Addicted? Who, Me? I'm not addicted

Wow. I survived internet deprivation!

:)

For those of you who don't know, after a wonderful vacation at my mom's (very slow dialup, and therefore virtually no internet access), we came home to a very spotty internet connection here. I was worried that I'd left the modem and router on while gone and some sort of virus had gotten through, so I spent most of Tuesday (in between trying to catch up on blogging, and email, and Bloglines) cleaning the computer in every way I knew possible. By Tuesday night, however, there was no avoiding it--this was not just a virus.

I left for Knitting Club, thinking G. could spend some time trying other ways to fix the computer. When I got home, we faced the inevitable, and I called AT&T's customer service. They eventually (after running a bunch of "diagnostic tests") determined that our 5+ year old modem had died. The very-nice Tech Support guy told me that I could buy a new modem through AT&T for $50 and a 3-5 business day wait, or I could go to Best Buy and pick one up for $70-$90. Though I love my internet :) I was dragging my feet on paying $20 extra for a few days. But when the tech guy told me that sometimes the sales department will cut you a deal on modems, I decided to give it a try.

I called the Sales department at 7:00 Wednesday morning (right when they open) and was able to secure a modem for $50 and two month's credit (of $24.99) on our DSL bill (so essentially free).

After three days of running the the library to check email, I was SO happy to see the UPS guy this afternoon.

I'll snip all sorts of stories about phone calls to AT&T's tech support, and then phone calls to D-Link's tech support (the new modem wasn't working with our old router), but between G. and I, I think we were on the phone for about four hours.

And now... as of 8:30 pm on Friday night, we're back to normal! Actually, we're better than normal, as this modem seems quicker than our old one. Is that possible, or am I just hallucinating?

Now to the dozens of emails I need to reply to (I mostly only read at the library), the 285 Bloglines to read, and the Ravelry and 43Things posts to catch up on!

I hope I never have to suffer this way again ;)