time warner

Sure, if the cable guy accidentally hooks you up with a couple of extra channels, you might conveniently forget to call the company and complain about the error. But what do you do when you order a new PVR and its hard drive is partially full when it arrives -- with porn.

One Consumerist reader had just that problem. His new Time Warner box arrived, but before he could sit down and help set it up, he had to go out and run some errands, leaving his wife and 3 and 8 year old nieces to program in shows to record.

As his wife hits the list button, up pops a screen showing the previous owner's recordings, including Hole Diggers - Part 2, which begins playing while his wife tries to figure out how to make the menu disappear.

Yes, this guy should obviously call Time Warner and complain. But the moral of this story is that you should probably check out any new hardware you get before using it, especially if it looks like it may be used. You never know what you're going to find.

I've spent a lot of time as a journalist covering City Council sessions in Philadelphia, but I've never sat in on a hearing quite as geeky as this. A Lincoln, Nebraska City Councilman will hold hearings in March on Time Warner's PVRs which as pretty much anyone in the country who uses them can tell you, kinda stink.

Councilman Jonathon Cook -- a Time Warner customer -- says subscribers "are not getting what they paid for," with Time Warner PVRs. Apparently the city's franchise agreement with the cable company allows City Council to hold such hearings. It's entirely clear what actions the city could take against Time Warner in response to the hearings, but if there's one thing I learned during my aforementioned years covering legislative sessions, it's that you don't need actual power to hold a public hearing, you just need the urge to grandstand on a topic.

Lincoln Time Warner customers have complained that a new program guide rolled out by the cable company is both ugly and buggy, and that the cable boxes are slow to react to button presses on a remote control, all of which sound par for the course for generic cable company PVRs.

The Lincoln Journal Star, which reports the story also has a page filled with customer complaints/suggestions for Time Warner.

[via digg]

Tonight, the NFL Network broadcasts its first game, pitting the Denver Broncos against the Kansas City Chiefs. It promises to be a hard battle, with two longtime and bitter rivals fighting to stay in the playoff picture. This will also mark Bryant Gumbel's return to sports play-by-play, something he hasn't done in many, many years (he was NBC's NFL studio host before he got the Today job; this may be his first play-by-play work since the seventies), and it will be fun to hear the always-opinionated Cris Collinsworth back in the booth. Should be a good game.

Here's the problem: I won't be able to watch it. And neither will the majority of fans.