Iceberglandia

I miss the internet. A lot. First, I was away for 3 weeks. Then my computer broke. Then I got it back and my internet service got cut off. Then I paid for it, got it reconnected, used it for like, two days, and then my DSL modem started doing funny shit.
This week, I’ve called Bell’s oh-so-great technical support at least 5 times, and they’ve had me do so many random things, that for some reason my DSL doesn’t work anymore, and as soon as I start my computer, I am magically connected with what seems to be Dial-Up.
The geniuses at Bell, however, have offered these following pearls of wisdom (all of them, after being informed, at least partially – oh how they love to interrupt – about what the others have done to my computer):
- Three times, I’ve been asked to delete my Temporary Internet Files.
- Once, I was instructed to empty my Temp folder.
- Once, they made me uninstall my modem software. I made the next guy aware of this, and he didn’t seem to care.
- I’ve reset my modem so many times, it’s not even funny anymore.
- Nobody seems to pay too much attention to the fact that even their own Access Manager displays a “No DSL Modem Found”.
- I’ve been thrown sales pitches for antivirus, a new computer, etc… That has no place in a technical support call, says I, but whatever. One of the idiots I called was more interested in making his sale than in actually offering assistance.
- Said dumbass ended our call by saying he was unable to help me (well, admission is the first step – HA!), but that within the hour his “senior technician” would get in touch with me. Needless to say, he never did. And I didn’t shower that day, because I was expecting his call.

So, that brings us to today. I got off the phone a while ago, and apparently somebody is coming to the house within the next 48 hours. Of course, in 48 hours it will be sunday, so I guess I’m screwed. As of right now, it took me 7 tries to open this page so I could wite a post. Let’s see how many tries it takes to actually post. Man, I miss the good ol’ days of Prodigy/Telmex.

The Iceberg.

Well, the good news is, I’m back. Back in Canada, back to having a computer, and back online. Let me explain.

I took my laptop to Mexico (hey, it needed a holiday too!), and while there, it worked fine. Then something must have happened on the way home, because when I tried turning it on here at my house, it started acting all weird. It would shut off either 5, 10 or 30 seconds after turning it on, so off to the shop it went. I picked it up on thursday of last week. Apparently, it was just dirty on the inside (and get this! Since they had a cleaning special for this month, it didn’t cost me a thing!).
After finding out it worked again, I decided on friday night, after work, to attempt to get on the internet. I hadn’t, after all, been online for almost a month (as of last week), so I had a lot of catching up to do. Especially deleting spam, a task I feared. And, you can all figure out what happened. If not, I’ll give you a hint. I was going to make a post titled “The whole damn thing with Bell Canada, part 4″, but I didn’t want to start the year off on a negative slant. Suffice it to say, I went and paid my bill (for which I had received no actual, um, bill) on monday, after talking to not one, not two, but three assholes in that company. Somehow, all three people I talked to decided to act like assholes.

Finally, yesterday I called them up, all ready to curse up a storm and tear them a new asshole, but the lady that answered, to put it in a Smashing Pumpkins kind of way, disarmed me with a smile. Well, not an actual smile, but she was very helpful, and while she was reactivating my account even took it out of her busy schedule to ask how my day was going… you know, that almost extinct form of human interaction known in its day as courtesy. She said everything was a-ok, and my service would be on “in 2 to 24 hours”.
24 hours later, here I am.

I apologize for not making it earlier, but for what it’s worth, Happy New Year to everyone. Oh, and do I have stories! Stay tuned!

The Iceberg.