1. I did not cross the Sanzu River
2. I am not and was not a victim of H1N1
3. Competition is good
4. Internet is like water and electricity
5. How did I live without Internet again?
Happy new year. Whoever you might be... who ever it is reading this, I thank you lots. Makes me feel all fluffy and warm inside knowing someone out there still cares about this lot in the net. I was pleasantly surprised to find comments from 3 different people on my page concerning my disappearance. I appreciate the concern, all three of you
I spent my first few minutes of 2010 sleeping in a hot, stuffy van, waking up to the sounds of fireworks. But that's not much of a story at all unless you were at the RSC. How was YOUR new year celebration?
I hope none of you here needed confirmation from point number 2. I really do :\
Allow me to explain the last two.
I did not have Internet for my holidays.
Now, see, in the housing area where I live, only one Internet provider that completely reaches us. They call themselves Streamyx.
Oh, don't get the wrong idea just yet. They're not that bad. 'cept from the bad customer service. Buuuut they're not that bad.
Anyway, like I said, we didn't have problems at all with the Internet... when it was working. The thing about Streamyx is that they really enjoy cutting off our connection from the cyber world every now and then. It's like they're run by sadists.
Or masochists. Since they rarely (Never, actually, but I'm being nice) warn us before they cut the Internet connection, they sure get a lot of complaints. I pity the customer service people.
My dad would call in and ask them what was happening. They were either:
A) Upgrading,
B) Doing maintenance, or
C) Repairing.
Now, internet loss (without prior warning) happened at least once a year without fail. But it usually lasted for, at most, 3 weeks. But this year, it lasted for 2 months.
Streamyx said it was an upgrade process.
I'm no pro nor do I have any knowledge when it comes to this, but, seriously? Two months? A friend of my neighbour was doing business through the Internet. And guess what?
He bankrupted.
Those who really needed the Internet were spending more than before, with the petrol and food from Starbucks or whatever eatery with Wi-Fi. Wireless Internet access is not provided by every cafe over here, though the numbers are rising.
Probably succumbing to pressure, Streamyx finally allowed Internet access for a few days before 25th of December. A day or two after Christmas, it was cut off once again. Time to resume the upgrade, I guess.
Streamyx said that it was probably our modem causing the trouble. So they sent their technician to our place.
This sounds like a normal Internet-less story. But what made the whole thing somehow scary was that there had been several burglaries in my lane. The robberies all happened during the "upgrade". I didn't even notice, until the "technician" from Streamyx came to our house to look at our modem.
And he literally LOOKED AT our modem. He just stood there, stared at our modem, then saying the cable isn't compatible with my mom's Macbook, and that was that.
My mom was furious. She wondered whether that technician was a technician at all, and not some guy who looks inside a house just to rob it better. And she's been using the same cable with her Macbook since '08. "So why the heck is it suddenly NOT compatible?" she asked. The guy shrugged.
I don't know what happened after that, but basically the "technician" didn't do much. My mom didn't allow him further into the house, even if he wanted to "look at" our computers too.
My mom did make a couple of calls. They kept passing her call around whenever she asked what was happening. Some of them replied by reading from some history logs ("A technician came to your house to fix the problem on <insert date> at <insert time>... correct?") but my mom was all, "No, I don't want history. I want to know what exactly is happening NOW."
The whole issue was resolved when the call was passed to some chap named Marvin or Melvin or something like that. I'm not sure what happened (wasn't there) but the next day, two technicians came and actually DID something. I'm not sure what, I wasn't up at the time. And I wouldn't want to bug them anyway. The point is, Internet was BACK.
We got Internet back on the last day of 2009. It felt it was faster than before, but, thinking back, it was probably because we haven't seen a site load for a long time!
But seriously. Just because we have no alternatives, these people think that they can do things in whatever way they want. Well, actually they can. But it's just not right.
I can't wait until P1 WiMax expands its borders.
This big mess really taught me something, though. Internet is... well, a necessity to most of us. Without Internet, communication is practically cut off. Heck, when I logged into Facebook for the first time in two months, I missed so many things I decided to not catch up. I'm glad I don't do Twitter or blogs. That would suck.
Oh, don't worry. I wasn't in a state of depression when Internet was gone. I was playing Dragon Age. Hehe.
Again, I'm grateful to you folks out there who asked about my inactivity! I'm entering one of the most important years of my life as a highschool student. 2010 will be one hectic year; catching up with last year's syllabus and preparing for he national exam. The final, final, FINAL national exam ever. Phew! Since I really sucked last year, I should work even harder this year. Daymn. This is going to be the most hectic year of my life.
This all leads to inactivity to doing other things, though. Drawing isn't top 3 on my priority list, but it's certainly somewhere around number 5. I wish I hadn't delayed coming back to DA. Just when I thought of it, Internet died. No use regretting now, I guess.
I realize that, especially after my absence, this post would come and go without a word, but I just want to say that I missed you guys, whether these words are read or not.
But if they are... What's up? Any news? Seen Avatar yet? (For the record, I haven't)