Watching TV the Roku Way

All of us have been told in one form or another “get with the program”. It might have happened at work or in some aspect of our personal lives, but all of us have been advised at some point to conform and stop being difficult.

Sometimes, it even comes from within.

I have described my dislike of twenty-first century cable TV many times. The ever-spiralling cost of watching blocks of decades-old programming while being repeatedly subjected to the water torture of five-minute commercial breaks had burrowed beneath my skin and was beginning to itch. Badly.

But I kept it. As I saw it, streaming was a chain with many more links and hence, more-prone to breakdown, malfunction and so on. And in the end, was it really any cheaper?

An October price-hike from my cable provider pushed me over the edge. Spotty reliability, shrinking Internet bandwidth and the fact that it had become my largest non-housing-related monthly expense drove me to dump them.

(My most-damning indictment of AT&T is that their's was the only business phone number I knew by heart. I'll leave it to your supple imaginations to puzzle-out why.)

So. There I stood, perched on the precipice of twenty-first century television technology! I was going to stream! Watch Netflix! Have access to all of the fascinating and groundbreaking programming I'd been hearing about, appearing nightly on my TV!

Hoo Boy!

If I have a failing, it's that I allow myself to be carried away by stuff. Despite my robust cynicism, I—at times—believe the hype. And my first foray into this brave new world was no exception.

On the advice of a relative far-more conversant in TV tech than I, I ventured online and bought a Roku device. All was well until it arrived. The initial set-up was simple, as promised. The problem started when I attempted to connect it with my WiFi.

Even despite forty minutes on the phone with a certified Roku tech and another foray under the viral hood of my Internet to confirm the password, nothing. The Roku device steadfastly refused to play nice.

The tech concluded it had to be defective and urged me to initiate an exchange.

In 2021 this is not generally a difficult thing to do. Unless one is working with Roku. Since they claim their customer service telephone number had been deactivated because of COVID, I was left to navigate their cumbersome e-mail system.

Even with the confirmation of one of their own, the exchange took three business days to approve. If that weren't enough, Roku was asking me to foot the bill for the return.

I was not made glad.

I informed them I no longer wanted to exchange the device but return it outright. Shockingly, this was okayed in just twenty-four hours.

I dropped it off at the local post office in a USPS Priority mailer. On the same day the post office confirmed its delivery in San Jose, California, I received another Roku device in the mail.

First, let me acknowledge that consumer expectations are much higher in 2021 than they were in, say, 1991. Computerization has shortened processing and delivery timelines as well as consumer's patience.

As a (mostly) sympathetic consumer, I will also acknowledge that not all customers are responsible. We twenty-first Americans have learned well from the business and political classes and are quite adept at gaming the system—even if it's at a level far below that of the aforementioned populations.

While the wonders of online shopping are touted far and wide, there's a dark side: the rate of return for items purchased online is four times what it is for items purchase in-store, proving conclusively that nothing beats having a potential purchase in hand.

And those returns impact profitability. Someone, somewhere is paying for it. (My guess is that company's mid-to-lower-level employees. No surprise there.)

I am not a capricious shopper. I buy only after examining and re-examining every facet of the item I'm considering—especially clothing. I don't wantonly order three different sizes in four different colors thinking I'll just return whatever doesn't fit or that I don't like.

But I am in a minority. So if companies were to raise the threshold on returns I would—to a point—understand.

But this was different. I had a defective unit confirmed by one of the manufacturer's own technicians. I wasn't returning the device because it didn't match the drapes. Why was I paying to return it?

With the receipt of a unit I hadn't wanted or requested, I was now quite angry. I fired-off a heated e-mail to Roku expressing my displeasure. I graciously offered them two choices: either pay the postage for the second device's return or let me have it free of charge.

That was over a week ago. Their sole communication in that time had been an e-mail telling me they hadn't received the original unit.

Yep.

Their re-enactment of Dumb and Dumber was nerve-wracking. The glacial pace of their processing a no-brainer of a return jaw-dropping. I'll put this as clinically as I can, but it was clear to me I was having sexual intercourse with a vagina made of sandpaper.

