For the last week we’ve been fighting with the Comcast HD digital cable box. The video will come on and then disappear after three or four seconds, leaving us with audio only. The guy who showed up last week to fix it rewired the cable outlet and that seemed to temporarily fix it. A day later, the problem was back.

A different cable guy showed up today and let us know that a recent firmware update to the Motorola digital cable boxes - something ostensibly to fix certain DVR problems - broke the DVI connectivity. Sure enough, connecting the component cables to the box gets us video back again.

Of course, that doesn’t help me because the only input I have left on my TV is digital connection (a shared input that can be HDMI, DVI, or VGA), so now I have to go get the Xbox 360 VGA cable and swap the inputs

• Xbox 360 for cable box.

Oh, did I mention that’s a $75 custom-made DVI cable out the door? And all of my cables are totally custom wrapped and organized, so all of it has to be torn up so I can put in new/different cables? Thanks, Comcast. Even with the free month you’re giving us, it doesn’t make up for the ridiculous inconvenience. If Verizon had its broadband TV service up and running, we’d switch tomorrow. (UPDATE: I’m not the only one pissed. At least I wasn’t sent to collections.)

The firmware fix for this, which is “currently being worked on” is due out in January. That’s fantastic. Keep up the good work, guys. Hire a QA department when you get a chance. Thanks.