Why am I stuck with Time Warner Cable?

Hi everybody, I've got a question for you. I live in Brooklyn NY right now, and because of that, I have only one choice for a cable tv provider. That is Time Warner Cable. And after dealing with them for a number of years (pretty much the whole city is locked into them) I absolutely dispise them. Their service is deplorable, their customer support is horrendous, and their "On Demand" channels almost never work. Not to mention they have a very limited selection of HD channels to complement my new HDTV. I have looked at Cablevision's HD package and it looks like they have nearly twice the HD channels that TWC has. They also have the one HD channel that I am craving which is MSG-HD (I want my Rangers in High-Def). I called Cablevision and asked what it would take to switch to them, and after telling them that my building was currently controlled by TimeWarner, they told me that there was absolutely no way to get their service. I was screwed. Here's my question... Why the hell do I not have the ability to make my own choice? Why is it that Time Warner "owns" my building? Why are they allowed to have a monopoly on the whole city? WTF? I'd like to hear other stories about this type of cable company strong arming, and I want to do something about it. Has anyone figured out a way around this nonsense (without turning to DirectTV or DiSH)? Leave a comment and let's figure out how to stop this crap!

A better way to download podcasts

Yes, I know it's been a while since I last posted, but hey, better late than never. Anyway, recently I've discovered a new way to manage all the awesome podcasts I listen to. It's called PodcastReady and I never would have heard of them if it weren't for apple's cease and desist letter that they received for their use of the word "podcast" (WTF!) Anyway, with podcast ready, you can manage all your podcasts from their website. Then you download their software called "myPodder" and install it on the device that you use. This is very different than any other piece of podcast-catching software that gets installed on your PC. Anyway, you install the software onto your mp3 player and you can then plug your player into any computer with an internet connection and update your podcasts! This is really cool for me as I can now update both at home and at work, and not have to worry about maintaining two different lists of the podcasts I subscribe to. The software will work on any mp3 player that your computer sees as a removable storage device. This includes iPods. The only downside I've seen to using this software on an actual iPod (tested on my girlfriend's) is that the podcasts don't show up under the podcasts section in the iPod. Instead they just show up with all the other music which could be annoying.
Another awesome reason to try PodcastReady is that they have built in some neat social networking features into the service. As with all social networks, you can become someones friend. But once you are you can see what they are subscribed to (I think) and you can send whole podcasts or single episodes to them which are then automatically downloaded the next time they plug in their player. I haven't made any friends on Podcast Ready yet, so I haven't been able to fully examine all the social networking aspects of it, but they sound really great. All I need to do now is get more of my friends to start listening to podcasts.

Anyway, I hope to be posting a little more often now and I hope you all enjoy it.
Later bloggerinoes!