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Thursday, November 8

What is so damned difficult about dial-up? {Bright Idea #926}

***WARNING: This post is most definitely not rated G.***

Well I just had a 2 day internet famine that was entirely *not* my fault! The stupid asshats at my ISP have proven once again that they got their membership cards for the human race out of a Cracker Jack box!!! It has taken them since around 8 or 9 am on Tuesday, until now to get my computer back on the net!

It all started with getting my logon corrected. The numb-nutted idiot that originally created my account obviously cannot read, or at least cut-and-paste. Our ISP is also our phone company, so the internet account is linked to our phone account. Our last name is RODGERS... so why we would want dnrogers as our family logon is beyond me. In order to correct that, they have to cancel the old account and create a new one. At least they didn't try to charge me the fee they normally charge for changing your logon. There's no way in H-E-Double-Hockey-Sticks that I would pay a single penny for their stupidity in not being able to read the name of the freakin' account holder!!! For some inane reason the front end of their computer network couldn't talk to the back end of their computer network about my account change, and so I was left stuck somewhere in the middle... my old account had been completely deleted, and the new one was in suspended animation. It took no less than half a dozen phone calls a day, each of which took at least an hour because of the voice mail hell/ muzak on hold purgatory that my call got shuffled into. Between trying my old logon, new logon, password resets, and every other hoop in Manitoba that they had me jump through, they *still* couldn't get my access back. Needless to say that {using my best Queen Victoria voice}, "we were *not* amused."

The second major problem that I tried to get fixed with my dial-up is the craptastic speed that I connect at. I have yet to see anything faster than 28.8 kbps, and have even connected slower a couple of times. For those of you that don't understand what that speed means, just think "slow boat to China..." and there's probably a leak in that boat that the crew needs to spend all their time bailing water instead of rowing! The "helpful" dipshit that I spoke to about my problem is probably too dumb to even know what the hell he's talking about unless he has one of those "help desk" programs open on his computer! After going through the fact that I'm not using a dinosaur computer powered by a hamster wheel, my phone line isn't a piece of string attached to a tin can, and that my idea of turning on a computer *isn't* rubbing up next to it; he had the brain wave that I need a new phone jack installed within 4 feet of my computer, preferably on its own line. Well, it's bad enough that we're paying $30/mo for this shite... now you want me to fork out at LEAST $70 to have them come down and install a jack, at least $50 for the new phone line, plus any charges for being out-of-town service call , and THEN pay another $30/mo for a second phone line? And STILL no guarantees that my speed will improve??? Especially when their own DSL lines run about 100 yards to the south of my house??? To hell with THAT crap... we're better off going for the stupid satellite!

And the sum total of all of this is that thanks to my ISP-from-hell, I've been knocked out of the NaBloPoMo contests because I missed 2 days posting.

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