Shop. Destroy. Rule

I knew it would happen eventually, and here it comes… the dilution of “teedz”.

Some DJ
Some chick

So l0pht becomes @stake and suddenly they’ve got a license to be complete asshats?

It sounds to me like their credibility is, uh, at stake, not Geer’s.

So I come home from work today to see a circular in the mail from Adelphia.

“High Speed Internet
$24.95 a month until 2004*

The dish can’t offer it…
DSL isn’t widely available…
Power Link is in your neighborhood now!”

Mustering up all the intestinal fortitude I could manage, to suppress my cynicism about Adelphia’s seemingly endless loads of horse hockey, I called them up.

Guess what! It’s not available!

What a POS company. I’d pretty much already had my mind set to avoid getting cable modem service from Adelphia, even when it was available, and wait for the DSL that will eventually be rolled out in this general area.

…I wasn’t sure of it, however, until about five minutes ago.

Oh well, at least I can take comfort in knowing that they (supposedly) have removed me from their mass-mailings, per my request. I won’t have to see their tripe anymore.

I’ll take poutine anytime, over these…

Check out the Virginia Department of Health registries for local Fairfax and Loudoun County restaurants. Search for, or select a restaurant’s name, click on it to see inspection dates. Click the most recent inspection to see violations, if applicable.

Seriously people, if you never peruse my friends list, you should — otherwise you end up missing a lot of good content.

Alternately, you could just go directly to the most amusing weblog on LJ, courtesy of theuglyvolvo, who never ceases in causing me to bust a gut laughing.

Yarrr, this sea chanty needs more of th’ cowbell, scurvy dogs!

…I will be sixty bucks richer, courtesy of Best Buy.

So does this mean I will soon own x number of shares of TWX stock?

That just feels so… weird.

Guess who had a message waiting for him on the answering machine, from the Best Buy corporate office?

I will call them back tomorrow.

Alright, so I am set. I got the water, the canned food, batteries, come and get me, Isabel!.

Oh yeah – most importantly, I have a twelve-pack of Killians and a 24-pack of Coors Light. Gotta weather the storm somehow.

There are a lot of people around here who aren’t thinking this is gonna be any big deal. A lot of them haven’t lived around here their whole lives, though. I remember when Hugo came through — its main centre didn’t even come close to DC, and it was only a tropical storm by that point, but we still got tonnes and tonnes of rain and wind.

This one is gonna be fun….

And thus ends the teedz-Tacoma affair, 1999-2003.

Tacoma, I have loved you greatly, and we have been together since the first day I had you. I loved your power and your agility. You got me through some of the toughest days. We did a lot together, and though I sometimes sought to “upgrade”, I only ended up coming back to a newer version of you.

Alas, the months and years passed, and you became less and less practical to me. At the same time, however, others began to use and take advantage of you. Things just weren’t working out.

Was it jealousy? Did I just get bored? Did I no longer enjoy you? I don’t know for sure… it might have been any or none of these, to varying degrees.

Whatever the case, everything happened so fast last night. I made a rash decision to go with a new mistress, a sexy Escort…. and while it’s true you’ll always have a soft place in my heart, I think this is for the best.

Fare thee well, Tacoma. Maybe one day our paths will cross again, if the fates decide it should be.

Godspeed, Mr. Cash

I think today marks the day when I have become a hardass QA engineer.

Hey Dubya -

This war is your baby. So maybe it should come out of your pocket, at this point.

I’d almost recommend taking it out of your re-election campaign funds, except I’m still keeping up hope thinking there are some Republicans out there who don’t support the Iraq invasion. In that case, it wouldn’t be so polite to spend their money, either.

-Corey.

So I did a little researching today, and had an interesting talk w/ one of the verizon phone techs. He was pretty helpful and sympathetic to my issue re: dsl…. and it was through him that I discovered the technical issue as to why i can’t get DSL i.e., it’s not fibre lines, or coils, or that my phone number is in a “foreign exchange”, etc… he told me that I was on a digital loop carrier (DLC). This was another theory that I was aware of, but he confirmed it.

Talking w/ him, he eventually conceded that, yes, it is technically feasible to have my line removed from behind the DLC but that the engrs won’t generally come out and remove the line from the DLC unless there are probs w/ the line itself… to have it removed would be a matter of talking to the right people at the right time. He did even go so far as to give me the number of the local engineering office, however.

So now I am at the social engineering phase…. any suggestions as how to approach this?

(cross-posted at BroadBandReports.com)

This one is pretty confusing to me – although I have my suspicions as to why, mentioned later – and I’m hoping someone out there can give me an answer.

Like most people in Loudoun County (Virginia), I can’t get DSL because of fibre in one form or another, be it lines underground or SLICs. Verizon tells me I can’t get DSL when I try prequal, as does Earthlink and all the major “consumer” oriented ISPs.

However, the strange part is that companies that offer “business” tiered DSL options, such as COVAD, Speakeasy etc., do give me DSL options… but only SDSL, despite the fact that the do have ADSL provisions.

A clearer example: If I try a prequal, requesting home service on either COVAD or Speakeasy’s site, I only get business-class SDSL options of up to 384 or 768. That is to say, while they do not specifically say “no, you can’t get regular consumer ADSL”, any such listing is excluded, and only business options are shown.

Why would a company be able to offer me SDSL of speeds up to 768/768, if regular ole consumer-oriented ADSL isn’t available?

It’s my suspicion that they’re a whole lot more willing to “stick their necks out”, placate business needs and get things fixed, when they’re going to make their $$$ selling “business-class”, SLA (service level agreement)-laden SDSL. However, if there is a technical reason, I’d be interested in learning it.

Thanks.

OMG WHY IS FOREIGNER ON RADIO@AOL’s “Hard Rock” CHANNEL??//