I mean, this was not going well. I called my credit card company. And as I was on the phone detailing this transaction to them an e-mail appeared from Roku.

They had confirmed the device's return and were now initiating the refund process.

Problem solved, right?

Two days later (which happened to be the three-week anniversary of this calamity), I received another e-mail from Roku. This one asked when I was going to respond and advised me that if I failed to do so within three days the file would be closed and marked 'resolved'.

If you ask how bad something can get you will inevitably find out.

Since when does a two-sentence e-mail that consists of a greeting and an announcement that they have begun their refund process need to be responded to? What's more, the company that had been dragging its feet for three-weeks was giving me deadlines? Seriously?

I complied and re-stated the obvious and added that, yes, I was still interested in a refund and that nothing had changed. (Sometimes my sense of humor can be remarkably subtle.) That was over a week ago.

On a call to my credit card company, I was informed that in our business-friendly country, businesses have up to ten days to issue a refund. Why? It's probable that corporate lawyers are oilier and sneakier and better manipulators than government lawyers.

With today being day number-ten, I sprang from my bed and opened my credit card account to scan for the long-promised refund.

Nothing.

I dialed the phone. “Hello, credit card company? I'd like to dispute a charge.”

Republican Resistance, Examined.

I was a bit hasty in publishing this last night. It felt rushed and incomplete. And this morning that was obviously the case. Re-titled and re-written, this is hopefully both a better read and a more-convincing argument. 

With Republican resistance to the COVID relief package mounting, Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) articulated their concerns this way: “In the administration's plan, you could have a family with three kids making over three-hundred thousand dollars a year getting a check.”

Wait. That's a problem for you? Seriously? That's a problem for the party that voted 278 - 12 across the House and Senate to pass the 2017 Tax Cuts & Jobs Act?

That's a problem for the party that thought it would be a good idea to effectively fill one of those 200-ton Hitachi open pit dump trucks with cash and deliver it to the doors of America's corporate giants and the one-percent?

Really?

Sorry, Rob. I have a memory and it works.

I'm fairly certain Portman's claim is extracted from the most-extreme scenario imaginable, and has the same chance of occurring that Citizen's United does of helping, well, citizens.   

President Biden, I can't imagine you ever seeing this, but I am going to make a suggestion, anyway. You must disguise your relief package as wealthcare (patent pending). Call it the Right to Riches or something like that. You will then be assured of knee-jerk Republican compliance and can then bask in the light of long-sought bipartisanship.

And just think of the tangible excitement on the other side of the aisle. Republicans, relieved to have at last escaped the long, dark shadow of Trumpism, will be eager to document their delight. For starters, it's easy to imagine the over-stimulated Josh Hawley (R-MO) tweeting his not-quite-appropriate evidence and posting it on Instagram. 

The Show Me State, indeed!

(Thanks for the sexting, Josh. Photographs are always a powerful tool in court.)

Yes, Mr. President, there will be push back the moment the one-percent and its servants realize they're not getting the biggest slice of the pie and will call it another example of Democratic-sponsored socialism (which is defined by Republicans as any benefit they don't receive most of). 

What's important is that the Republican instinct to empower the already-powerful and enrich the already-wealthy is abused and exploited. That the rest of us—the 99%--get the sustenance to live another day. 

Those of us who have lost our homes, our jobs, our businesses and, not inconceivably, our loved ones desperately need help.

 

Devilment

I feared the Cubs had made a deal with the devil when the Ricketts family assumed control back in 2009. Eminently wealthy and—with the exception of daughter Laura—vociferous supporters of all things Republican, I did my best to ignore that and focus on the promise of the latest regime change.

And the Ricketts (okay, Tom) mostly did a pretty good job. After some initial floundering on the baseball side, he landed Theo Epstein in 2011. If nothing else, Ricketts knew the importance of having a highly-talented captain to guide the ship.

