Waiting for Gouda

I don’t know about where you live, but here in Chicago the battle for our home entertainment dollar is raging. The biggest combatants are some satellite TV company and some digital cable company. Comcast, the cable company, has a latest round of commercials in which some supposedly enlightened dope who has signed away control of half their life by subscribing to Comcast television, telephone, and internet service, attempts to explain to some poor schmuck who has not thus far succumbed.

One in particular, it seems to me, might be sending the wrong message. Two ordinary Joes, who may or may not actually be called Joe, are washing windows on a skyscraper hundreds of feet off the ground. One guy, seemingly out of nowhere turns and says, (I’m paraphrasing here) “I just got new high-speed internet from Comcast.”

And the other guy says, “What’s that like?”

And here is where it gets a little weird. The first guy, the guy whom I believe we’re supposed to respect in some way because he… you know… can get online now, is apparently rather mentally unstable. As he shall soon prove, he was probably not the best spokesperson for a major media company. Yet, he is also apparently in charge of the lever that makes the window washing rig go up and down. So, in order to demonstrate what it’s like to have Comcast internet access, he sends the scaffolding plummeting to the sidewalk below at rather improbable speeds.

The other Joe, as I’m sure you or I would also do, begins to scream at the top of his lungs, certain that his psychopathic co-worker is attempting to kill him. His life flashes before his eyes, probably. I wouldn’t be surprised if he soiled himself at least a little bit.

At the last possible moment, crazy Joe slams on the brakes, or whatever the equivalent of brakes would be in the window-washing world, and they are prevented from becoming a sloppy tangle of blood, bone, and metal in the street.

“Like that,” he says.

So.

Comcast internet service is terrifying, causes you to piss yourself, and there’s an excellent chance it will kill you.

Well, sign me up.