The Internet Is Back Up.

Between the meatheads at Time Warner and the dopes at DirecTV, it's amazing my Internet connection ever works.

A couple of months ago, a Time Warner contractor botched my cable TV/Internet by disconnecting my wires so he could hook up a new neighbor's service. Last night I came home to discover I was again without service. Since it's the end of the month, I figured it had happened again.

I called Time Warner and spoke with one of their harried customer service reps. He told me the next appointment for service wasn't until Monday. "Not good enough," I told him. He put me on five-minute hold, and the next voice I heard was that of his supervisor. The supervisor told me he could get someone out today, but that it was an all-day appointment--anywhere between "8AM and the end of the day." I suddenly felt like Kramer when he was playing games with the cable guy as pay-back for his late cable installation. If you remember the episode, the cable guy ultimately acknowledges how all-day appointments just piss people off.

Who wants to hang around their apartment on a beautiful summer Sunday?

Anyway, when I called this morning to follow-up, Time Warner had gotten most of the details wrong. First, the appointments start at 9AM, not 8. Secondly, the numbskull last night scheduled the appointment for Monday--tomorrow--not today.

I, ahem, gently corrected them.

Good thing I called to follow up, eh?

Fast-forward to 4PM. I've waited all day. My mood is much darker than the gleaming sun I am missing. And what does the technician find when he gets here?

He discovers that DirecTV botched my Time Warner connection this time, and they did so by once again disconnecting my wires to hook up some other asshole's satellite.

I, ahem, gently asked him to label my "goddamn" wires so that the next idiot that's screwing around down there knows that they are mine.

I also pointed out that the jumbled morass of tangled cable/Internet and satellite wires reminded me of my stereo set-up in college. It wasn't meant as a compliment.

I will be calling DirecTV tomorrow morning to tell them to keep their "goddamn" hands off my "goddamn" wires.

And how was your day?