I was very excited to get the TiVo Series 3 DVR. This is my first TiVo ever. And about time! Or it would be, if it weren't for the absolutely horrid and appallingly incompetent "customer support" of Comcast.

We received the TiVo unit last week. Comcast was supposed to come Sunday morning, "between 8 and 10." They did not show. The tech claimed that nobody was home. I was sitting here all that time.

So they rescheduled for Monday afternoon. The tech came ... but with only one card, even though any full activation of TiVo requires two cards so you can watch and record different programs simultaneously. Not only that, he couldn't get even the one card to work. He left, saying he would return the next day with two cards and, hopefully, a way to get the central office to activate them properly.

And so today I left work over 3 hours early to sit here and wait for Comcast to come and do what they were supposed to do Sunday.

Nobody showed up. I called and was told he was coming. Nobody showed up. Calling again, they said that he reported the job as done. He never showed up!!

So Comcast is now supposedly looking into it and will call me back. But so far they are 10 min late in calling back, and with this track record, I don't expect any call.

So my question is this: Is Comcast deliberately slow-tracking all TiVo activations in order to promote their own competing DVR?

Oh, that reminds me: Comcast has been charging for having a DVR, even though it's just an ordinary HDTV unit.