I thought my ISP hated me; turns out, they hate everybody. →[More:]My internet connection is via Charter Cable because, halfway between downtown San Luis Obispo and downtown Pismo Beach, there is no DSL so I have no choice. I have had "intermittent outages" almost daily for the last week. It went thud twice while I was checking out the new #mefi irc today - everybody there must now think I'm even more antisocial than I am. I gave up on my in-house wifi and directly plugged my laptop in, which helped for a while. Sometimes the desk computer connects when the lappy isn't. Sometimes the cable TV goes out too but most of the time not. I'd installed "WAMP" on my lappy to do some off-line web design, so I wondered if some semi-smart sensor at the company thought I was running my own web server which is against their rules. (How silly; thinking Charter's operation has semi-smart anything) But now I pick up the local Dead Tree Paper and Charter has a half-page ad pre-announcing the addition of Telephone Service and Movies On Demand to its offerings, and, down in the last paragraph, apologizing for any "intermittent outages" that may have occurred or will occur while the new stuff is set up. (That's funny; they put it in the newspaper but not on the internet) So, if I missed something, or will something, I apologize, but I think I'm going to participate in "Shutdown Day" and just ignore the whole thing tomorrow. Anybody else gonna shutdown? (If so, tell me in the next 5½ hours or I won't see it)

Or to put it another way, THIS IS A COMPLAINING THREAD.