It hasn't been a good few months for me, technology-wise. First, in deciding to reformat my laptop to clean it up (first reformat in almost 3 years!), I saved all my pictures, documents, and music to a USB drive, then wiped the laptop and started clean. I copied back all the stuff I'd saved, and then it dawned on me: I had neglected to preserve my outlook.pst file. Yes, the file with all my email contacts, all the emails I'd saved over about the last 10 years (including all the ones from Barb) and all my passwords was gone. I was devastated.
A series of meltdowns at work - including our entire phone system being down for three days - kept me hopiing like a one-legged-man at an asskicking contest.
And then, on September 26th, my cable went out. No TV, no internet. I called. "Yes, there are outages in your area. We're working on it." I called back two more times in the next two days, with the same canned reply. I could not get an ETA. The third day, I called back, got the same response, and told them that if they couldn't get my service back I would drop them and go with Bellsouth DSL and DirecTV. The guy's response? "I'll make a note of that in your records, sir." WTF?! That was it, they'd lost me as a customer. The next day, my TV finally came back, but no internet. I fumed. Financially, I had to wait a couple of weeks before I could get the dough to pay all the connection and equipment fees, but as soon as I could swing it, I called Bellsouth.
They were more than happy to hook me up with a DSL/DirecTV package that includes TiVo, for almost the exact same price I have been paying Comcrap. I happened to have a DSL modem that a buddy gave me, so I saved $75 in initial outlay (the money would have come back as a rebate, but less out-of-pocket is key). So they sent me the self-install kit, which I got last Monday. I tried my nerdy best, but couldn't get it to work. Man, I hate calling tech support, but a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do. I called, and after troubleshooting, it became apparent that the modem was bad. Bummed. But the nice lady said there was a free modem upgrade promo going on, and although I technically didn't qualify, she would check with her supervisor and see if she could get me the hookup. Score! Free modem coming my way.
It got here yesterday. At about 6:30 last night, I got internet back at my apartment. Three days shy of a month with no internet at home.
And this morning, I am posting from home, because I'm here waiting on my DirecTV installer to come out and get me connected. Once that's done, I get to make the much-awaited call to Comcast and tell them what they can do with their crap service and crappier customer service.
