Cable guys are tops in my book.

My first experience with a cable installer was a few years ago at an apartment that I had just moved into back in Florida. The main objective of his visit was to hook up the cable in the living room, which went off without a hitch. I needed to get some high speed internet action set up in my bedroom, but I thought that it would have to be done during a whole different appointment and such. Not so. The dude had a modem in his truck that was ready to go, even though the gig was just to set up the cable TV, nothing else. He must have been a boy scout as a young man, you know, how those fucking kids are always talking about "being prepared" and all that jazz.

The next time that I had to deal with a cable installation technician was after I had moved into another pad in Florida at which I was keeping my computer right on the other side of a doorway from the cable jack. There was no previous cable television involved at this residence, and nobody with whom I lived cared to have it. All that was necessary was to hook on up with the ol' internet, as I can't really stand to go a day or two without knowing what the hell is going on in the sordid life of one Ms. Tila Tequila, and using the internet is key in that process. Within about ten seconds, he had the modem hooked up, and the cord neatly placed in brackets above and on the sides of the doorway. Top notch job.

When I moved to Columbus a year ago, the guy setting up the cable in my room was being ridiculously thorough.

He was like, "Now, do you want to record shows from the cable onto your VCR?"

He asked about ten questions that were very similar to that one, and after each one, he would add, "Now, there's a reason why I'm asking you this."

He would then go on to explain said reasons, pretty much a bunch of stuff I had already known, but I didn't want to be rude and interrupt him, and besides, he was kinda' crackin' me up. At any rate, he programmed the remote control in about five seconds, and it was the first time that the clicker would turn both my TV and cable box on or off at the same time with the press of only one button. I have to admit that I was a bit tickled by it.

I have recently moved into a new place. It had been decided that it would be a cost-effective move to switch to a different cable service. The cable dude was at my place for about three hours, and during the whole process, he did stick around to make sure that everything worked and such, but he wasn't quite as helpful as the last few guys. The first thing that popped onto the internet was news about Owen Wilson's suicide attempt, and he walked into my room as I was reading it, looks over my shoulder and says, "Yeah that's crazy about Owen, isn't it?"

I like how he referred to Owen Wilson as "Owen". Like the cable guy is such good buddies with Owen Wilson that they're on a first name basis with each other and shit.

At any rate, even though he was at my place for the better part of a day, he failed to program my remote. I could go ahead and do it myself easily enough, but I find it amusing that every time I adjust the volume, it switches straight to channel six. I've gotten used to it by now.

All things considered, I'm a bit disappointed that none of these dudes ever tried to befriend me and insisted that we play Porno Password with my family.

That would've been awesome.