Tuesday, December 2, 2008

The end of the world as I know it

Writing this from the computer in the fields as the status quo at home has gone all awry.

Got home yesterday arvo to find I had no Internet. This is not possible. It is like trying to live without oxygen - and after eighteen hours I am already fed up with holding my breath. A little amateur electronic sleuthing on my part has identified the problem. One of the two phone lines onto the property has gone tits up. By some clever legerdemain all 'out' calls are diverted by default to the fax line if the latter is not being used. This enables us still to receive calls on the primary number using 'call waiting' if some one is phoning out. The data for the ADSL uses the same line. Or something. Anyway it ain't working The secondary line (or is it the primary?) is still working. I went to the powder room (which contains no powder at all) to quickly switch the data to the working line but thought better of it when confronted with all the switching gear. There are more Ethernet cables and phone jacks disappearing into black boxes replete with flashing LEDs than you can wave a stick at. 'Don't touch' something inside me said and it was right.

Onto Vodafone who will fix it 'within 24 hours. We will inform you by TXT (of course) as to the details of the fix'. Well, Mr V, you've got five and a half hours and counting.

My wife tells me not get all grumpy because we used to have no Internet at all and we survived. Well I used to wear flared trousers and have a dreadful haircut; that doesn't mean I want to do it again.

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