It's Comcastic

Today we recieved a rather innocuous looking letter with an urgent warning regarding changes that happened on June 12. Worried tha tperhaps we had truly descended into socialist anarchy, or that the people around me were some kind of advanced clones, I opened the letter as quickly as possible.

Thankfully it was only my friends at Comcast wondering if I had lost some of my favorite local broadcast stations during the switch to digital. It was a transition that I hadn't taken stock of, since cable television is no longer much of a novelty and every news outlet had been warning me about the terribly awful fate that awaited my TV unless I picked up a converter box (free with government coupon).

We left Comcast last year when Verizon began to roll out its FiOS service in Middleboro thinking that change can be good and that faster Internet connections are always nicer (especially with Hulu to replace my TV). So it's fair that Comcast might think we just dropped out from civilization all together, since in their minds Verizon was some sort of sorcerer or black conjurer full of tricks and scams.

So in a letter, that was in no way deceptive, Comcast offered me a way out of the woods. If I were to sign up for their Internet and/or phone service then I could get free basic cable (for 12* months). This would immediately restore my favorite channels so I could watch Jay Leno in primetime and reruns of CSI.

I mean, there were other ways to find out what happened to my channels. In fact there were "several options" but the considerate folks at Comcast (who are totally my BFFs) told me that the easiest answer would be to call them. They would handle everything and even send out an enjoyable, professional cable guy in two or three weeks to set things up for me.

It was a relief that they said I'd enjoy the installation, because I've had nightmares about cable installation every since I saw The Cable Guy. And it was much better than those damned coupons, I mean I'd have to wait to recieve them in the mail, and the converter box might cost more than $40 (even though most of them don't). Plus, I'd get their astounding basic cable package which includes all my favorite broadcast channels as well as QVC, MSNBC and ShopNBC!

So with all haste I put this letter into the circular file, dusted off my hands and once again gave the finger to Comcast and their Comcastic deals.