8/29/00

The DSL saga continues...

On Friday, Earthlink informed me that a Covad technician would be coming today to set up my DSL line. I figured that I ought to inform them again that nobody showed up for the first appointment, so yesterday, I called them. After 45 minutes on hold, I was actually able to speak to someone. I told him what was up, and he put me on hold and called over to Covad. He reported back that they actually had come for the first appointment, but that they had come two days early. I don't know how they got into my building where the phone box is, and I don't know why they didn't fucking tell me that I didn't have to stay home all day waiting for them, but anyway, they claimed that everything was good to go.

So, this morning, I took more time off of work, and the Covad guy actually did show up. Of course, he wasn't actually able to do anything because as soon as he got here, he informed me that my wiring was old, and that installing the line would require drilling a hole through my floor and pulling wires up from the phone box, through the garage in my building and up to my apartment. Even if I were able to authorize such a thing, I didn't have access to the locked garage, so they couldn't do anything. I tried to call my landlord but he wasn't home. So I have to call back and set up yet another appointment.

The rest of the day was surprisingly productive, though. I got a lot done at work, and then after work, I went running, and it was a really good run. I just did my usual 4-mile loop, but it was almost 4 minutes faster than I usually run it. I'm still trying to figure out which factors determine the quality of my run. The obvious things, like whether I've worked out the day before, stretching, and what and when I've eaten don't seem to have much of an effect.

When I got home from work, I had a message on my answering machine from Molly Zero, who I've been hoping to meet while she's in town. Unfortunately, the message was left at around noon and I didn't get it until after 5, so when I called her back, she wasn't home. I spend most evenings online, but I was trying to leave my phone line relatively open in case she tried to call me back.

Spending an evening away from the internet was not much of a problem for me, but I've been bombarded with telemarketer calls this evening as a result of having my phone line free. I'm not sure if I'm just getting more calls because my phone is usually busy, but I think I've had 5 separate calls just this evening. One was from the New York Times another was from AT&T long distance, another was a call informing me that I'd been "pre-selected for a platinum Discover Card!" (whoopee!) The last two I just hung up on before they had a chance to say where they were calling from--you know how when telemarketers call, there's a pause before they start talking? Well, if you don't start talking as soon as I say hello, there's a pretty good chance I'll hang up on you.

Anyway, now I'm getting kind of freaked out that if I do get DSL, I'll constantly be fielding telemarketer calls. It's pretty bad--last week when Andy came over for dinner before wine class, I had two telemarketer calls in the hour he was here. My phone number seems to be on everyone's list. When I was at Lucy's party this weekend, someone was saying that they knew someone who got rid of their home phone and started exclusively using a cell phone in order to avoid telemarketers. That's pretty bad...

In the forum: do telemarketers harass you relentlessly?