Hello, my intended...

I know, most of your were wondering what the fuck happened to the Recap. I don't blame you, since I try to have them up within ten minutes of the show closing. Funny story, there... Ready?

My internet went out.

Feeling pretty peeved, I calmed down a bit and then called Verizon to find out what the hell was wrong. After going through their phone-based purgatory I get an actual person, who runs me through their script. I'm a pretty intelligent person, kids, so when I have to sit there and tell them 'Yes, it's plugged in.' I get a little upset. I managed to suppress my usual vitriol when someone talks to me like I'm a fucking idiot and we get through the script with no solution... Okay, that means we get forwarded to the Advance Tech. After going round and round with him, they do a couple traces and find out that the problem is with the hardware at the office - a bad node or something like that, I'm told. No problem. They'll get a tech sent out and it'll fix things right up. Should only take about 24-48 hours...

Could be worse, I guess.

Well, faced with that, I decide to just tape Raw and watch it when I can actually post the results. I'd even decided to do a more 'detailed' play-by-play with a minimum of the comedic poking of the fun. Why? Well, in truth, while poking fun at the show as it happens is really cool(?), doing it with a tape-delay kinda musses the whole thing to me. My recaps are special(?) in the respect that I serve them up fresh off the skillet, and I feel that energy doesn't work as well with a delay. You could read ANYBODY's Recap for that kind of thing, but mine is usually done 'as it happens' so the jokes are what I come up with at the time, instead of something I 'try to make funny'. It works for me, though I'll be damned if I know how...

So, imagine my surprise when I try to log on to the internet after the aforementioned 24-48 hours (48 precisely, if you must know) and I get bupkiss. Puzzled, I call my tech support guys over at Verizon because... well, I love to hear people that get paid forty bucks an hour (plus bennies) tell me they have no idea what's wrong. Undaunted, I inquired about my 'trouble ticket' from Monday which I was assured would be properly remedied no later than the Wednesday evening I was currently on the phone with them. They told me that they couldn't fund the original trouble ticket, so they had to generate a new one - but don't worry! This time it'll be handled in short order - 24-48 hours at the worst. So, in the worst case scenario, I would have no internet until Friday...

Could be worse, I guess.

Feeling pretty severely bummed about the whole deal, I decided to wait until the internet was back on before I did the recap so I could send it right out... Being depressed as I was over not having my blistering binary for over three days, I felt that if the show royally sucked (and there was a pretty good chance it would) I might pull a Jonny X at best - put my head in the fucking oven at worst. Since Dave and a few others kinda like having me around, I decided recapping Raw would wait a little longer.

So Friday rolls around and - you guessed it! - no fucking internet. I call the tech guys at Verizon and brace myself for the latest in cutting edge buck-passing and bullshit. After I assure them that the modem on my end is not defective - and even if it was, the brand new one they sent certainly wasn't, they pull up the history. Yes, they sent a technician to the office to trace the problem and he couldn't find one.

"Is that the technician you sent Monday, or Wednesday?" I asked.

"According to the slips, it was from a work-order generated Monday," they reply.

"The one your guys told me you lost?"

"Um..."

"Well, here's an idea... What time is the tech that was sent out Wednesday due at the office?"

"Pardon?"

"The follow-up work-order from when I called Wednesday because the problem wasn't solved?"

"Hmmm... Oh! Here it is! Um..."

"Umm?"

"That technician hasn't deployed yet..."

"Well, it's Friday evening... Could you maybe wake him up? I actually expect when I'm told something will happen within a certain time that it would at least be STARTED in that timeframe. I'm funny like that."

"I'm very sorry for your inconvenience, sir."

"I know. What can you do for me?"

"Well, I can flag this as an 'Urgent' problem, and that'll fast-track it. The techs work all week, so one of them should be working on your trouble by Saturday morning... I'll personally call you on Saturday to bring you up to speed on the status of your problem."

"That doesn't give me much hope, you know... I mean, how hard is it to go to the board where I'm plugged in and just swap out the defective modem?"

"I'm very sorry for your inconvenience, sir."

"I know. Saturday, eh? I'll be waiting for your call..."

So, Saturday comes around and I watch the cartoons to buy the guys some MORE time to do the five minute job they've been working on all fucking week already, and then I boot up and go to the router to have it connect...

No connection.

A bit bothered by now, I call the tech support guys again... Good news/bad news. Ready? Good News: The techs traced the problem to the main office and a defective node therein. Bad news: The main office is fucking CLOSED, and nobody can get in the sumbitch until Monday. However, since they understood I had things that needed doing online (email and such) they would be happy to transfer me to billing for some help.

The billing folks set me up with a Temporary Dial-Up Account free of charge for a month. Peachy. Sure, I wouldn't be able to get anywhere near my normal work done, but I could do SOMETHING... So, armed with this tiny assistance, I sat down and sighed deeply. Folks, I've been on DSL or faster for the last four years, so to put it in an easy-to-understand perspective I just put my Porsche in the shop, and the only thing they had to give me as a loaner was a Dodge Dart. Still, it beat a blank I figured... So, I went through the old 'Wheeeee-Beep-Beyoo' like old times and connected at a blistering 31.2bps (on a 56.6bps modem, amusingly enough) and got my e-mail, then I logged off.

Could be worse, I guess...

Steeling myself, I rewind the tape that's been sitting in the VCR since Monday so I can get the recap out of the way before I fall a week behind. Then I turn on the expensive 16:9 1080i TV that I'm so fucking proud to have, and I wait.

And I wait...

And I wait...

"What the fuck is it NOW?" I demand of the Almighty as I grimly go behind the set to see what's gotten disconnected so that I suddenly can't see anything on the uber-tuber. Everything's connected just like it's supposed to be. "Tell me You didn't...?" I ask the Lord. The Lord doesn't answer, but I know already...

Bobo's Big TeeVee is Dead as a Brick. As added comedy, said Big TeeVee was doubling as a monitor for Bobo's Big Computer - and is homebase for Bobo's Big X-Box - and is the only fucking TV in the house... This means either Bobo must carry said Big (200 lbs) TeeVee to Best Buy to get them to fix it, or Bobo will be calling them to come to his house to fix it. Since the home visit will take about ten days of no-TV, Bobo will be lugging that fucking box of shit to Best Buy Sunday afternoon when they open. I'm well aware that the possibility they simply exchange that big sumbitch for a new big sumbitch is fucking nil, expensive extended warranty or not. This pretty much means that they'll be shipping it off to Samsung for repair. That'll take - you guessed it! - about ten days of no TV at least.

Could be worse, I guess...

Damned if I know HOW, though.

So, that's the situation, kids... If I could make this kind of shit up, I'd be a fucking millionaire author.

Just thought I'd bring you up to speed, in case anyone was worried...

You're welcome. See you SOON.