It is said that lightning never strikes twice, and yet that is exactly what happened under Epstein's tutelage.

After putting an end to the Boston Red Sox' championship drought, he started in on the Cubs'. Building from the ground up, he installed knowledgeable scouts with which to stock the farm system. That talent could be used to either build a club at the major league level or as trade bait towards bringing older, more-seasoned ballplayers to Chicago.

The farm system yielded a respectable bit of fruit, even if the harvest was a little light on pitching. And Epstein gradually acquired a nice mix of veterans to augment the youngsters. By 2015, the Cubs were contenders.

And we all know what happened in 2016, don't we?

Alas, the wheels began to fall off not long afterwards. Maybe it's Chicago's blind idolatry of its baseball and football champions, but the Cubs regressed almost immediately. While not as dominant as the 1985 Bears, they resembled them in their post-championship self-satisfaction.

Some blamed Joe Maddon's overly-permissive managerial style. Others blamed the players. But regardless of why, the Cubs receded almost as quickly as they had emerged. True, they rallied in the second half of '17 and made it to the NCLS. But in three succeeding seasons, they failed to even win a wild card game.

Without so much as lip service paid to the idea of signing some combination of Anthony Rizzo, Kris Bryant and Javier Baez to long-term contracts, Ricketts now appears on the verge of painting himself into the same corner notorious A's owner Charles O. Finley did in 1976, and risks losing multiple frontline athletes with no compensation whatsoever.

With Cy Young candidate Yu Darvish traded away for four very minor prospects and Jon Lester, Tyler Chatwood, Jose Quintana and Kyle Schwarber lost to free-agency, it's little wonder Epstein saw the writing on the wall and left with a year remaining on his contract.

Even before the onset of COVID, Ricketts repeatedly stated “There is no more money.” With a full-bore salary dump in progress one could be excused for asking “There is now, right?”

One also wonders what Ricketts has planned for Willson Contreras, Jason Heyward and Kyle Hendricks. And how this salary dump, with so very, very little received in return, positions the Cubs as ongoing contenders?

It's tough not to see baseball's version of Jerry Jones taking shape, who like Ricketts rebuilt a once-dominant franchise, made a big splash with some Super Bowl victories and then lapsed into mediocrity while turning the Dallas Cowboys into his personal ATM.

While Jones has seeming forgotten everything he once knew about running a winning NFL franchise, the Cowboys spout money like a severed artery does blood. With Rickett's multiple improvements to Wrigley Field and his developments in the surrounding neighborhood, imagining his business plan suddenly doesn't take so much, well, imagining.

Cub fans deserve better than another interminable slide into nothingness with spinning turnstiles and the Rickett's rosy bottom line priority number-one.

Yep. Devilment for sure.

Exhaling

Whew. It's over. Officially, incontrovertibly over.

For the first time in four years there is an emotionally-stable grown-up in the White House.

One who has a clue.

One put there by a plain and simple majority of Americans. Americans wearied and disgusted by the Trump brand of “leadership.”

Like his Democratic predecessor, President Biden has a massive job ahead of him. Not only must he lead a nation besieged by a runaway pandemic and its seemingly bottomless financial fall-out, but must undo the damage wrought by the (cough) “law and order” president.

It's a two-pronged job that will undoubtedly encounter strident Republican opposition.

Yes, moving forward while simultaneously filling-in craters behind you is no easy thing.

Mr. President and Ms. Vice President, I wish you nothing but the best. We are in desperate need of leaders—as opposed to sneering, podium-pounding “authority”.

I pray you are able to surmount the obstacles in front of you and can return us to a normal that, while not perfect—is infinitely better than what so many of us face today.

God bless you.

The Shifting Sands of Republicanism

After four years of angry and contrarian Republican rule that saw them wield power like a policeman does their truncheon, Republicans are suddenly concerned with healing.

Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Jim Jordan (R-OH) are reluctant to consider impeachment because it might—in their words—add to our collective sense of divisiveness and interfere with our nation's unity. Awww.

