Thursday, May 04, 2006

No Connection Whatsoever

Saturday

Internet access starts getting unruly somewhere around the late evening, spontaneously shutting itself off for no good reason at all. We chalk it up to the fact that a lot of users are surfing their favorite hardcore sites, and fire up some Starcraft to compensate.


Sunday

On a cursory check, nothing seems to be wrong with the connection. My brother checks his e-mail, my sister fools around with some file-sharing software, and I check out some por... er, online literary dissertations. Except for a bit of lag every now and then, everything seems fine.


Monday

Internet access suddenly gets cut off in the late morning, while I'm working on this blog. The good news is that I manage to finish one post before it gives way; The bad news is that the article happens to be one of my monthly disclaimers. (While I try to make them relatively interesting, let's just say that none of them is likely to win a Palanca Award anytime soon.)

Repeated attempts to reconnect meet with no results. Finally, I run into an error message that tells me there's something wrong with the connection on our ISP's side, and I leave it at that. It's a hot day, and it gives me an excuse to head to the mall for some badly-needed air-conditioning. I don't complain.


Tuesday

I go back to work after the three-day weekend, and I start putting together a user manual for one of our more demanding clients (among other things). Between the tedium of methodical business writing and the unlimited DSL connection at the office, I remain occupied for the whole day.

Around late afternoon, my sister calls me at work and tells me that the internet access still hasn't kicked in yet. I check our ISP's web site, jot down their Customer Support numbers, and send them over. When she asks me why I don't call them myself, I tell her that I can't walk through our home setup while I'm at the office. She agrees to talk to them herself, but she doesn't get anywhere with her inquiries.


Wednesday

My sister calls the office again, telling me that we still don't have internet access. I tell her to give our ISP's Customer Support another try.

She calls me a couple of hours later, and tells me that the support guy on the other end mentioned a bunch of stuff she couldn't understand. He did advise her, however, that the problem was most likely on our side. I snap at her, pointing out the error messages we earlier encountered and the troublesome yet letter-perfect technical setup we currently use. She tells me that she doesn't understand a thing I'm saying, either, and I promise to have a look at the system when I get home.


Thursday

Past midnight, I confirm that everything looks okay. The setup is running fine (apart from the inability to connect), the various components are perfectly compatible, and the correct cords are plugged into the right places. I'm covered in dust, and I'm not looking forward to the possibility of washing myself in ice-cold water before heading to bed.

As I move the modem back into place, I pull on the cord a little. Surprisingly, it turns off.

Intrigued, I follow the modem's cord all the way up to its power strip. I try the plug, and find that it's a little loose. So I tighten it and switch on the computer again, all the while getting this funny feeling about how technology enriches our lives.

And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I happen to be writing a blog post tonight.

...

I knew I should have moved out to a solitary life in the wilderness when I had the chance.

...

5 comments:

DarkHalf said...

LOL. We always tend to miss the simplest answer... ;)

Trip Atomic said...

hey sean. love your blog, and am linking to you - altho my blog (http://comelec-ako.blogspot.com) deals with matters more mundane. I would also like to ask you if you ever played WhiteWolf's Vampire. I played that till the time WOTC's Magic came out and all my friends got sucked into that money pit. Anyway, even Magic seems to hav e petered off now, but I still haven't anyone who has gone back to playing pen and paper RPG. I don't know; i just wanted to vent that I guess.

Antaria looks interesting, btw.

Sean said...

Darkhalf: The modem's been a very problematic piece of technology for us. I strongly suspect that it'll kill us in our sleep one dark and lonely night...

Postigo Luna: You're dealing with the mundane world there, all right. It's also personal and honest, and I can't help but love the excerpt from Shylock's speech. :)

I played Vampire once, way back in 1999, and unfortunately my studies prevented me from pursuing the game to a more dedicated degree. I remember that my character was a Chinese violinist prodigy of the Toreador clan, though. (Now there's hardly even a "Toreador" clan anymore. *Sigh*)

You know about AEGIS, right? Last I heard, their pen-and-paper RPG meetings are still going strong.

Trip Atomic said...

Nope, I haven't heard of AEGIS (except as a UST Law School fraternity). And the Toreador are going strong. There's even a whole sourcebook dedicated to that clan. :)

Sean said...

Postigo Luna: Yeah, but didn't White Wolf effectively replace them with a "Daeva" bloodline? It was a pretty gutsy move on their part, throwing all the existing clans out and virtually starting from scratch.

I've noted the location of the AEGIS forums on your blog, if you're interested in getting back into tabletop RPGs. They're fairly supportive people, as far as I can tell.