My most recent little thing has come courtsey of AP&T.   And not the electric side either.   The poor beleaguered telecom side.    Even with all the current issues and problems they made good on the promise made by one of their installation fellows that we would be getting TNT in High Definition within a few months.  And not a minute too late because it came just in time for the NBA Playoffs, which makes the husband REALLY happy.   I just like it because if I'm forced to watch an inordinate amount of basketball, more than one human really should, at least I can appreciate the shiny bald pate of Charles Barkley in HD glory during the half-time show.

And speaking of the problems of AP&T, the East Bay Express has yet another article about the woes of AP&T's cable side, but at least this time comes from a writer who actually has more than a cursory knowledge about the issue, our past editor of the Alameda Journal, Jeff Mitchell.   Although while interesting, I am a little puzzled to the point of the story, after all, it doesn't really introduce any new information into the fold, other than the fact that Doug deHaan appears to want to get rid of the Public Utilities Commission and make the City Council responsible for it, even though they are already responsible for approving its budget.

What's even more puzzling about the article comes in the comment section, the lone sad comment at the time of this posting which struggles to put the weight of this problem on the shoulders of Marie Gilmore and Marie Gilmore alone.   If the logic is that Marie Gilmore is to take the blame for AP&T's issues then Doug deHaan who was also minding the store at the time should also be culpable, right?   Jeff M. did a good job setting up the possible political fallout from the AP&T mess, but as he stated very aptly, there were tons and tons of articles during the 2006 election about this issue yet Beverly Johnson and Frank Materrese were re-elected and in the case of Beverly Johnson, with a pretty healthy margin over her challengers.  

While I love election season as much as the next wonk out there, considering that folks don't announce that they are running for months and months, it's a little early to start calling for the ousting of particular Councilpeople, unless the person calling for the ousting is looking to make a name for himself to set up a run for Council as well.  

Here's an unsolicited tip though for prospective candidates for City Council: "put your pants on one leg at a time."  

No...wait...wrong tip. 

"Try to find less sycophantic advisers to your nascent campaign to tell you what the reality is out there and figure out what sort of baggage that you might have that makes you possibly unelectable prior to throwing your hat in the ring."   That was two tips wasn't it?   I suppose I'm feeling generous this morning, after all, I now have TNT in HD and I'm feeling good.

...On Monday, the utility's general manager, Girish Balachandran, confirmed that a consultant has been hired to identify and contact parties interested in buying the telecom service and its 15,000 subscribers - who make up about half the cable business in the city of 74,000 residents...

And of course no tale of woe would be complete with out an echo from the East Bay Express (Chris Thompson is back apparently from wherever he went), who strangely wrote this:

...But when it tried to diversify into telecommunications (and compete with better choices like Comcast), it fell into a world of debt, from which the city won't extricate itself for years...

Here's where I would beg to differ with Mr. Thompson, while AP&T has many many warts, it's wartiness is so much less than the wartiness of Comcast.   It's strange to see a local and independent weekly which prides itself on its localness and independentness as something that makes it superior to the conglomerate-owned newspapers take the side of another massive conglomerate that has managed to push out a locally owned public utility.  But I guess in the hierarchy of good and bad in EBX-land "big business" is still better than "government." 

Anyway, this news saddens me on a totally selfish and personal level because unless AP&T gets bought out by a company that is going to seamlessly take over services, I'm going to have to go through the pain in the ass factor of having to sign up for new cable and new internet services.   Possibly with Comcast which I am pretty loathe to do.  Crystal Ball prediction: look for Comcast to begin littering our mailboxes with "great introductory rates!" with the requisite asterisk proclaiming in 6 point font that it's only good for three months and then the rate rises to three or four times the introductory rate.