What a shame that wasn't on the agenda in 2017. Or 2018. Or 2019. Or most spectacularly, in 2020.

Why weren't you concerned about healing two months ago instead of fueling the fire of a deranged mob's belief that the election had been stolen? Why weren't you concerned a month ago? Why did it take the loss of the White House, the Senate and a violent mob's break-in of the Capitol to work 'healing' into your vocabulary?

Listen. I'm all for healing. Unity. I pray for them. The reduction in national stress would be profound.

But in diverting attention away from an unhinged psychopath and allowing him to continue in office—yes, even for eight days—you're doing more harm than healing. The law-abiding portions of this country demand consequences for Donald Trump.

You belong to the self-declared party of law and order. Don't you?

I ask you, Senators: what's more pressing than disconnecting a terrorist from his ability to terrorize? From acting to ensure the democracy of the United States survives him and the legion of goons at his beck and call?

It's probably because I'm a libtard and/or radicalized socialist, but I can't think of anything. When the house is on fire gentlemen, job number-one is to put out the fire.

Too many Republicans continue to fear Trump. They fear backlash should they grow a spine and say “Enough!”

Snowflake I may be, but I know a self-centered pig interested only in nourishing his bottomless craving for adulation and attention when I see one. This is not about conservatism. It's not about immigration. It's not about abortion. It's not about god. Or guns. Or country.

It's about Donald J. Trump. It's about the United States of Don. Make no mistake. It's not about you or what you believe. It's about Don. 

First, last and always.

To his followers, I'm sorry you're unhappy and angry and desperate to the point where Donald Trump is an answer. I respectfully inquire: to what?

Is the ability to freely call a Black person a nigger or to harass gays or to abuse women really that important to you? Is it really worth of all of....this?

Is it?

Again, I'm sorry for your pain. I'm sorry you feel ignored. But um, didn't your guy win last time? Didn't you have four years of government just the way you like it? Tell me: after having it your way for four years, are you any happier? Do you feel more satisfied? Fulfilled?

Or are you just more angry?

I invite your commentary.

And Senators? Some things are more-important than party. I hope you're big-enough to acknowledge it. But I'm not holding my breath.

A Peek at the NFL Post-Season

This is a satisfying end to the NFL season. Best of all, there isn't a team from Los Angeles in serious contention for a title. I mean, watching the Lakers and the Dodgers clinch within sixteen days of each other was a bit much.

Yeah, the Rams are in the playoffs. But despite a fine defense, no one expects them to do much—if any—damage.

Far more heartening are the returns of the Cleveland Browns and the Buffalo Bills to the post-season.

As a Cub fan, I can relate mightily with Clevelanders and their sports-based suffering. And both editions of the Browns have contributed more than their fair share to that suffering.

Who can forget the 1987 and 1988 AFC Championship games? Or the heroic 1981 effort in the Divisional round against the then-Oakland Raiders, played in four-degree temperatures with wind chills of twenty-below?

Or the ignomy of Red Right 88?

Do I dare remind all concerned the Browns lost these three games by a total of ten points? Perhaps not.

The Browns declined not long after those consecutive championship games and a very messy relocation to Baltimore followed after the 1995 season.

The expansion Browns have suffered (there's that word again) a difficult childhood. With just two random winning seasons in their first twenty-one, weary Clevelanders have again had their faith tested.

And just as the forlorn franchise has finally bundled a functional front office, strong coaching and the on-field talent to win, they get smacked by COVID-19. It's not hard to imagine the city's sports fans beseeching an uncaring God, arms extended and palms turned up in supplication, with “What did we ever do?”

It takes a heartless soul, indeed, to root against them.

Which brings me to the Buffalo Bills.

I never had any feelings for them one way or another until they made it to four consecutive Super Bowls in the early-nineties—and lost all four.

I was old-enough to appreciate the special kind of grit it took to return to the stage where they'd repeatedly lost. And when I learned via an ESPN documentary the city had turned out and cheered kicker Scott Norwood (he of the 'wide right' infamy), I recognized Buffalo and its fans as people with very big hearts.

