Ever since Time Warner gobbled up the cable and internet service here in Los Angeles, I just can’t get over how incredibly crappy they are.

If you’re a Time Warner subscriber, you’ve probably had to deal with incredibly slow internet access. You call them up to get some help (because you’re paying for 100 Mb/s), and they tell you that you probably need to reset your modem because it’s “full of the internet.”

Okay, thats not an exact quote, but it’s close. They told us that our internet was going slow because our modem was clogged with information. This may be an acceptable excuse for someone who doesn’t understand technology, but personally, I found it insulting.

And what’s with the incredibly awful digital cable? I’ve never seen such a bland, eye-aching interface. DirectTV’s is much better. Not great either. But better.

But what irks me the most — and this isn’t the case for everybody — is the damn remote control they gave us. I don’t know about you, but mine is this giant stick with a round, bulbous section 2/3rds of the way up. It is perhaps the most horribly designed remote I’ve ever encountered. There is little to no consistency among the button shapes, colors, or labeling, not to mention that you probably never have to use half of them. And, when you finally do have to use one of them, you can’t freakin’ find it. It’s enormous, misshapen, heavy, and ugly.

I miss the days when I had a choice. 

Sometimes, two mega-conglomerates merging can be useful, but I think TimeWarner is a prize example of how crappy something can become when a company buys out another, simply to provide a watered down, universally-forced service.