Saturday, November 13, 2010

I hate the internet

But I so desperately want to access it.  Actually, it's computers that I hate.  And ISPs.  I hate them too.

We moved house two weeks ago which means that I've had only intermittent internet access since then because of course I was slack and didn't arrange transfer of my access 10 years in advance because I was preoccupied with freaking out about the fact that I wasn't freaking out yet.

Finally on Thursday the phone guy turns up to pluggle me in.  He had a little box with wires and lights which he fiddled with for a while, then he made a phone call, then he told me I was good to go.  So I pluggled myself in and it worked!  Except it was really slow.  Reeeeeeeally slow.

Which was strange because it was only one of the three computers in the house which was slow.  Yes, I know that three computers between two people is stupid, but one of them belongs to the university, so it's not my fault.

So I, having Masters degrees in Engineering and Computer Science, decided I could fix it.  So I broke it.  And then none of the computers could pluggle in any more.  Sad face.

I spent several hours fiddling around with the acronyms on my modem on Friday.  I fiddled with the PPPoE, the DNS, the SSID, and the PSK.  I became so enraged that I contracted a cold and went to bed angry and congested.

I got up this morning and drove off to uni so I pluggle myself into the computers there.  And that was when I realized that I must have forgotten my ISP password.  Slap.

So I came home and called the ISP and asked them to reset my password.  They told me it would take effect within 15 minutes.  So I waited 16 minutes just to be sure, and then spent the next few hours fiddling with more acronyms to no avail.

I became so enraged that I sat on the couch and studied obstetrics and gynaecology.  Which enraged me further because it now becomes apparent that there's more to it than I suspected.  So I did some crosswords, but that also enraged me because one of the answers turned out to be soupçon which is, in my opinion, a stupid French word.

So I pluggled myself back into the computer and for whatever reason, it worked without me changing any acronyms at all.  What the hell?  This country is stuffed.

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