06-07-2006
We now rejoin our hero, at the brink of peril…
Of becoming a poort college student. So it’s been a while. A really,really long while. Sorry about that. I didn’t mean to stop blogging for a month. Here’s a quick and dirty update to all the fun you missed.
The Apartment
So I’ve officially moved to Oakland. If anyone had “about 18 days” in the “how long can Anthony stand to live in his house poll” Feel free to collect. Not from me, I’m poor, but I’m sure someone was running one. The apartment is nice enough. There are dozens of minor annoying things. Many of which just relate to a new layout (”You mean I have to get up to get shit from the fridge now?”). Somehow I’ve managed not to completely unpack yet in part due to several missing pieces of furniture like: the futon, the bookshelf, the night stand, the slightly-less crappy tv. Those should be here, um sometime before I move out in May, one hopes. My biggest complain is the total failure of the blinds to actually KEEP LIGHT OUT, which as I understand it, is their purpose in life. It’s not particularly surprising, as I have yet to see blinds that actually darken a room to my standards, but these are worse than average. Oh and I have to give props to the Original Mattress Factory for furnishing a seriously comfortable bed at a reasonable price. *Insert tactless joke about how the females in my readership(are there any?) ought to “try it out sometime.” Seriously, I recommend them for all your bedding needs.
Connection
So for the first week I was here my connection was incredibly unstable. As in dropping off every few minutes and staying out somewhere between 30 sec and 15 min. Verizon tech support was an interesting mix. The first thing I tried was sending an email to tech support. They limit said email to 70 characters! describing the problem. I was able to get a single sentence. For anyone who’s ever handled tech support, brevity is the LAST thing you want. The reply to that email was a set of links at their tech support website, where I had already looked. It, said however that you could reply to the email with a more detailed description, so I did, for which I was rewarded with MORE links. So I gave up on email and went to the phone. After navigating through an endless voiced-activated (grumble) menu, I was invited by the automated system to visit a website to diagnose my connection problem, um IF I COULD VISIT SAID SITE I WOULDN’T BE CALLING YOU. I’m hesitant to be too critical, because once I actually spoke to a person, 4 out of the 5 were very helpful and made a really genuine effort to fix the problem. The other one was clearly at an outsourced call center and told me that the problem was due to maintenance in my area, despite the fact that I knew there were referring to Erie! Apparently when you’re 5000 miles away, Erie/Pittsburgh, close enough.
The most infuriating thing about the whole set up and troubleshooting thing was Version’s assumption that I know nothing about networking. It’s not even an knowledge thing. When you sign up there should be a selection “Are you an idiot? yes/no/I don’t know(same effect as “yes”). The most common tech support tip PLASTERED all over their website is “don’t put a filter between the modem and the phone jack” Seriously? They display it so much, it must happen ALOT. I can understand how one might make tha mistake but what I can grasp is how one could no so little AND fail to read the directions.
As a side note, one of the things I LOVE about my webhost is that when you fill out a tech support ticket, there’s a field that allows you to specify how much you know about the subject at hand, so they can respond with the appropriate level of explanation. Incidentally, I HIGHLY recommend using them, if you’re in need of a webhost. If you’re interested, let me know and I can get you a discount (and a nice referral bonus for myself).
That’s it for now. Damn real job.
more tomorrow
-CI
