Let's Try This Again

Argh. Okay, so obviously my network problems got worse, not better. My laptop also finally gave up the ghost (I've had it since college and that's an increasingly frightening long time ago.) and that was that as far as the "upload those blog post and postdate whenever I can" plan went.

First it was the router which I sent back to the manufacturer for a replacement. Then the switch I used to hop from upstairs to downstairs went bad, prompting another replacement. Then I had to track down and resplice some cords that were giving intermittent service. At this point, I'm half convinced that by this time next week I'll be crawling through the rafters trying to find the cables that some furry creatures (Having inexplicably found their way back into my attic after I spent way too much money last year having that problem fixed.) had managed to chew through and dreading the discovery of half-fried little corpses.

Fortunately, it hasn't come to that. Although I did spend the better part of the evening with some rudimentary wiring guides trying to figure out why a dimmer switch wasn't working. Short answer: it was so old that the spring inside of it, the one that holds the switch in when you click it to turn on the light, had broken. Replacing it was an adventure in and of itself. Not only because I'm deathly terrified of electrical fires ever since that one childhood incident that I like to call "The Story of the Smoking Wall" but because I was dealing with the detritus of electrical wiring from some forty years ago - maybe even longer, dating to when this house was even built. I knew I was in trouble when I opened up the wall and went "...huh, there's no ground here."

Anyhow, I have refitted my network, replaced everything except the desk on which the router sits, reformatted various computers until I was reciting IP addresses in my sleep, and made the appropriate sacrifices to the dark elder gods of technology who conspire against me. Having, I believe, successfully mollified them, my internet is back and, hopefully, so is this blog.

Just in time, too, since there's plenty to talk about. From the start of college football to the conventions and - finally - the final stretch of the campaigns. There's even that new Warhammer MMO I've been hearing so much about. Sadly, I wasn't in the beta and I'm probably not buying the game but I'm hoping to check out the open beta at the very least. There's a month left before the latest NaNo kicks off, too, so I'd better get used to pouring out the daily wordage again. That should be enough to keep me busy. For now, anyway.