Tony Wilkins busy being born

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Unlike any other post you’ve ever seen here? I’m furious, but let me continue.

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These are explicit titles of adult movies that Time Warner Cable has so far decided that you can not block from your new programming guide.They are available for anyone in your family to see, and they’re just past the HBO On Demand selection.

A forty minute phone conversation with a TWC customer service rep, an engineer, and a supervisor yielded the following information concerning channels 771 to 788:

The “Block Title” feature that was previously available has been disabled on the new guide, even using parental controls. TWC is tracking inquiries and keeping a tally of complaints on this issue. They can not give any information as to when or if the feature will be available again.

A very cordial CSR, who seemed surprised when she found the feature disabled stated, “I even blush when I read those titles”.

Maybe a minor gripe in the overall scheme of things but I have to hope this type of stupidity doesn’t someday cause this to happen to me.

I’ll begin a barrage of complaints on Tuesday and update this post (and probably edit) if there is any positive solution. If you feel the same way I do I hope you’ll let TWC know.

Update: Before lunch today my city council representative had been in touch with the president of TWC’s office in New York concerning this matter. My conversation with them convinced me they were trying to resolve the matter which they stated was a software problem. They could not give me a time line for solution. Too bad the local folks don’t know what’s going on.

Conversation at Ed Cone’s.

Update2: Mission accomplished. Apparently this has been a problem for about three weeks or so. Not positive they’ve worked out all the kinks but…TITLES BLOCKED!

Posted in greensboro, guilford county | 6 Comments »

RECESSION: Sorry, you can’t eat here.

I know the recession is real because I’m in the retail furniture business.

On Wednesday night I decide I’m going to take the family out to eat.

50 minute wait at Outback. 35 minute wait at Olive Garden. Even 20 minute waits at Ruby Tuesday’s and Chilis. We finally ended up eating “good in the neighborhood”.

What’s up with that?

(By the way, thanks to the several <three, maybe?> loyal readers that have expressed their discontent in my recent decision to stop spouting off about local politics)

Posted in food, greensboro | 7 Comments »

Thai Bangkok: Maybe The Best Thai Dish Ever.

The Ocean’s Nest at Thai Bangkok located at 3935 Brian Jordan Place.

Sauteed seafood (and lots of it) combined with onions, broccoli, napa, carrots, mushrooms, bell peppers, zucchini, and green onions in the house spicy sauce.

If you dare get it “Thai Hot” you’ll need the outer layer of cabbage to cool down. Note the very tasty nest that gets saturated with the spicy sauce by the time you get through the piles of seafood.

Posted in food | No Comments »

Seared Scallops and Grit Pudding

It was a tough call between the Panko crusted seared scallops over warm Gorgonzola and grit pudding topped with thyme, cranberry, and red onion marmalade or the Grouper over roasted cauliflower and garlic mash, collard greens topped with cream corn.

The scallop dish (shown) won.

And Thursday is $5 Martini night with live music.

Available at The Bistro At Adams Farm.

Posted in food, greensboro | 2 Comments »

Could E-Mail Data From BOE Level Campaign Playing Field?

For around $30 you can get a disk from the GC BOE showing all registered voters in your district. That disk provides a lot of information but does not include e-mail addresses. The BOE does not collect e-mail addresses.

Campaign mailers are around $0.50 each. Let’s say you wanted to send out mailers to 5000 households in your district. One to introduce yourself and one to discuss issues. You’re in for $5000 so far and that doesn’t include yard signs or other expenses.

If the BOE would collect e-mail addresses as part of your voter registration you could accomplish the same thing for basically the price of the disk.

Some would argue that an e-mail may not be as effective as a mailer or could get lost in a spam folder somewhere and they may be right.

As of now many elections are determined by the candidate that can raise the most money. This seems like a very reachable alternative on a minor scale in leveling the campaign playing field.

Posted in greensboro, guilford county, politics | 7 Comments »

Kudos to David Ruden For Diffusing Tabor/Spencer Conflict

Thanks to David Ruden for his quick thinking and action during “the” altercation in downtown Greensboro recently.

Note the guy, who I call the “conservative bulldog”,  in the pink shirt coming in quickly from the right side of the screen. Ruden stops any further punches from Tabor’s cheek to Spencer’s fist and probably should be credited for diffusing a tense situation.

Posted in greensboro, guilford county, politics | No Comments »

The Case Of The Missing Porta-Potties

How often do you hear porta-potties mentioned at city council meetings? Thanks to Keith Brown for the clip.

You may think it’s an amusing topic…unless you were one of the more than 12,000 people in town last weekend for the 2010 Wrangler/McDonald’s Youth Soccer Classic that had to pee.

An 8 AM Sunday morning game began and as that first cup of coffee began to expire many were left shaking their heads as to where to go. Porta-potties had been there last year but none were to be found. Over a three quarter mile trek would have you or your child miss half of the soccer game that the team paid $325 to play.

A worker stated to me at the gate “like everybody, we’ve had to cut back”. “At the expense of someone p****** in their pants?”, I replied. Another worker stated to me that “…we tried to tell them this would never work”.

A Parks & Rec guy told me that Greensboro Youth Soccer would have been the decision maker. I’ll continue until I get a name and voice my displeasure over the stupidity.

This made the city of Greensboro look very bad along with the sponsors associated with the tournament which were Wrangler and McDonald’s. I’m also informing them of the missing porta-potties.

The aerial photo shows the trek needed for relief and according to the scale it’s about a three quarter mile round trip. Waiting lines and clogged pipes added to the frustration. The bottom of the photo shows hundreds of pottyless visitors looking for a place to pee.

Posted in greensboro, sports | 33 Comments »

Conservative Guilford County GOP United And Strong

Any divisive remnants caused by the recent primary elections have been quickly sewn together and the Guilford County Republican Party showed a strong unity after hearing a motivating speech by NC GOP Communications Director Jordan Shaw Monday night.

Conservative clubs, candidates, elected officials, and executive committee members ran out of chairs and began to line the walls as the Guilford County GOP voted to move it’s headquarters to 3950 West Market Street.

The next meeting is June 14th at 7:00 PM. Anyone interested in actively participating can contact Bill Wright at 674-0872 or e-mail twilkins@guilfordcountygop.com. Our website at www.guilfordcountygop.com should be updated soon.

Posted in guilford county, politics | 7 Comments »

Very Very Pricey Harrison Calls NC House 57 Race?

According to Mark Binker’s blog Very Very Pricey Harrison might have forgotten she has an opponent in November. From Binker’s blog:

“When Gov. Bev Perdue appointed Rep. Lucy Allen to the N.C. Utilities Commission, the lawmaker left the General Assembly and two key environmental posts behind. Greensboro Rep. Pricey Harrison, a Democrat, told me this morning she’ll have a piece of both of them. …“I’m happy I’ll be there because I’ll get to influence the agenda,” Harrison said.”

Does that make you want to campaign harder Jon Hardister?

pric·ey: adj., - Expensive.

The Billion Dollar Tax Increase Club.

Photo of Very Very Pricey supporting the zipper troubled $400 haircut man for POTUS is for illustrative purposes only. It should illustrate to vote for Jon Hardister for NC House 57 in November. ht:bw

Posted in greensboro, north carolina, politics | 1 Comment »

Pulled Pork Cuban Panini

Rhonda’s favorite, the Cuban Panini.

Slow roasted pulled pork, sliced ham, house made pickles, mustard, and swiss cheese, $8.

It’s good and it’s at The Bistro at Adams Farm.

Posted in business, food, greensboro, high point road | 7 Comments »