Dial up may very well be faster...

It certainly would have been faster when I was living in Death Valley.  Satellite broadband my ass.  Nothing broad about it.  Bit bandy, maybe.

Anyways...

We don't have satellite broadband here.  Which may be my one saving grace right now.  What we do have is a continuing and overwhelming hatred of British Telecom, and we still need to file a bunch of complaints with them and various oversight/monitoring/conflict resolution companies.

Thursday we went live with our Virgin Media DSL connection.  We tried to get cable broadband, but because a) we live in an apartment complex ("Mill conversion" actually, and think small condos in actuality, but half of them are being rented out) and b) we live in the BFE (hi, welcome to Yorkshire, there's a sheep.  have fun, but avoid the cattle) cable wasn't an option in any way, shape, or form.  No matter the provider, EVERYONE here has painfully slow service, supposedly because we're far away from the {mumble} of BT.  I think it's more directly because BT sucks sweaty, feces covered monkey balls on their best days.

I mentioned we had Virgin Media though, so what gives with bitching about BT, you may ask (or you may not, but regardless, I shall tell you).  BT controls all telecom in the country.  They have you by the short curly ones, because if you need a phone line, they are the only people you can talk to.  And if you need to use that phone line, you have to pay a line rental fee.  That runs you nearly £12 per month.  And you have to sign a 12 month contract.  Sometimes after the year is up, your provider will absorb your line rental cost for you, but think about that, and then the costs of the other providers.  That said, BT is no cheaper, and was in fact quite a lot more expensive.  We've got a great deal going with Virgin, even factoring in an additional £12/month.

Well, we have a great deal with one exception.  Because we're far away from the BT hub/trunk/whatever, we have SLOW service.  But--and here's the kicker--the further away from said whatever you are, the more you have to pay for your service.  So we actually will be paying MORE for the priviledge of watching dead snails go past us on the web.  Go us!

When I say slow service, I mean sites like Kingdom of Loathing, which is a text-based game with minimal graphics, have problems loading.  Google searches rountinely fail because they can't connect.  I can't watch Yahoo! videos.  It turns out I can watch YouTube if I load it up in Firefox, not Safari, because the connection is so bad it breaks Safari.  And the videos routinely freeze in Firefox.  I have no idea if I can do video chat with my family, but I do know that iChat's text messaging crapped out on me several times when I was talking to them the other night.  If the basic messaging service dies, how will video fare?

Supposedly our service will get a little faster over the next few days, as Virgin figures out the max speed they can give up without blowing up our phone line.  We're paying for up to 8 megs of speed,and unlimited downloads, but most people report getting less than 3 megs, and usually less than 2.  As a side note, unlimited downloads are incredibly important, because every site you visit adds to your download amount, and 10 gigs isn't that much if you use the web heavily.  Even if you don't download movies or music (legal/iTunes also counts toward that limit) think about how many Yahoo! videos or YouTube clips you watch, let alone how many Google or IMDb searches you perform.  To which I say eek!  I'm always looking stuff up.

Right, so I'm back and live.  Ish.  I still have to finish my saga of getting to England, and the move.  But that, at least, in a nutshell, is why I hate BT.  And your random techie knowledge for the day (note that I'm not really a techie.  For useful information, see other people).

Off to finish making my chicken soup and dumplings, and try to get more than a couple of paragraphs written on my novel.  Novel sounds so much more pretentious than book, does it not?

Soon...

We should finally have internet at our place soon.  Then I have much to post, including further rants on Delta airlines, and more importantly, the absolute hatred I have towards British Telecom.  BT will be hearing about their incompetence soon.

Dublin

Yeah, we had to travel to Dublin to get internet.  It's pretty awesome here.  That said, for once I'd like to go somewhere that isn't cold and windy (it's only cold because of the wind).  Oh well.  Perhaps I should consider travelling at peak tourist times.  Oh, wait...

Adam's aiming for bed.  Actually, he's in bed, and I'm sleepy and sore as well, so I want to join him.  So I shall wrap this up by saying that if we do ever get the internets, I will post all about the rest of my travelling to the UK, our move, the hassle of getting internet and the hatred I have toward BT.  And of course, our trip to Dublin, and the land of lovely lovely Guinness (went there today) and Jameson (tomorrow).

New Home

After much complaining and trying to get people at the letting agent's to talk to each other (or at least to us, and then we'd pass on information), Adam and I are moving tomorrow.  We found this out today.  Thankfully, he got both tomorrow and Monday off from work, so we have 4 days in which to move, although we're getting the van tomorrow.  So really, we have one day to move, and 3 days to go "oh fuck, we forgot that.  And that.  AND that..."

We don't have a bed yet, and I'm getting advice thrown at me from all sides.  Less so from my folks, but in part that's because I don't see or talk to them every day.  People tend to forget that a) I'm a lot closer to 30 than to 20 and b) I have actually lived on my own before (for several years, even!), and been completely and totally responsible for myself, and I've even moved a couple of times.  Yeah, I'm capable.  And so is Adam.

