To Hell in a Handbasket - or Why I Hate Aliant.

finally an assignment i could sink my teeth into. one class into feature writing and our assignment was to whip up a blog on anything that struck our fancy, so long as we showcased our writing "attitude", otherwise known as writers' "voice". a blog? is meek serious? this is the stuff of dreams, anyone who knows me well can attest to the fact that i have a lot to say, and attitude to spare. i won't get into it here, but those very attributes have gotten me into, and out of, hot water on many occasions. needless to say i was excited. so, on friday night when i sat down at my computer i was primed and ready. i had big plans to take this assignment to the mat, blog it into submission, if you will...unfortunately things didn't go quite as i planned. if i was a plane and the assignment was my flight plan, well, we never would have gotten off the ground. the reason for the delay? why technical difficulties, of course, but more on that later.

since last monday's class i had been keenly watching news stories and popular culture for items that piqued my interest. by friday i had a good sense of the post i would create. everything i came across, from local happenings like the sex attack on a 12 year old girl at the truro raceway and the hoopla surrounding ernie fage's car crash cover-up, to bush's call for more troops and the senseless slaying of one-time haligonian, mother, activist and animator helen hill at her home in new orleans was pointing me in one direction...the dark road humanity seems to be heading down. to hell in a hand basket they say. and the way i saw (and see) it, if that is the case then that basket is in the hand of someone riding a rush hour express. at this rate we'll get there in record time. so with witty quips ready to fly i got comfy in my uncomfortable computer chair and prepared to take off.

that's when things really got interesting.

error 678: remote computer s not responding. what the hell does that mean? after trying to connect to the internet for about 15 minutes to no avail, i started trying every trick i know to figure out what the problem was. with no further course of action left to take i did the unthinkable, i called aliant technical support...i should mention here, in the spirit of transparency, that i HATE aliant. most of my family has worked for ,or still currently work for, the bastards. since making the transition from mtt to become the eastern canada's communications giant my former affinity for the company has tanked, and that's putting it mildly. actually calling to "speak to a representative" is a big step for me. now, before everyone gets all whack on my ass it's not the representatives i have a problem with, it's what they represent. the people i actually spoke with were pleasant and helpful, but i was irate. my temperature peaked when after about 20 minutes of checking this and disconnecting that, turning this off and restarting the whole system about five times the aliant rep tells me they have an outage in the rockingham area, so if that's my 'hood i may be affected. i live behind rockingham ridge, so i told him that yes, likely that is the problem, and inquired when the server would be back on-line. "best estimates" were in about an hour, maybe a little more. everything, according to my source, went off-line at 3pm and i was assured that it wouldn't be long now. like an idiot i bought their schlock hook, line, and sink 'er. i'm happy to say that i was a harder sell as each hour passed with no improvement. finally after about five hours of anxious waiting i gave up, i had to accept that i was grounded for the night. instead of spending my night crafting inspired word play on the world wide web, i spent it in limbo, fantasizing of the many ways i could bring down the behemoth corporation that ruined my plans for word domination. but, you may ask, what about all the brilliant points i had planned on making? oh well, there's always tomorrow... and believe me i will be back.