Clown shoes

Or how I spent a week unpacking and dealing with a parade of Time Warner Cable technicians.


Once upon a time, connecting to the internet was easy. All it required was a computer hooked up to a modem (to modulate and demodulate the signal) connected to a working telephone and a phone number. The biggest problems back in the stone age of connecting to the internet were:

1. A chatty kathy on your phone line
   This was easily solved by chatty kathy extermination or for less jail time a shiny new phone line specifically for the computer¹.


2. No internet service
   This was easily solved by shelling out money for a shiny new ISP, BBS, or the slacker way by becoming a college student.


3. Internet service busy signals
   This was easily solved by autodialers or by switching from AOL to something better.

Now that we're out of the internet stone ages, everything has gotten increasingly complicated. Mainly because it was determined by the increasing flocks of netizens that lag brought about by the skinny telephone wire connection to the internet was inhumane. The telephone wires just weren't built with the Big Picture in mind. Cable companies, who were already used to delivering 30 frames per second of visual and audio information, leapt at the burdgeoning new subscription cash cow over their old lines, whilst dreamers failed laying the fat pipe connection of fiber optics.

The formula for connecting to the internet remained the same: Wires still carry the signal to the house with a modem to decode the signal for computer consumption.² But it is much more complicated.

And this is what brings me to the horrific discussion section about Time Warner. I loathe Time Warner, to the point that I tried my hardest to choose someone else as my internet service provider- but they own the wires that my isp piggybacks on so....

Introducing TM Technician number one...
He came by to hand over the shiny new cable modem, to test to see if the line at least sort of works, and then to go running away back into a cave. He simply forgot that there might be other people living in this building with cable and disconnected them in the process of hooking up the cable modem.

Introducing TM Technician number two...
My landlord was expecting his arrival, and ended up confusing the hell out of the guy with his Spanglish. This technician did nothing but yell at my landlord as if shouting will make the technician's english more understood, he refused to install a new line for my apartment, and left in a snit.

Introducing TM technician number three...
Determined to have internet that isn't a wavering stolen signal from a neighboring Linksys router³, I doled myself up and ran to the door before my landlord got to the 3rd technician. I tried to shine with my computer knowledge, english fluency, and was willing to beg for a clean brand new cable line only for this apartment. He left saying he was phoning in another work order, and everything will be shiny and happy soon.

Introducing TM technician number four...
He was the manager who called less than three seconds after number 3 left, completely unaware of 3's visit and recommendation for a new line. He called to ask about the service of the 1st two technicians, both of whom were supposed to drop a new cable line into this apartment.

Introducing TM technicians five and six...
They both called whilst I was in the middle of phone prompt hell trying to get my phone service issues solved⁴, my cell phone can't deal with call waiting so I actually had to start the phone prompt hell again after #5 telling me someone was coming today to check the line and #6 wanting to schedule a time for quality assurance to look at the lines.


In the middle of typing this TM technician seven came and dropped a new wire after certain information being lost in translation with the dog owning next door neighbors. And TM technician eight called right after #7 left to say someone would be coming by later this afternoon.


Should I get out the punch bowl?


----
¹ Related to the chatty kathy is the battle with other budding internet addicts for a free line. Like any addicts fighting for a single line of connection, this quickly escalates into a brutal war, especially when siblings are involved. This was only solved by early adoption of home networking or fleeing for college.
^{2 Internet user : ISP : the Internet as a Catholic person: Catholic Priest: God. This analogy makes perfect giggly sense to me, and perhaps not to anyone else...
3}If I know you, ask me about the Penis Party story. And regardless if you know me or not, I'm still amazed that people are able to hook up their wireless routers on their own.
⁴ Note to self: Moving into the landlord's previous apartment was a brilliant idea in terms of apartment beauty, but was quite the headache when the landlord decided to move upstairs and take phone wires with him instead of telling the phone company he'd moved upstairs.

*This wrantish post is brought to you by Wireless G, and hopes that the Time Warner people ego surf and will somehow give me a free t-3 line for my troubles.

Also, I could really use a nap, but I won't dare attempt such a thing right now due to a story for later.