I woke up this morning at 7.30a.m. and as usual, after my shower, sat at the dining table with my hot coffee, ready to ping my blog.
To my horror, there was no internet connection.
Fine.
I lifted the receiver to dial 1 300 88 9515.
Dead.
No tone.
Panic.
Hyperventilate. Adrenalin rush. Head spins.
Reality check. No phone line. No internet connection. NO LIFE?????
Then I asked my neighbour to make a report for me at 100. No news.
From 7.45a.m. till 2.40p.m. I was half-dead with no internet connection. In between, I called streamyx at least ten times and most of the customer care service staff know me by now :-).
"Madam, the technician will visit you within TWO WORKING DAYS."
"Is this a working day?" was my stupid response.
"Madam, this is a PUBLIC HOLIDAY."
Dumbfounded internet addict asks a stupid question that gets a simple response. *Sigh*
"You have to be patient, Madam. Your report is in our system and if it makes you feel better, I will put a note for URGENT attention."
*tears*
"Thanks."
And so I sat there in front of my laptop. Then to my desktop to laptop to desktop etc trying to connect. All the time with my eyes almost unblinking on the idiotic blinking dsl light on my modem as though to tell me - now you can connect and now you can't, now you can connect and now you can't.
The technician in me dismantles everything and I fix all the connections again. I went through all the checks that the streamyx staff had taught me all these years. I thought I was a pro until this hit me.
Believe it or not, with all the stress from 7.30 a.m. till now, I lost two pounds. Cool!!!! Thanks, Streamyx. I did it without sweating. Just hypeventilating. Great. What if I had dropped dead on the keyboard? It is a good thing that my posts for all my blogs have been scheduled till May and it is on auto-pilot. If not, some of you might have thought I had really died as it is so so so not me to post so few posts on a Sunday.
2.40p.m. Reunion with another former student whom I have not seen since August 1993 - Geraldine Teh. I smsed her to ask her to meet me as Starbucks and told her why.
Upon arrival, I could not recognize her.
A lovely girl stood and called me. Is that her?
Can I see your IC? Are your really Geraldine??? *Faint* See what internet withdrawal symptoms can do to women like me?
Anyway, as if I had not had enough excitement, by the time I logged on, the anti-virus program in my laptop declared "You are now in a public wi-fi area and we have blocked all connection to protect your pc. Please change your settings if you want to continue."
This cannot be real.
NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!
Hyperventilate again. I look at myself in the computer screen. Shucks!I seem to have aged ten years. The stress!!!! ARRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!!!
Anyway, I asked for help from this cute guy sitting nearby (not for my benefit but for Geraldine's *chuckles*) and believe it or not, he plopped himself in my seat next to her and I sat in his seat at the other table.
Hmmm Lovely sight - the two of them.
After fiddling here and there, he called out to me.
Oh oh! I think he knows I am trying to matchmake him with her.
"You can sit here too and there is no need to guard my laptop." LOL!!!
I felt so bad that he was chatting on MEEBO and was rudely plucked from a lovely chat to solve my problem. So I told him - OK. Thanks...I will restart my pc and try again and off he went, back to his MEEBO and me to my laptop.
I felt so bad that he was chatting on MEEBO and was rudely plucked from a lovely chat to solve my problem. So I told him - OK. Thanks...I will restart my pc and try again and off he went, back to his MEEBO and me to my laptop.
Log out.
Log in.
Password.
Rebooting.
Heart palpitates.
Heart palpitates.
Same message appears. Starbucks is blocked.
Most unethically, while sitting in a most comfortable sofa, I surveyed neighbourhood networks and quietly logged in to another connection.
Voila! Surfing babe I am again. Oops. I meant surfing old lady...LOL!!! Ah - see - I am deliriously happy. Pinged my blog. Reset my post codes, solved problems, posted the Garbage truck post, published comments, talked to Geraldine and then went home.
"Is the internet working?"
"No. Did you now surf to your heart's content at Starbucks?"
Sigh.
Persistent me ran upstairs and started to try to connect a few more times and then unbelievably, I managed to get a weak, slow connection just as I was about to drive to TESCO and register for MAXIS broadband.
I don't know how long this connection will last but I know that life has not been the same again ever since I became a blog addict!!!
So, if I am slow in posting your comments or responding to them, please accept my humble apologies. My blog will be in auto-pilot mode and the posts will be up as schefuled so please swing by as usual. Thanks. Apologies for the inconvenience caused.
In the mean time, I will have to suffer in nail-biting silence and go bananas in front of my pc!!!
Have a lovely evening folks!
Have a lovely evening folks!
* I wrote this post at 6 p.m. but scheduled it for 8pm because I had already scheduled another post for 6.45p.m. Sigh...
Anonymous Wow! I can imagine the panic! Kinda like me after 1 day of no smoking and no coffee. *laughs*