Time-Warner is really annoying

It drives me crazy how they'll argue with me about the problem I see RIGHT IN FRONT OF ME. There's some kind of problem with my cable--starting a week ago, I lost my cable picture and for about 3 days, my broadband connection. The latter eventually came back but I still have no picture, and the remote doesn't work on the cable box either. When I turn to channel 3 (the access channel for the cable signal), I see a very faint picture through a lot of static but I can't change the channel either with the remote or pressing the cable box channel function directly.

I've made a couple of calls now to Time-Warner and both CSRs would interrupt me and tell me the problem must be with my TV--I'd have to grimly talk through them and say "No, I'm watching broadcast TV and geting a picture. No, I can't change the channel. Yes, I'm watching a broadcast channel right now." Just listen to me and don't dismiss me! Damn, your stupid service costs enough as it is, the least you can do is provide polite customer service.

Make me a willow cabin at thy gate...

We had our first readthrough for Twelfth Night last night, down at HB Studios in the Village. I'm very excited we'll be rehearsing (some) down there--I don't get into the Village that often and it's one of my favorite neighborhoods in the city! I have a lot to do so it was nice just to relax and think about Viola. Readthroughs can be deadly dull--sometimes people read better than others, you get impatient when you don't have a line for a long time--but it's good to hear the play all the way through. It occurred to me, during one of Olivia's scenes, why Olivia responds to Viola--because Viola has a core of sadness. There's a layer of grief in everything she does in this play, and underneath all the silliness, Olivia senses that.

Playing Hardball

Also, apparently during a "Hardball" segment Elizabeth Edwards called in to ask Anne Coulter to stop cheapening the political dialogue with personal attacks. I think we all know where I stand on THIS issue (and MAN, was it delicious seeing Anne discomfited by the applause for Edwards, by people who literally surrounded her) but my first point is this:

The first person who refers to this as a catfight will be beaten up.

At first Coulter tried to diminish what she'd said about John Edwards ("I made one remark three months ago...") but then EE reminded her about an incident where Coulter apparently said something about an Edwards bumper sticker saying "ask me about my dead son." (So--it wasn't just one remark three months ago.) And--uh, wow. Did she really say that? That's pretty inhuman, even for her. That's...inhuman. I can't believe someone would mock someone for that. She can hide behind "just a joke!" all she likes but that...that's not even remotely funny. That's just pure bile, for no other purpose than to laugh at someone else's pain.

Coulter responded lamely "This is now three years ago." Way to miss the point there. And she can minimize her remarks to the Edwardses all she likes, but the point EE was making was that it cheapens the whole process. The call wasn't about 2 remarks, it was about an atmosphere of poison, everything she says, to all the candidates, to anyone who disagrees with her, to any person or group of people who are different from her. Edwards said:

E: You had a column several years ago which made fun of the moment of Charlie Dean’s death and suggested that my husband had a bumper sticker on the back of his car saying, “Ask me about my dead son.” This is not legitimate political dialogue.

C: This is now three years ago.

E: It debases political dialogue. It drives people away from the process. We can’t have a debate about the issues.

C: Yeah, why isn’t John Edwards making this call?

M: Well, do you want to respond? We’ll end the conversation.

E: I haven’t talked to John about this call. I’m making the call as a mother. I’m the mother of that boy who died. My children participate — these young people behind you are the age of my children. You’re asking them to participate in a dialogue that is based on hatefulness and ugliness instead of on the issues, and I don’t think that’s serving them or this country very well.

It was at this point a bunch of people in the crowd broke into applause.