March 7, 2005

…And in other news, I’ve just updated my list of anime owned. It’s current now, except that the listings of what I have and haven’t seen isn’t up-to-date.

Well. I’ve had quite a time recently.

Two weeks ago, I lost my DSL signal. This was not a huge surprise to me, as I’ve read too many horror stories of cable/DSL/satellite service that fails and remains unresolved despite hours on hold for tech support and a parade of repairmen (repairpersons?). The day my signal died, I called Earthlink, and the nice lady on the phone eventually promised to have it looked into. That took some doing, though, as she had a very thick accent and asked me to do oddball things, like take my DSL modem outside and plug it into the phone box. I pointed out that there was no place to plug in my modem to power out there, at which point she sputtered and asked me to try something else. Strange.

A few days passed, and I still had no service. I placed a couple more calls, each time dealing with a wonderful, helpful rep who knew what he was talking about and ran through as many tests as he could. Each time, he said they’d run tests, which they apparently did, as each time I called they had more information.

Then, I tried power-cycling the modem, and the modem completely died—no lights at all. So I called a tech and reported this. We did some troubleshooting, and we managed to figure out that A) I had no dial tone whatsoever, and B) my modem was fried. He promised to send out a repairman (repairperson?) to fix the line and ship me a replacement modem by second-day delivery.

So. The Verizon repairperson arrived and tested both my box and the local switch, and determined there was a fault in the line leading to my house. He said he’d call to have somebody take care of it that day. I went to work, and when I came back…dial tone! Thanks to some instructions left by the previous tech support rep, I was able to at least use dialup to get online.

The replacement modem arrived a few days later; I plugged it in and everything worked as smooth as butter. It took two weeks, but every tech support rep was cheerful and helpful, and it was resolved with minimal aggravation (or intimations that I was the problem).

So that was a bit stressful, especially as I’d built up a big list of things to do online now that I was online, and I couldn’t do any of it for two weeks. Then, this past weekend, I hosted a party for some friends, which as I mentioned yesterday, lasted fourteen hours, from 4:00 p.m. on Saturday to 6:00 a.m. on Sunday. I had to prepare food for it, of course, which took up all of Saturday, then after the last guest left I crashed into bed, only to wake up just in time to head to the Otherspace animation meeting (we’re chugging along there nicely). Then I got home and my parents stopped by, so I entertained them before crashing into bed again. Tonight’s been the first opportunity I’ve had to really catch up, particularly with chores like laundry.

But you know what? I’m happy. I exercised, which gave me energy, and I managed to get quite a few things accomplished. And I live in a nice house, in a nice neighborhood, with good friends and a well-paying, interesting job.

That sounds trite. But I’ve been reading about some modern-day horrors lately—which I won’t relate because why depress you?—and I truly feel grateful for my life right now.

Have you ever wanted a personal advisor? Not a therapist—somebody to whom you could turn and say, “I’m in the mood for a good modern novel. What would you recommend?” Their advice mightn’t always be perfect, but they’d serve a vital need to sort through the chaff of everyday life.

Head Butler seeks to serve this need. Every day, there’s a new essay about New Good Stuff or Great Old Stuff, as the Butler puts it.

Yeah, it’s at least partly a gimmick, but it’s also a philosophy. I’ve signed up for the newsletter, and am curious to see just what it’s like.