Dora the Explorer might be the worst show on television. I'm not even talking children's television here. Just television in general. It is worse than Mike and Molly. Worse than Suburgatory. Worse than every show on E! combined. It is, quite literally, the definition of televised garbage. Let's start with the obvious. The name 'Dora' does not rhyme with the word 'explorer.' If her name was 'Dorer' it would rhyme. Or if they chose to have her speak like some uneducated, Oxycontin- addicted roofer from South Boston they could call it 'Dora the Explora' and that would rhyme. But that isn't the name of the show and the name of the show doesn't rhyme.
Second, just randomly tossing Spanish words in the middle of English sentences does not make you 'bilingual.' It makes you annoying. Avelyn now goes around saying 'vaminos' all over the place. Do you think she knows what that means? Hell no, she is just repeating it because it is in the song. 'Verde, Daddy! Your a Verde! HAHAHAH!' Cool, you now know the Spanish word for Green. You might be able to get a Mountain Dew in Mexico some day.
I took three years of French in high school- mostly because I had a crush on the teacher. Oh, Ms. Duvall, where have you gone? I definitely would have compromised putting us in the news if I had the chance. ( I totally just Googled her and I really hope the lady with the same name that teaches French at Yale isn't the same person because if that is the case my memory is either very skewed or time has not been kind. No, no, can't be her. Too old. It was only 10 years ago and she was young then. She is 40 at the oldest right now. I am Facebook friends with another former high school teacher. Maybe they are friends...Wait- this is getting weird. Note to self. Internet stalking your high school French teacher is not ok).
Anyway, the point is that I took three years of French and I did horribly mainly because learning a language is very little about repeating random words that mean other words and very much about conjugating verbs and tricking your brain in to realizing that people in other countries speak completely backwards from the way we do here. They also use the Metric system, which seems annoying until you realize that it was Americans who decided to do something completely different for no reason. Fuckin' Obama.
Dora does not teach children the Metric system. It also does not teach children how to speak Spanish. No, it is 30 minutes of horribly, horribly annoying songs, pointless, unsupervised adventures with a pansy-voiced monkey and a talking map and random, lengthy pauses that, according to the Comcast OnDemand description, 'encourages preschoolers to participate' in the program. I have no idea who is responsible for this Dora resurgence after four years of avoidance, I link the responsibility to Monica and her new found love for television since I recently installed cable in our bedroom.
Now, when I say 'I' recently installed cable in our bedroom' what I really mean is 'I recently failed at attempting to install cable in our bedroom but a very nice Comcast man came and made it all better.' Due to laziness and overall slum living, Monica and I have not had television in our bedroom in over four years. Now that we will have another immobile, needy infant to keep us up at all hours Monica acquired a television and asked that I see to it that cable appear in said room. I contacted Comcast, first by phone and then by Internet live chat from their website, to inquire about pricing for this task. Long story short, after not being able to get a real person on the phone and being passed through three different people on the live chat I was a bit aggravated and in a perfect storm scenario was paired up with a Comcast employee who had probably had it with fed up customers that day. Our chat went something like this.
Comcast guy writes whole rhetoric about how he is here to help me and he just needs some information to get started.
I give him information, the same information that I have already given three other people that day. We go through the whole 'can't find your account phone number' charade and eventually get to the point where he asks me what I need from him. For the third time I explain that I want to run cable to my bedroom and I want to find out how much this process costs.
16 minute delay.
Me: "You know what, Richard? (I think his name was Richard) I'm sorry if I have interrupted anything with my annoying request for a straight and timely answer regarding a simple account question, but I will be going now. I have attempted and failed to get information from three other people already today and somehow you have been the least helpful. At least the others didn't ignore me while failing to answer my question."
At this point I wait because I want to see what Richard has to say.
Another few minutes pass and I get: "I am downloading your account information."
Another few minutes pass: "Oh, ok. Well, I can make you a service appointment for $22.99 or I can tell you how to do this yourself using a Comcast self install kit."
I then once again explain that I do not need to simply add cable to my bedroom, I need to run cable to my bedroom. Like, go in the basement, drill a hole, run cable, all the jazz.
Richard: "Oh, ok. Well if you don't care about saving money then I guess I'll just go ahead and make a service appointment for $22.99."
Me: "Nope. You know what, Richard? I'm gonna do this myself. God I fucking hate Comcast."
At this point I am furious and determined. I went to the Comcast office to get the equipment and, of course, the lady says that they aren't allowed to tell us to do things like that ourselves, but for my trouble she would give me all the equipment I need for free and LET ME TRY TO DO IT MYSELF! So, with a 45-foot cable cord, a splitter and a digital box I was on my way. I spent a Saturday attempting to make a hole in the floor using a hammer and a wide drill bit (I did not, at the time, own a power drill). I ran the cable wire across my basement ceiling and hooked it up to one of the 5 splitters already coming out of the wall. I bought a new staple gun to hang the chord. I probably swallowed 50-year-old ceiling dust at a rapid pace. I hooked everything up. I didn't get hurt. I was pretty proud of myself.
Richard?
I called the number to activate the box. A woman helped me (after the 'we can't find your account phone number' charade) and I was told to wait 45-60 minutes for my channels to download. Two hours went by and it still didn't work. At this point I called back and got the same woman, who pretended not to remember me but clearly did. She started saying things like 'I am sorry that we are having these difficulties and you are not able to enjoy your favorite TV shows and Comcast OnDemand features.' Or, 'I apologize for the delay in calling up your account information as we have updated our software to better serve you, the customer, as part as our Comcast customer guarantee." Or, "As we wait for your information to load I want to remind you that you can reach us 24 hours a day, seven days a week by calling 1-800-COMCAST or by visiting www.comcast.com.' Bitch, I know how to get a hold of you, I AM ON THE PHONE WITH YOU RIGHT NOW. I spoke to you three hours ago, I am clearly having trouble, stop killing time by reading from the Comcast training brochure. These people wonder why customers get aggravated. Luckily for Maria I was either in a good mood or totally defeated at that point so I did not lose my mind. I just made an appointment for a man to come install cable like I wanted to in the first place. He was pleasant and on time, he left a lovely cologne smell in my bedroom. As Monica described it, "It smells like a Spanish affair in here." I even got to schedule the appointment like, two days after I called, probably because Maria knew that I was teetering on the edge of mass murder and, let's be honest, at this point we had a bond.
In any event, the point of this whole thing today was supposed to be about how much of a scam glue is but, as usual, I have drifted down the beach. I mean, honestly, has anyone ever actually fixed anything with super glue? I have attempted to fix multiple things, including a vacuum cleaner hose, with super glue in recent months. It never, NEVER works. Super glue? Super useless if you ask me. Oh, cool, you need to fix a porcelain shelf trinket- you are all good. If you want to use it for something useful you are screwed. And don't even get me started on Gorilla Glue, either. That is even more of a scam. The only thing Gorilla Glue can hold together is my thumb and index finger. We are totally off the rails today, gang. I'm going to go back to stalking my French teacher. God, I just want my 20's back.
***
Grunge.
Not grunge anymore. (I'm old)
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