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Is there anybody that doesn’t hate their cable company?

Our local cable monopoly is owned by Cableone. I left them for cable TV as soon as I could, but have been stuck with them for my internet for 13 of the past 14 years. I left them for DSL for one year when the fastest uncapped speeds I could get was 5 Mbps.

Recently they supposedly lifted their data caps, so I went back. Before I signed up I searched all over their site to make sure there were no caps. I couldn’t find anything that mentioned caps, and they were advertising no “overage fees”, so I thought I was good.

They have been great all year. I’ve been enjoying nice fast speeds with very minimal downtime. No problems whatsoever.

Then Microsoft started offering unlimited data on their One Drive accounts. I thought cool, finally, there is a cloud service that will allow me to store all my backups. So I canceled my CrashPlan account and started syncing with One Drive.

Then a few weeks ago I got an email from Cableone stating that I went over my data “guideline” of 300 GBs for two months is a row and this is my second? warning. I never got a first warning, and by the time I got the second warning I was already over my data “guideline” for the third month. So by the time I got MY first warning I was already screwed. I had no chance to watch my data usage.

So there are no “overage” fees, but they force you to upgrade.

I was pissed, but I thought well hey, I would just upgrade to their Ultra, 70 Mbps down, 6 Mbps up plan for a few months until my backups are done. My Internet fee would go from $53 to $100, but I would also get faster speeds and my backups would go a little faster.

BUT NO!

Since I used more than 500 GB last month, I can’t get that plan because it has a 500 GB cap. I told them I would stay below the cap now that I know there are caps, but no. I have to get a business plan with slower speeds, 60 Mbps down and 3 Mbps up, but a higher cap for $130 a month. And I have to keep it for three months to prove I can stay below the 500 GB cap. So my internet is going up in price by nearly $80 because of a cap I didn’t know about, and wasn’t warned about soon enough. What a joke.

I have to pay for this higher cap, but if I want to get off this craptacular plan, I can’t use the extra data I’m paying for? WTF? And we wonder why we hate our cable companies so much?

I’ll stay below the 500 GB cap this month, and hopefully they will let me downgrade next month. *fingers crossed*

Luckily we soon will have another cable company in town. Hopefully more competition will make for better plans and less of the stupid caps and pretending that using more data actually costs them more. It doesn’t.

I’m not holding my breath though. I’ve never met a phone or cable company that I liked.

So some time today my new Mac should be here. My 2009 iMac is getting a little long in the tooth. I actually think Yosemite sped it up a bit, but it’s still pretty slow.

I’m upgrading to a Mac Mini. I wish they were a little more powerful, but I guess it’ll be good enough for me. A Mini just fits better with my other computers at my desk.

My plan was actually to get it on Friday so I would have the weekend to get it setup. I checked the Best Buy website and it said they had them in stock. So I went to pick one up along with an ssd drive that I am going to setup as the boot drive. The guy at Best Buy said they only had the old ones. Yeah, it’s 2014, I’m not buying a computer built in 2012. Are they trying to get rid of old stock to people that don’t know any better?

Fuck Best Buy!

I put the ssd drive back and went home and ordered everything I needed. So much easier. I don’t know why I even bothered to try to buy anything local. It’s such a hassle.

I’ve always hated Best Buy, but I thought maybe they had gotten better. Their prices are actually comparable to online finally, but it’ll still be a while before I shop there again. The online experience is just so much better.