8/18/00

A picture, because there hasn't been a picture in a long time.

I'm at home. I've been here all day waiting for the phone company to come and set up my wiring for DSL. It's now almost 4 p.m., so I'm getting to the point where I'm starting to think about possibilities like: what if they don't come today? When can I possibly afford to take another day off of work? How late should I stay here waiting for them? Am I going to have to spend another two hours on the phone setting up a new appointment?

So far, Earthlink DSL has been a complete pain in the ass. I called and signed up for service easily enough, but then when they e-mailed me the date of my installation appointment, it was not within the time frame they had specified in the initial phone call, so it fell while I was in Colorado. I called to reschedule. Repeatedly. Nobody seemed to know who I needed to talk to in order to get my appointment rescheduled, so they just kept transferring me. Every time I got transferred, it was usually a 15-20 minute wait until someone picked up my call. I ended up having to call them six times and speaking to eleven people before I finally managed to get my appointment rescheduled for today. To add injury to insult, a week or so after I signed up, I got a card in the mail advertising the same deal for $10 less per month!

This sucks. I haven't even been able to spend much time online, because I've been waiting for a phone call, which hasn't come yet, either. I had planned to spend the day doing laundry, but then I woke up this morning and realized that my jar of quarters only had enough to do one load. I washed my sheets and towels, but now I have to go to the bank, get my quarters and do my other laundry tomorrow morning. I had also planned to clean my apartment. I did a bit of that, but soon got bored. I finished my book (Diane Johnson's Le Divorce). I took a nap. I simultaneously watched "Jerry Springer" and did yoga. I read cookbooks.

I broke up with Alvin this week. We've seen so little of each other lately, though, that it doesn't really seem like things are much different so far.

I've been really busy at work this week, so I don't have much else to write about. I watched most of the Democratic Convention on TV. I watched it on PBS after growing disgusted with the network coverage. Apparently the networks don't think the conventions are exciting enough for the American populace, because instead of showing you the actual convention, they show you all these little scripted reports intercut with a few minutes here and there of the convention itself. It's just as bad as what they do to the Olympics.

I'm just not in the mood to write. All I can think about is how pissed off I am that I've wasted a whole day here, and now I'm going to have to be in the lab most of the weekend and not be able to do any of the weekend stuff I'd planned and I don't even have anything to show for it. Curse you, Earthlink DSL!