Time Warner Rant, More Overused Word Discussion

Yep, another scorcher today. I think a trip to the beach is in order.

(I have to fill myself up with coffee before I leave, though. I was up until 4am this morning, playing random songs on my Winamp playlist, and singing to them. I started this "game" at about 11pm, and didn't realize that five hours had passed until I looked up at my living room clock.

Oh, how time flies when you're having fun!)

- Citibank still sucks. I am still without my brand new card that I was promised three weeks ago. Usually, Citibank sends me a new card BEFORE I get the welcome kit, so I wonder what the delay is.

I need a new TV, dammit.

(This card, as I stated before, includes Extended Warranty coverage and a Price Protection Guarantee. Knowing the high fail rates of lower-tier TVs AND how precipitously they drop in price, both benefits would be nice to have on the purchase of a brand new TV.

Besides, this Sceptre TV is really pissing me off. I know, I know, why don't I just go return it NOW? If I did that, what would I do in the meantime sans TV?)

- This Time Warner packet shaping is getting ridiculous.

(Yes, I know I mentioned that it had not yet affected me. Clearly, it has now.)

I was downloading podcasts of The Jim Rome Show last night--a perfectly legitimate use of my bandwidth, no? With a 5Mbps download rate, it would not be unreasonable for me to expect a download speed somewhere around 300-400kB/s. Yet, I was lucky to reach 70kB/s, and this was at 11:00pm (not exactly peak hours)!

I'm here in Monterey Park right now, using AT&T DSL, and even on a 1.5/384 connection, I'm getting nearly 250kB/s down! In fact, I'll let the Speedtest.net results speak for themselves:


(Tangent: I believe this is the first picture I've ever included in a blog entry! Hooray for me!)

I can only dream of seeing these speeds on Time Warner during "peak" hours, if by peak hours, I mean from 12:01AM to 11:59PM, of course.

Thank you, Time Warner, for making me a more satisfied customer by packet shaping the hell out of my internet connection. You're still #1 on the list, for sure!

- So the "most overused word in English" discussion prompted more of a debate than I originally anticipated. A few bonus thoughts on the topic:

One thing that I really tried to emphasize is that I wanted the most unnecessarily overused word in the English language, which is why I ruled out articles, pronouns, and most verbs. I was looking for a word that is too often inserted into written and spoken English, often unnecessarily. That's why the word "that" came to mind. For example, I could have rewritten a previously written statement like this:

I was looking for a word too often inserted into written and spoken English...

Doesn't that retain the original meaning of the sentence, even without the words "that is?"

Hank's got a good point with the word "and," though. I'd agree that "and" is pretty overused (especially in lists, e.g. "I like cake, and pie, and cheesecake, and..."), but probably not to the extent that "that" is horribly overused.

Maybe more on this later. For now, keep the suggestions coming!

Happy blogging!