UPDATE (Mar 9) I neglected to include my zip code in my original email to Bryan.  I sent that today.

TO: Bryan P @TWCableHelp

I appreciated your effort to address my issues on Twitter tonight, but the problems exceeded would [what] could be solved by you via Twitter.  On the advice of this (http://twitter.com/TWCableHelp/status/10055119032) I'm sending you my primary concern about the inadequacy of the Time Warner Cable user interface for you to pass along:

I have both the HD vanilla box and the DVR box.  And with neither can you ever use the channel up/down buttons to do anything other than act against the overwhelming overkill of duplicate channels and unwanted channels.

The use of favorite lists does not alleviate this massive deficiency in user interface.

There are other secondary concerns:

The ads on the guide crowd out content.  Ads would be acceptable if the TWC's prices where at all lower than prevailing rates, which they are most certainly not.

The remotes provided for both boxes have a very narrow operating angle and have almost a full second latency from when the button is pressed to when the box receives and acts on the command.  I know this [is] a TWC remote issue because I have both a third party programmable remote and leftover remotes from my previous FiOS service - which use the same infrared signals and operate at wider angles and nearly instantly as expected.

Finally the service I received online via twcable.com's interactive chat help was maddeningly pointless - in the end directing me to get my boxes replaced.  It was a complete waste of time.  I've attached that communication for your amusement.

The prices for TWC services are not very competitive - not terrible but not compelling, the agonizingly 1991 interface, gaping programming holes in the standard HD lineup and the DVR that is locked into one TV playback has me massively underwhelmed as a new customer.  It has me thinking that the only happy customers TWC have are ones that have never had service from other providers in recent years.

Thanks,

Michael O'Neill
Twitter: @oraclenude
Blog: oraclenude.crisatunity.com

Q. What do you do in the evening?
A. Almost every day I eat dinner with my family. I watch television, terrible awful television, shows so awful my soul is diminished.  I watch DVDs from Netflix when my son and daughter aren't hijacking the queue for crappy movies they know I hate. I walk my dog, Kevin, because one day I'll find a hole in the Earth and he'll fall into it and no one will blame me for him dying. Occasionally, I try to read some but almost always fail because I'm a functional illiterate. As soon as my kids are suitably distracted or asleep, I try to get busy with my wife.  Frequent enjoyable sex seems to help on a lot of fronts.

Q. Which Power Ranger are you most like?
A. I think I remember there's green, red, yellow and blue ones.  I guess I'm most like whatever caliber of bullet that penetrates their skulls and makes them go away.

Q. Pokemon or Power Puff Girls?
A. Definitely Power Puff Girls.  For the sound effects alone, there is no comparison.  Besides, all my Japanamation investment is in Dragonball Z.  I'm way over level 9000 and not looking back.

In the meantime, I think it is well and good to once per year to expose the pack of web comics I faithfully follow or recommend catching up on even if they have concluded their run.  Here are some of them in alphabetical order.

• Anders Loves Maria by Rene Engström

• Cowbirds in Love by Sanjay Kulkarni

• Dilbert by Scott Adams

• Dinosaur Comics by Ryan North

• Doctor Voluptua by Josh Lesnick

• Flimsy the Kitten by Rachel Smith

• Freak Angels by Warren Ellis and Paul Duffield

• Girly by Josh Lesnick

• Jesus and Mo by Mohammed Jones

• Mary Worth by Karen Moy and Joe Giella

• The Oatmeal by Matthew Inman

• Overcompensating by Jeffrey Rowland

• Questionable Content by Jeph Jacques

• Saturday Morning Breakfast Cereal by Zach Weiner

• Savage Chickens by Doug Savage

• Wigu by Jeffrey Rowland

February 2010
3 I was a day laborer removing barnacles from hump back whales. Mermaids teased me.
4 I was a salesman and people were crowding me and noisy. It felt as though I were a plastic ball floating on a people pond.
5 I was a successful car salesman. I was twin girls, and very hot.
6 I was William Holden and I didn't go on the River Kwai mission. It was a lot of awesome Hollywood beach sex instead.  At the family reunion and Shaq was there. It made sense even after I awoke.
7 There was lots of ice and snow blurring every detail.
8 I was living back on 77th Street and my evil brother was in charge of keeping the place clean. He kept hiding dirt under my bed.
11 Each of my internal organs was floating weightless around my head in a halo.
12 N/A (didn't get to that part of sleep)
13 I was in a gaggle of frenetic puppies playing tug of war with empty bread bags.
14 Who could have dreams in cacophony?
15 Robert Deniro was my supervisor and he was doing everthing possible to get that transfer to the Danish offices approved.
16 I was hunting a rat getting fat on my endless supply of Nutter Butter cookies.
17 That fucking fat rat chased me all god damn night.
18 I had what Carl Jung called "creative fantasy".
19 I was a steel rod.
21 Completed a vast array of expense report documentation to cover the cost of my mother-in-law's trip to Africa.
22 A bunch of family and friends were about but they were all miniaturized.
23 Enjoyed an apéritif in a turtleneck with an old friend while inspecting his glass "ice-cube" wall.
25 I couldn't find my car in a dark parking light after shopping somewhere for something. (nightmare?)
26 I bought a new pair of cross country skis, and I skied across the country. Melancholy music was playing in my ear buds.
27 High speed crawling through hastily dug man-sized tunnels in the Earth with industrial bass lines playing in my head.

