Help me out here, Comcast
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Okay, clearly I did not get up early enough to deliver the Cardiogirl Tribune on time. There were some extenuating circumstances that are under control now; I hope you’ll forgive me and take the late edition. Thank you for your patience and understanding.
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Comcast is definitely the leader in the internet/cable television industry here in the midwest. Much as I hate to admit it, they have a large share of the market and they provide more perks than the few competitors available here in Michigan.
I’ve expressed my frustration with them in the past, no need to rehash old news. Let’s get on to the new irritation.
Comcast’s News page is our internet home page. So when I fire up Internet Explorer, up comes the news page site. I do get some of my information this way, so I appreciate the effort. However, they changed their news home page. I’m not a fan of change. I think I’ve made that clear in the past as well.
They have always had four to six photos on the news page with accompanying headlines. But what I have always found irritating — and continue to find irritating — is that the pictures are not clearly marked to indicate which story goes with which picture.
Now slow down right here. Before you suggest I simply click on the photo I want information about, I have already done that. It does nothing, except provide the very faint click noise that my mouse produces when I click the button. Hence the term, click. The pictures are static. They don’t go anywhere when you click on them.
And, to make it a moving target, the actual photos and titles slide to the left after about 25 seconds so you have to click on a title if you’re interested rather quickly. If you miss it, you can click on the front and back arrows on the bottom to get the photos and titles back. It’s still annoying.
It’s like doing my kid’s second-grade homework. You know how the paper has a vertical row of pictures on the left and then the corresponding words are on the right, but mixed up! The student then has to draw a line from the picture to the correct word.
That’s how I feel when I see Comcast’s news page. Here’s what yesterday’s site looked like.
I was interested in the picture on the lower left corner. There’s a semi bald guy and he’s smiling wide. He looks happy to me. I wonder why he’s so happy. So then I looked at the titles I could choose from.
Romney, Rudy Wage War of Words. Hmm, that doesn’t look like Mitt Romney or Rudy Guiliani. I guess that’s not the story.
Missing Student May Have Been Porn Star. That story sounds interesting, but the guy in the picture looks kind of old to be classified as a student, unless you consider him a student of Life. And, if that’s the case, then aren’t we all essentially students of Life? Further, I hate to sound so judgmental, but he doesn’t look like he could secure a job as a porn star, in my opinion. I don’t know what the requirements are to become a porn actor — much less a porn star — but I think the adult entertainment industry has some standards.
Minn. Pipeline Burns; Oil Prices Soar I don’t think this one is a match.
Foreclosures Jump 94 Percent in October I’m guessing this one is also not a match.
Study: CT Scans Increase Cancer Risk This guy could be the lead scientist on the study, but it seems unlikely that Comcast would decide to put his picture on the site to correspond to this story.
Alleged Nazi Guard Fights Deportation The process of elimination has brought me to this story as the correct story that goes with the picture.
“Dancing” Champ, Fiancee Split I haven’t seen “Dancing With the Stars” but I have heard of it. This man seems kind of elderly to be the champion of that show. So I’m going to rule this story out.
So if this was my second-grade homework sheet, this is what my finished homework would look like.
By using the process of elimination, I am guessing that the photo of the guy on the bottom left corresponds with the story of an alleged Nazi guard fighting deportation.
He seems pretty jovial, in that photo, to be fighting deportation.
I never did click on the story. I knew I was going to write about this today, that’s why I did the print screen of the photos and the titles. I thought it would be more fun to leave the ending open for speculation. However, I did click on the “Dancing” Champ story and found out the champ in question is a race car driver named Helio something or other and that photo on the bottom right does go with that story. (Oh man, I would love to get a cat and name it Helio, but my kid is allergic to cats.)
It’s all about priorities, folks. I’m not interested in oil prices going up, foreclosures and Nazi guards trying to stay in the US.
I want to know who’s getting married and who’s splitting up.
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Addendum: Guilty Secret brought up a great point. I would like to find out what you set as your home page? Where do you end up when you launch Explorer (or Firefox or whatever it is you use to ride the web wave)?
