It was the DSL modem. As soon as I replaced it with a $60 el cheapo from Microcenter (and configured said cheapo properly), I got my full bandwidth back.
I. Hate. Hardware.
But it is fixed now. A winner is me!.
It was the DSL modem. As soon as I replaced it with a $60 el cheapo from Microcenter (and configured said cheapo properly), I got my full bandwidth back.
I. Hate. Hardware.
But it is fixed now. A winner is me!.

Frozen entrée aficionados! Bad Christian rock! The William Jefferson Clinton Abstinence Center! Klown haircuts for kids! It’s everything I’ve ever wanted in a movie.
Never Been Thawed, now in limited release.
The trailer and the props are essential viewing.
A totally awesome 4100-year-old Chinese Stonehenge-style observatory has been found.
So earlier I spent four hours fighting invisible network gnomes and buying stuff I didn’t need and talking to the ISP and not fixing it, and also hurting my knee. Now I’m out $70 and I walk funny and I didn’t even [PUNCHLINE].
I came home around midnight to discover that the network came up on its own at 8 pm. WTF.
But now I have 15%-20% packet loss. So I opened another ticket with the ISP, and I’m not buying a new DSL modem until they tell me what REALLY happened.
I’m a professional and this one has me running in tight little circles. What happens to everyone else? GAAAH!
So there’s this horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible, horrible band that plays D’s. They’re called the “Over-Reactors” and it’s a duo. They manage to hit the wrong notes and emphasis in each song, almost all of which are covers except an original they always do which is titled “One Sick Pony”.
They do things like cover the Cowboy Junkies’ cover of “Sweet Jane” and then somehow fuck up. Ooh boy, he’s fucking up the Foo Fighters now. Anyway, he’s here tonight solo.
The weird part is their band website reveals that he’s now in Dokken. What? Dokken exists? They played Guitar Center? Acoustic? WITH THIS GUY IN THE BAND? It must have been something straight out of This Is Spinal Tap.
While installing mom’s new Mac today I tripped the power the computers are plugged into. When it all came back up I had no Internet connection. Two sets of cables, a new switch, two new network cards, three calls to the ISP, and four hours later I was out $70 and still no connection. Tomorrow I’m buying a new DSL modem in hopes that will fix it. After that I dunno. I do this for a living and this one has me stumped.
After that experience I am exhausted, deflated, and depressed. I am supposed to go to a Halloween thing tonight but I have no interest in dressing up and people will probably give me shit if I don’t, so maybe I’ll just go home and read.
D’s is full of ethereally beautiful women and their grunting, brutish boyfriends. It’s like a Popeye cartoon tonight.
We love weekend hardware failure, we do