Our DSL modem died last Sunday, breathing its last wheezing gasp under an onslaught of BitTorrent traffic. It took over an interminable week for the replacement to arrive, including a visit from an AT&T technician who came out and verified that yes, it was a modem issue. We could have told him that. Susan rallied bravely under undue e-mail deprivation, while I fretted about lost webserver hits. Modem arrived last night; it took us two hours last night with the aid of three extremely patient DSLExtreme technical support people to get the replacement going again.

Note to future self: when technical support people tell you at the beginning of a conversation to check that you used the correct power supply, you double and triple check that. Just because the blinky lights are lit doesn’t mean it’s got the right juice.

So no longer do we have to drive back to work on a Friday afternoon just to print out a forgotten camping reservation confirmation; or wonder about Catherine Deneuve’s age in Les Parapluies de Cherbourg (she was no more than twenty); or try to rip a CD in iTunes and realise typing in track names is a pain in the ass. Huzzah!