That said, yes, we need some help moving, and we need to borrow some things, and if we need other help, we'll definitely ask--and have.  It's hard to do this on our own, without a car and such, but we are big boys and girls (or singular of each, really).

And now I need to get back to it.  We'll have internet at the apartment eventually, but I don't know when that'll happen.  Soon, hopefully.  I don't like not having web access...

Why I don't like to travel, and why people don't like me when I do travel

Or why I didn't call Anne when I was stranded in Atlanta.

But first I had to get to Atlanta.

I am now in England, and have been for just over a week.  I should have posted sooner, but I just didn't want to.  I don't really want to post now, either, but I've run out of excuses.

Wednesday the 18th of February I got up early and showered, ate a small something and walked Faith before piling my two 49.9 pound suitcases (guess the weight limit) into the trunk of the car.  My laptop case and freakishly heavy backpack went into the backseat with me.  Just for your reference, a PS2, controllers, various cables, writing notebooks, and 256 CD wallet/case thing weigh a LOT.  They will also expand your backpack so it barely fits in the overhead compartment.  Oh, and security says you have to take the PS2 out like you would a laptop (yet they don't make you take out external hard drives...there is no logic).  Mom and Dad got me to Portland plenty early, and so I checked in, got absolutely no assurances on how to claim money from Delta if anything got stolen out of my suitcases (namely my cooking knives and their nice new knife bag), and had some greasy food.  I also had some Dramamine and Xanax.  Eventually I said goodbye to Mom and Dad and sent them home to care for the puppy, and I went to my gate.  Where my Delta flight to Atlanta was late, presumably because the flight that was coming into our gate was late (we were to use that plane).  This will become a common feature in my tale...

We left about half an hour late, on a marginally clean plane.  Bear in mind, that I had only a 1.5 hour layover in Atlanta, and international flights close the gate at 10 minutes prior to departure.  Still, no problems.  Until we're over Decatur Mississippi (as opposed to Decatur, Georgia, where Anne lives) and I wake up and look out the window.  Lightning is beautiful from above and to the side, and apparently not really dangerous to commercial aircraft, but who really wants to be struck by lightning whilst in a metal tube in the sky? Apparently Atlanta airport nor the pilots wanted that so we gave Atlanta a wide bearth for about half an hour until the storm moved/broke enough for us to land. Remember that 1.5 hour layover? We're now down an hour.

When we landed the flight crew did ask those people terminating in Atlanta to remain seated so those with connecting flights could deplane first. Either 99% of the flight was connecting, or most people are assholes. Personally, I think it was a combination of the two. I was 3/4 of the way to the back of the plane, so by the time I got off the plane, I had about 10 minutes to get through the airport to my gate. Saving the mad dash through the airport, I didn't make it. When I finally got to the terminal, I saw my flight was closed, so I stopped at the Delta "assisstance desk" and asked what I was supposed to do. Rosetta "helped" me, and clearly didn't give a fuck about me, or anyone else who missed their flights. I understand weather, but I still believe that had we left Portland on time, we either would have beaten the storm (the airport was only closed for half an hour), or we would have been first out of the holding pattern--either way I probably could have made my flight (apparently the only flight Delta could be bothered to have depart on time that day). Instead, I was stuck in Atlanta for 24 hours. With no clothes or toiletries, as they wouldn't release my luggage to me. They gave me no meal vouchers (though a nice couple gave me an extra one of theirs), wouldn't cover a hotel room for me, though I did get the "airline discount", which turns out to have been 40¢ more than if I had just booked it myself, and no one once said they were sorry. Again, weather is no one's fault, but say you're sorry--it goes a long way. Oh, but they did give me an "amenities pack." This contained a tee-shirt (which had a stain on it, but it did smell clean), and some basic toiletries. Very basic. I was just about the only person who got one of those, because I made a point of asking/bitching. They weren't offered to most people. And though I thought Rosetta was unhelpful and uncaring, the women who were in charge of handing these out (there were two people to do the work of a box) were flat-out surly.

So Delta booked me onto the next flight to Manchester, which was 24 hours later. I should have called Anne, but she's travelled with me before (more or less) and knows how I am, so I chose not to subject her to that. Or the smell--the amenities pack did contain some laundry soap, but it's really hard to wash/dry a shirt when it's the only one you have and you only have 13 hours in the hotel room (and the hotel has no laundry facilities). But the hotel did have free wi-fi, so eventually I got ahold of Adam to tell him and Tony to not come get me Thursday, since I wouldn't be there til Friday.

When I finally checked in again on Thursday, the woman who checked me in was incredibly friendly and helpful (I wrote her full name down somewhere, but I can't find it right now. Ms. Gayle, thank you for saying sorry and being so helpful). She got me a seat (which Rosetta couldn't be bothered to do) and reassured me as to where my bags were and where they would ultimately end up (ie, with me, in Manchester).

See, but my story isn't done yet. I haven't been through the customs ordeal with you yet. But that is for another post. Because thinking about it just makes me angry.