So I dropped by the business office of the apartment building at lunch... And it mostly seems nice. I have yet to see an apartment, but the grounds are ok, the fitness room is decent, and there's a nice "community room" for holding parties in when needed. Pool, jacuzzi, garage... bike racks in the garage. I found out that the "$750/mo*" rent quoted in the flyer they sent me is actually $899/mo rent, with two months free this year, prorated out across the whole year. That means come next March or April there's an automatic rent increase. ...unless they want to give the same deal again to keep me as a customer. Not that bad a deal, really. Even after two years I'm ahead on rent.

Anyway, at that point I ask about cable TV. They don't have Charter cable, which I would have expected to be a good thing, but... it's not a question of healthy competition. visionsystems.tv has a monopoly on cable in the building... you can get basic cable from them, or DirecTV through them, using their antenna. The high-speed internet is also through them.

Now, I am currently very happy with my service from Charter. Great cable/internet package with exactly what I want and nothing more or less... I'd be paying about $15/mo more once I moved for what seems to be rather weird Cable TV. At least the online lineup lists UPN and WB, where the paper one lists something else, so that wouldn't be as bad as I thought... But still, the installation fees, the prices, the requirement for a one-year contract, all of these smack of annoyances spoiling what should be a really good deal.

I wonder if ReplayTV even has this channel lineup in their system. I should check when I get home.

[Edit: I forgot that they're giving the first six months of high-speed Internet free... but I don't want to count on that since I'm thinking long-term here, and I don't know if I can use my old cable modem with that, so I might still be paying $5/mo rent on a modem, or buying a new one for DSL or something. And again, installation fees. Ugh.]