A Comcast Caution

If you have just moved into a new place and are wondering what cable service you should get allow me to give you one piece of advice: DO NOT GET COMCAST. I had never experienced such horrible service before getting Comcast hooked up in my house. They are the only cable providers in this area so they think they can treat you as poorly as they would like. We have had Comcast installed for only a month, and that month has been a month of cable and Internet hell.

Comcast does not care if you are a student and need to use the Internet for research purposes. Comcast does not care if your roommate just wants to relax for the first time in weeks but cannot watch the broken cable. Comcast does not care about any problems their customers endure. They will let your services be broken for days without sending a technician. When they finally do schedule you an appointment, they will take you off the schedule just as fast as they put you on.

The point here is this, Comcast is evil. I would advise every single person considering Comcast for their Internet and cable provider to go another route. Direct TV is the smarter choice. It isn't an option for everyone, but if you can, go for Direct TV. It is a little bit more of a pain because you cannot get Internet through Direct TV, however, it is worth the extra time of setting up a phone line with AT&T as well. Then your television service will come from people who will actually give you proper service, and your Internet will come from the phone line.

COMCAST IS EVIL! Seriously.

Make-up Blunder

I just got home from the gym and I can't stop thinking about something I saw there. A woman, working out, with a full face of make-up. Why on earth would any woman want to have make-up on while she is working up a sweat? I did not see her after her work out, but I am sure her make-up was running all over the place. Unless she was only there to pretend she was working out, but really just trying to find hot guys. If that was her reason for being there than I have no words to describe what an idiot she is.

I should not be so mean because I don't know her reasons for being at the gym. I'm just trying to point out the obvious, it is ridiculous to wear a full face of make-up for a work out. Maybe she just came from work or somewhere that she had to have on make-up; I have done that, but I always wash it off before I begin my work out. I just thought she looked ridiculous.

It makes me wonder how many woman do this, and if all the women who do do this are trying to impress men. If this is a common practice then I have to figure out another, more solitary, kind of workout. It took me a long time to convince myself that no one is looking at me work out while I'm there because it makes me so uneasy to think that people are watching me. If the gym really is a place to pick-up on the opposite sex, therefore watch other people workout, than I am going to have to buy my own equipment for my home.

Life...

In high school I was on stage performing at least twice a year. I kept up with my voice lessons and performed in musical theater shows often. When I went to study theater at Long Beach State I found that those theater majors did not consider my personal favorite form of theater to be "real" theater. They turned their noses down at musical theater. To my fellow students, dramatic theater is was the only theater form worth studying. This was a very sad realization for me.

By my third semester in college I was searching for a new major. That's when I took my first political science class. I really enjoyed the topic and decided this was the path I would take. Shortly after I decided on a creative writing minor and I was finally settled into this whole college thing.

I love both my major and my minor but now I feel like something is missing in my life. I miss singing and I miss being on stage. Life is so hectic with school and work it is hard to find time to perform these days. I hope that I will be able to get back into theater once I am done with school. At least until I figure out what else I am going to do with my life.

A System That Could Use Some Technology

Recently I interviewed the federal receiver of prison health care in California. The interview was pretty close in time to my rant about the use of technology in the library. In this interview, however, I discovered a system that is running entirely without technology. I ranted and raved about the sole use of technology in the libraries and I was so upset about the lack of a back up system. Then I learned that the medical care system within the state prisons does not use any technological record system whatsoever. This made me feel a little bad about the harsh tone I took with the libraries dependency on technology.

I can't believe that medical records for any kind of health care system can be kept without a computer. I also learned that they don't even have a neat filing system. All the medical records for the state prisons are kept in shambles. It is the year 2007, I think it is time for a little advancement.

Although I still think it is irresponsible to depend solely on technology and have no back-up system in case of a power loss or whatnot, I also understand the importance of technology in today's world. It is the smartest and most organized way to keep records, such as medical records, in proper order. We have become dependent on technology and I find it strange when it is not used where it so obviously should be. Still, I cannot stress enough how important a back-up system is!

Technology: Not Always a Good Thing

Isn't it true that libraries used to use no technology whatsoever? There was a card catalog and one would go look up the book one needed manually there. Now libraries, or at least the libraries I go to, are cataloged and run with computer systems. It is not so strange to think that they would still have a back up process, just in case the computers were to, say, fail. Unfortunately, I have not found that to be the case. I have found that when a library computer systems are down us students are stuck with no way to access the things we may need very badly.

I needed to get a sort of study guide that was on course reserve for a midterm I had today. I decided I would study first then get the study guide the day before as a sort of helpful, extra tool. So yesterday I go to the library between classes and try to go to the course reserves desk. However, there was a problem. The computers in the library were down. I asked if there was no other way to find the item that I needed. The man helping me said that they had absolutely no other way of locating this document without the computer system working. All I could think was "this is absolutely ridiculous!"

Am I over reacting, or does it seem absurd that a library would have no back-up system in case of computer failure? So many people count on libraries, especially ones as central and the Martin Luther King Jr. Library. Technology is not always the best option. We can not fully rely on it. There must always be a way to back-up such unstable"advancements."