I realize the ironic hypocrisy of requiring an inanimate miniature beluga whale in my bedroom at all times.
8:51 PM Feb 27th

My knees and back are flush with a blood-napalm mixture. My emotional state is somewhat less positive.
10:48 PM Feb 26th

I hope my children don't hate me before they realize how much happier they are.
2:11 PM Feb 26th

I am only saying this once: my nickname is not "Mojo"; it is "The T-Bone."
10:27 AM Feb 26th

I like patio furniture when I drink.
12:00 AM Feb 26th

Ready to shave my body bald and get serious.
11:30 PM Feb 25th

I'm discovering that much of oldness is reversible at reasonable prices.
10:56 AM Feb 25th

Silence is all I have to keep insanity at bay. With few exceptions, the sounds I do emit are a facade.
4:44 AM Feb 25th

Coffee mugs are the sentimental tapestry of my life.
9:14 PM Feb 24th

You have to break some eggs to make a bunch of broken eggs.
2:33 PM Feb 24th

These sexy pants make me pee frequently.
11:46 AM Feb 24th

I'm wearing sexy pants. That is all.
11:19 AM Feb 24th

Euphoria gives you energy to fuck, but it doesn't make you one bit less sick.
3:30 PM Feb 21st

Sooner or later is the only variable.
5:06 PM Feb 17th

That's all there is for me and the darkness battle.
1:03 PM Feb 17th

When moving it's a good thing you don't have to buy boxes to pack up all your internet porn.
11:30 AM Feb 17th

I wish more than anything that everything I did was a silly thing. That is my perpetually failing nature.
11:21 AM Feb 17th

I am a perpetual collision course.
9:58 PM Feb 16th

Audible sins are the worst.
1:17 PM Feb 15th

Little know fact: the "T" in "HDTV" stands for Tranny.
11:10 AM Feb 15th

I want form fitting clothes that make my head look smaller.In geneticists' circles my head size is actually pub talk lore.
8:45 AM Feb 13th

We all know what high brow and low brow are. Middle brow is, however, unrelated. It's how women should wax.
10:33 PM Feb 11th

I'm a empathetic and generous fool and I have to fight it.
5:06 PM Feb 10th

My son asked for a Twitter account. Shit.
11:46 AM Feb 8th

Superman II in HD is like like shaving a billy goat. Nobody wins but you can't stop staring.
11:03 AM Feb 7th

Why would a kid run away on the weekend? It's nothing but cartoons and snacks.
7:09 PM Feb 5th

If geography knowledge was asexual prowess, I'd be the yeast of geography.
11:03 AM Feb 5th

It's a tradition on Twitter for me to talk about my penis and get positive feedback.
11:27 PM Feb 3rd

That Scotch must be fucking killer diller.
4:26 PM Feb 3rd

Yet again life imitates metaphors.
3:24 PM Feb 3rd

That looks bad for me or real bad for me. Still, I'm optimistic.
3:23 PM Feb 3rd

I've worn clean underwear (shirts and bottoms) for what seems like days in a row.
3:17 PM Feb 3rd

She didn't have a pony. She had a wagon. And she took down to the market to bring home beef.
3:05 PM Feb 3rd

Don't bring a dart gun to an intestine-removal fight.
12:53 PM Feb 3rd

My feelings are my Maginot Line of defense.
8:47 AM Feb 3rd

My victuals are vacating me.
8:38 AM Feb 2nd

brought back bone / same as is every / black blend brew
8:36 AM Feb 2nd

Time to feed the monster of my internet shame.

Q. If you were a hot dog, and you were starving, would you eat yourself?
A. If I were a juicy piece of meat, I'd never be a skinny bland hot dog.  I'd be a sausage. I'd be a thick salty sausage, and I'd swallow myself whole.

Q. What social media habit irritates you most?
A. The presumption by a staggering many that everyone is even potentially interesting.

Q. When the apocalypse comes, what for[m] will it take?
A. Long John Silver's fish will actually taste like fish.