Sun Downer

After looking between its sofa cushions, under its fridge and in the pockets of those jeans it hasn’t worn since ’98, Time-Warner has managed to scrounge together enough spare change to purchase every cable company known to man. Well, the ones that service the L.A. area at any rate, leaving them just a Baltic Avenue and a B&O Railroad away from a statewide monopoly. While my own personal hypothesis is that the buyout went through because someone liked the rather aristocratic ring of Time-Warner-Comcast-Adelphia, which admittedly packs enough blue blood to make even the most sturdy young debutante swoon – the end result is that all the denizens of this fair city became members of the same corporate family, literally overnight.

While this is all well and good in principle – when virtually all economic theory is disregarded, at any rate – let’s just take a moment to consider the system shock that this must have represented for Time Warner. Even taking into consideration the fact that they’re using the same lines to take signals into subscribers’ homes as their corporate predecessors, what are the odds that it would be a seamless transition? That, with the flick of a switch, we would all find ourselves citizens of the same brave new world?

Pretty damn slim.

Listen up, Time-Warner-Comcast-Adelphia-Reichsburg-Von Thistleburry IV. I was a little sad when you got rid of my Video On Demand. And I can’t say I’m crazy about the home shopping channels you’re foisting on me. But when you try and blame channel outages on solar flares, that’s where I draw the line.

The Sun? Seriously? I mean, I know what you’re thinking – a trillion-ton ball of incandescent gas is a pretty convenient scapegoat. After all, where is it half the time? Pretty suspicious that nobody knows where the Sun spends its nights, am I right? And it’s probably got a fiery temper, what with it being…you know…made of fire and all. That, combined with the Sun’s inability to refute any charges against it, almost has me wondering why the molten furnace wouldn’t want to mess with my channels.

Well…maybe because any solar flares occurring during network primetime would be accompanied by the trumpets of angels, those four horse guys from that Blue Oyster Cult album cover and one very pissed off God. Nighttime, cable overlords, is a bad time to blame the Sun for anything. And if you feel like you really have to blame a natural phenomenon for your inability to provide customers with service, at least be more creative about it. Heck – at least “Lunar flares” would have gotten a laugh out of me.

So please. If you want to have everyone in the county as a customer, make damn well sure you can serve everyone in the county. And until then, take your excuses and shove ‘em where the Sun don’t shine.