but in all honesty, I feel like I’ve traded the shortcomings of one version for the other. Microsoft’s version didn’t have the “skip ahead 30 seconds” button enabled; TV Guide’s version does. Microsoft’s version used arrows in the guide to tell you that a show had started; TV Guide doesn’t. Given the amount of clicks required to delete a saved DVR file, both companies love batteries… TV Guide has about 3 presses more than Microsoft’s and Microsoft’s was more than the “one button delete” that I expect to see.

That’s not why I’m pissed at Comcast though.

About four weeks ago, I noticed that Bleach was pretty much unwatchable. The image would pixilate and skip – whenever that happened the sound dropped out. Bleach relies on dialog a lot so this sound bit is rather important. It made watching the show irksome, but since they were reruns I didn’t mind it much. Then I noticed that the first run shows – the ones that run on Sunday nights – were also screwed. Then I noticed that all of the content from Cartoon Network was doing this. Not on live TV – just on the DVR sessions. And then I noticed that the majority of my current shows are from Adult Swim… and why am I paying all of this cash to Comcast especially if I can’t record a channel than I watch a lot?

I called Comcast… and thus begins the issues.

The first pass was what I expected, but with a shorter-than-expected wait time: we’ll sent a code to your box that will reset it. If that doesn’t fix the problem, give us a call back and we’ll troubleshoot it further.

Didn’t fix the problem. Begin Stage 2.

On the second call, they verified that a code was sent out. Seeing as it didn’t help, they told me that it could be the box or the signal to the box. Either way, I needed to select a four hour window to sit at home and wait for a technician. On a Saturday. I mean, that’s a mixed bag anyway. I hate giving up a four hour window of free time to that, but I also don’t want to burn vacation time from work, especially when I was already prepared to do work this weekend (to catch up with my ever lengthening workload).

Guy comes out today, within the first hour of the four hour window: signal is fine, must be the box. Begin Stage 3.

The biggest downside of getting a new box means that I need to set up my shows. This is more painful than it sounds: no keyboard for easy input and a number of the shows aren’t running on their proper channel between seasons. And my “no duplicate shows” status is now an empty list so everything will be recorded as “new”. Ah well. At least it’s a new box. With new internals and an HDMI port. Oh wait, I don’t have and HDMI port on my TV. That means I need to go get an adapter. Best I could find local was a $30 plug thingy from Fred Meyer. Ah well, whatever right?

I wait three hours, for the guide to update so I could set up my recordings – half the stuff is missing. Oh well, it’ll fix itself right? I flip over to HBO to watch something. I have no permissions, according to the new box. Begin Stage 4.

I call Comcast again. “They should have told you when you picked the box up that you’d have to call in so we could ping the box from here.” ‘Your guy installed it here, today.’ “Oh. Well lets send it again.” 15 minutes later, I’m told my box is defective, I need a new one, and it’ll mean a visit to the store or a workman visit, which can be tomorrow [Sunday] within a four hour window. Begin Stage 5, which started while I was on the phone with this call.

Stage 5 is a bad place for me. It’s where I am irate. Not begin to get irate, not possibly get irate about something – no, at this point, I’m flat out annoyed and pissed off. No exception today. I’ve been forced to call customer service. I had to sit home for four hours on a Saturday… I needed to sleep today – was up playing GH2 during the overnight – but couldn’t because of the appointment. Then I’m forced to remember that I’ve had shitty service for a while – now with the mishaps it reminds me that one third of that monthly bill is for watching Premium Channels that I can’t see now and for DVR service that has evolved into mediocre with new software… On top of that, I’ve been reminded by friends that there’s a HD dual tuner TiVo model that retails for $300 and it uses CableCARDs so I could dump the DVR box entirely (if I’m willing to put up with the pain of configuring CableCARDs which is no small feat since you still deal with Comcast.)

And so tomorrow I’ll have to wait for Yet-Another-Visit from Comcast. If they don’t get me up and running with this round, Stage 6 is ordering the CableCARDs from Comcast tomorrow and running to [insert an electronic store here] so that I can begin the trip back to TiVo land.

At least there’s [playoff race] baseball and [pre-season] football on all day.