If only I could have the internet without an ISP

For the last three days, our internet connection has been....spotty. It's really annoying because each time it disconnects, I have to go into the office, climb under my desk, unplug all the routers and the modem, wait ten seconds, plug them each back in, then wait for the modem to reset itself, then see if it works. For the last three days, it was working enough that I could sporadically get some work emails done, get some tax stuff ready, and that's about it. No blogging. No personal email. Nothing.

Then this morning, I woke up to - SURPISE - a send/receive error on the office computer. Which means in the night the internet disconnected. Except this morning, it wouldn't log back on. I spent twenty minutes under the desk unplugging and re-plugging while my dog licked my face and whined.

Then I decided to call our ISP, who are just a bunch of dinks, really, aren't they? I really genuinely thought that maybe the girl had a brain in her head when after an hour and a half of checking connections, verifying ISP addresses, restarting the computer, resetting the modem, blah blah blah blah, finally we got a connection. Ten minutes after I hung up, the connection was lost. I was semi-tempted to buy a plane ticket to India to hunt that bitch down. I guess this is one of the benefits of global outsourcing - less deaths due to stringing customers along. SB said it is not their job to actually fix anything - they know there is a line problem, they know they can't do anything about it, but rather than tell you that, they keep you on the line until the connection randomly clicks in, tell you it's fixed, hang up and sing "HaHa Sucka."

By this time it was nearly noon, and I was pissed as hell. Not only was my internet not working, but due to icy weather, the satellite was out all morning too. I returned a few phone calls, stuffed some envelopes, then moped around until it was time for yoga.

The worst part is, I think it would be useless to up and change ISPs in protest. I think they are all the same - each one just as crappy as the next. It would just cost me more money in "connection fees" and modems, and then after three weeks of good service, I would wake up one morning to "Send/Receive Error."