&*###@$^^&&**(

Doesn't the title say it all.  I am angry because it seems to me that all things technological are breaking on me.  The latest thing being my home internet.  It hasn't been working very effectively for the last two weeks, but I have been ignoring it and connecting to a neighbors unsecured network.  Every time I would think about the problem it would confound me because I just couldn't come up with an answer as to why I was having problems. 
Saturday was the last straw as everything stopped working.  No internet anywhere, even the 360!  I assure you I act like a spoiled child when my toys are not working for me.  On Sunday, I told my long and sad story to ems just to get it of of my chest, and hoping that I would have a flash of brilliance that would solve my problem.  Unfortunately, my brilliance was dulled on Sunday and no fix came to me.  Ems decided that Z would be able to fix my problem and with a bit of encouragement he said he would try to help me.  After my long and dull explanation he thought my problem might stem from a windows update problem.

Did I mention that I disabled all windows updates?  I mean ALL of them!  This means when I reformatted my hard drive in December and reinitialized Vista that I never processed any updates.  Yea...there was a crap load of updates.  The process took about 2.5 hours and I went home cautiously optimistic that everything was going to work.  Guess what?  My fucking internet still didn't work.  I was dejected and obsessed with this problem.  I went to bed on Sunday night consumed with thoughts about possible problems and fixes.  I believe one of them involved me smashing every electronic devise (internet, laptop, phone, IPod) that didn't work properly with a baseball bat.  I am glad that my violent tendencies dissipate quickly.

The entire time I was at work on Monday I was preoccupied with the internet problem. I spoke with a few friends in our IT department and they gave me a couple ideas but I knew my first order of action was to call Comcast when I arrived home.  Upon arriving home I receiving the cold shoulder from the roommate,  I believe she didn't appreciate being home all day sans internet.  O well and sorry about your luck!  I started some laundry, put the groceries away, carried in my newly acquired coffee table and then tried to mentally prepare myself for a phone call to Comcast customer service.

This phone call actually went a bit better than expected.  Fairly early on we discovered that the modem was working properly so we focused on the wireless router.  We tried to do a few diagnosing things to no avail. I was able to direct wire my laptop to the modem and viola the internet worked.  It seemed like a miracle but I knew it wasn't an option to sit on the floor in the spare room every time I wanted to use the internet.  That was so not a practical option.  For some reason near the end of the conversation she had me disable all wireless networks.  This piece of information comes up a bit later but hello...that isn't going to help me log on to any network.

Now that the problem is narrowed down to the wireless router I gather more Patience and make my second annoying phone call of the night.  It only takes about fifteen minutes to reach a human who has some questionable English skills.  I giver her my information and product information and ten minutes later she comes back to tell me that I am no longer covered under my warranty.  Apparently, it ended in November 2009.  Seriously!  She gave me three options which were ridiculous. 

#1)  I can purchase an additional 1 day warranty for $29.99, and that will cover her helping me fix my router problems for the next 24 hours.
#2)  I can purchase a six month warranty package for $39.00.
#3)  Do nothing.

My first response was, "No Thanks, I can purchase a new router for $50, therefore it isn't logical to me to purchase an additional warranty on a product that may or may not still work."  She then pipes up with the following offer:

Linksys:  If you are considering purchasing a new router I can sell you one for $59.99....bla bla bla marketing stuff.
Me:  Is that ### model number?  (I had just looked up Linksys wireless routers on Amazon and I wanted to compare prices.)
Linksys:  No it isn't.  But I can sell you that upgraded modeled for a discounted price of $79.99.
Me:  I can purchase that model on Amazon for $59.99
Linksys:  Our product will include free shipping.
Me:  So will Amazon's.
Me:  What was the model number of item your first offered to me at $59.99.
Linksys:  That is a lesser quality product, but the model number is ####.
Me:  That product is available on Amazon for $39.99.

This conversation finally ended a few minutes later but I was horrified that she kept trying to get me to purchase the router from her when I could clearly get it from Amazon for $20 less.  I guess she took her job seriously.  My anger level was pretty high after this second phone call as my problem still wasn't fixed.

I called Lou and hoped he would answer (he had been gone to Great Wolf Lodge for two days) as I really needed to vent. I was happy that he answered his phone and I asked him if he had 10 minutes to listen to me whine and complain about my internet problem.  I assure you this wasn't the first time he had heard about it.  I started speaking at hyper speed with my brain racing along at an even faster pace.  He is used to my hyperness and he listened patiently to my entire story and then he said the most beautiful sentence.

"Candy, I have an extra router if you want it!"  OMG ... finally some positive news.  I said I would be right over.  He was like now?  I said yes...it was about 8:00pm.  I raced over to his house wearing my crop pant PJ bottoms, T-Shirt and flip flops.  I am sure I was under-dressed.   While driving I was hoping that he would be able to find all of the components and I would really be able to fix my problem.  Hurray, he did!  I arrived home 30 minutes later with my new router and disk.

It took me another hour or so to properly install all of the components while I was trying to cook dinner, clean and work on laundry.  I finally put food in my mouth at 9pm and it was horrible.  I shoved in enough so I wouldn't feel so hungry anymore and pushed the rest aside to finish my tasks.  I finished my instillation at about 10pm which means I had been working on this task for four hours.  Woa!  The earlier referenced disabling of my entire network threw me off for a bit, but I am glad that I remembered how to enable it again.

I hope you have all enjoyed meeting tenacious Candy tonight.  This is how I get when I encounter a problem that I think I can fix.  I just don't stop, even when logic tells me I should, until I have finished the task.  This quality is good some of the time and very bad some of the time.  This time it was good as the end result was home internet!

****Rapid Clapping of my Hands***** 

Finally, closure to my problem.