Like their soulmates in Cleveland, Bills fans have suffered ever since. Rebuilds have come and gone with the only common denominator being they failed to bear fruit. (The Bills haven't won a playoff game in a quarter-century.)

But a winning combination of front office executives, coaches and players has finally been assembled, and the Bills are surging and represent a serious threat to virtually every other team in the AFC.

In fact, given the just-good-enough play of the defending-champion Kansas City Chiefs over the second half of the season, I would only be mildly surprised to see them defeated by Buffalo at some point.

The good news for fans of my hometown Chicago Bears is that tomorrow afternoon's game versus the New Orleans Saints will be the final game of the season.

This awkward assemblage of talent sputtered and lurched through another season, routinely failing to realize expectations heightened by their performance in 2018. It should be clear to all concerned by now that season was an aberration, not a trend.

In its wake, warmed-over kudos to GM Ryan Pace and head coach Matt Nagy.

Pace for mostly having done a pretty solid job on draft day. The primary exception being the selection of Mitchell Trubisky with the second-pick in the 2017 draft—after surrendering draft picks to move up a spot and paying a king's ransom to sign a career back-up QB.

In a league dominated by quarterback play, Pace whiffed spectacularly on the biggest pick of his career. Kindly ignore that two young quarterbacks by the name of Patrick Mahomes and Deshaun Watson were also on the board.

Historically, it's a given that the Bears screw-up at quarterback. It's practically congenital. But choosing Trubisky over Mahomes and Watson was a fatal error. One magnified both by a promising defense and the thin talent surrounding him on 'O'.

Nagy was hired from the Chiefs as an offense-oriented whiz-kid. One able to create dynamic squads capable of lighting up the scoreboard in an era where offense clearly dominates.

Granted, he hasn't been given much to work with. But I am struck by the fact the Bears' offense was on life-support until Nagy handed play-calling duties off to offensive coordinator Bill Lazor.

While that brief resurgence was against the 98-pound weaklings of the NFL, it was something.

You have to ask yourself: if Nagy failed at what was reputedly his strength, what about the areas that weren't?

To his credit, he kept the team focused and upbeat. But that only goes so far. And with the Bears obvious strength (defense) seemingly in a premature decline, this is a franchise with many, many questions to answer.

I distinctly remember as the twentieth anniversary of the Bears' 1963 championship was approaching, the intensity of the widespread irritation at how the Bears had failed to mount even a single credible threat in the ensuing years.

With the twentieth anniversary of their 1985 championship now fifteen-years old, you have to wonder what the future holds.

It may only be a matter of time before empty seats at Soldier Field aren't the byproduct of a pandemic.

 

The Trump Tantrum: Day 64

With an unbalanced and deranged man presently heading the United States, you have to ask yourself what's next?

This creature, completely unable to process the events of November 3^rd, is suffering a catastrophic psychological episode and everything—everything—is on the table that might reconcile his battered psyche with what is no doubt an unimaginably twisted sense of retribution.

This man is a terrorist. He needs to be treated as such. Twitter understands this. For starters, he must be censured. Then he must be removed from office.

On a more humane note, he should be checked into a psychiatric facility until he is well. Then it is critical he be made to face the mountain of charges filed against him. Accountability has never been needed more-urgently.

By rights, he should be stripped of his presidential pension and his lifetime of taxpayer-supported security. It is obscene that those who have suffered at his hands financially, materially and health-wise be made to ensure a lifetime of safety for him and his family.

Supporters embraced Donald Trump because he was an outlier. A maverick. I've never fully understood how a billionaire real estate developer from Manhattan qualifies as an outsider, but then I have a brain. 

An outsider as president is a good thing because? 

Finally, isn't it pitiable that the abundant law enforcement agencies in and around Washington DC didn't treat this as a BLM march? Just imagine the scores of heavily-armed militia that would have ringed the Capitol building!

Sigh.

As a nation and a society, we have nowhere to go but up. I pray we make it.