Today seems like a good day for Bedoiun Soundclash

I'm also left wondering if the air will ever feel more like air than like water ever again. Because it's been a while.

Things I shouldn't look at

My sister has spent a while considering getting a dog. I think she and I both have similar dog-wanting desires, as we've both been raised with the same dogs for most of our lives and we've both recently begun living on our own in places where having a dog might be plausible. Her more than me, in that regard. Since she moved into a condo I get the impression that she's felt a more and more pressing urge to get a dog of her own.

We grew up with purebred dogs from breeders. And while I can't complain about how that worked out, I've definitely come to be an advocate of rescue programs more and more lately. And I was pleasantly surprised to hear that she felt the same way.

Me, being as teacherly as I am, I have trouble considering getting a dog that someone else trained before me. I certainly wasn't alone in the process, but I think I did as much as anyone else did when training Jake, and I just have trouble with the idea of getting a dog I don't get to train.

But Meagan's far busier, and in turn, far more of an advocate of getting a dog that has some training already. Not to mention that she's far more ready to actually get a dog. She's looking to get one in the next year or so. I'm at least a couple years away from being able to handle/afford having a dog of my own. But I've offered to help with her dog whenever I can, whether it's in terms of training or anything else.

And as part of that, I tend to check up on local rescue dogs from time to time. I don't doubt that she's doing the same thing, but I still like to be able to say "Hey, here's an adorable dog you should check out."

And while that's generally all well and good, I can't help but get the occasional "I must have that dog" feeling. Tonight's instance was Liam, who I would not be surprised to find that he's been adopted and taken off the page before you read this. And, bearing that in mind, here's a pic that won't get deleted:



He's pretty much exactly what I want in a puppy, but probably a little younger than what Meagan's looking for. And with that in mind, I'm stuck with that "I desperately want him but can't have him" feeling.

And that's the biggest problem with looking at these dogs. At least, there's like 10% of them who leave me feeling like "Wow, he/she's adorable and I must have him/her" But, at most, Meagan will end up with one of these dogs. And I'll likely end up with none of them, at least in the relevant future. So I'm mostly just left feeling guilty for not adopting all of these dogs.

But I swear I would if I could. Liam, especially.

Why I love computing...

I got my internet installed today. I chose the "Don't make me pay $50 to have some guy hook up two wires to my modem/computer" option. In theory, it may have been a mistake. In actuality, it probably would've just meant that the guy left me with everything hooked up but the internet not working, which is where I was about two hours ago.

I figured I was smart enough to hook up a modem to my computer and get the internet working. I'm not sure I was wrong.

That said, I hooked it up and it didn't work. I spent the better part of an hour doing all the obvious troubleshooting things, and solved a few apparent problems, but they just kept coming. I'd fix one thing and another thing would go wrong.

So after an hour or so of messing around with that, both by doing things to the modem itself and by doing everything I could think of with my computer, I gave in and called Comcast tech support. I first talked to a guy named Jason (or, I like to imagine, Jayson). He was a nice enough fellow, but he had a speech impediment that reminded me of some character who I still have yet to place, and he clearly wasn't the star of the team, so to speak. I spent probably 15 minutes talking to him and he took me through a bunch of relatively obvious stuff before telling me that the problem seemed to be on my end and that he was pretty much at a loss. Then he said something about looking around for a tech who knew more than him who might be able to help me. He put me on hold.

When someone came back, he asked me what phone number I was trying to activate. This was pretty standard cable company incompetence, by my recollection. Apparently Jayson had accidentally (or intentionally?) transferred me to someone else in a completely different department.

Ironically, perhaps, this guy was at least as helpful as Jayson. He took me through a lot of the same steps, and then did a couple things "totally from memory" because apparently people who are not in the internet department have no access to computers and can't know what shows up when you open, for example, "Network Connections".

I spent another 10-15 minutes with him, but eventually he said that whatever it was was probably over his head. Then, he did the greatest thing anybody at any cable company has ever done for me: He said he'd transfer me back to the internet department, but it wouldn't be a cold transfer. He'd get someone in the department, tell them why I was being transferred, and then come back on the line with me and tell me who I was being transferred to. For a cable company, that's a pretty big deal.

So, finally, I got back to someone who seemed to know what he was doing. If I wasn't aware of the type of people he deals with on a regular basis, I would've thought he was being a condescending ass. But, thinking about it, if someone like my mom were to call him, she'd probably think he was the most helpful guy ever. He walked me through literally every step in the process (e.g. "Left-click on the Start Menu. Now find 'Control Panel' along the right side. Left-click on that." And so on...).

He took me through a bunch of stuff I had already done. Then he took me through a series of more in-depth things that I didn't change. It was basically a bunch of "Ok, go to this menu. This, this, and this should be clicked. They already are? Great." I didn't make a single change to any setting. But when it was all done, it prompted me to restart my computer, something I had done about 10 times already. So I did it again.

And when it started up again, everything was working. Not for any particular reason. Not because I had changed anything. But, apparently, because Windows needed me to acknowledge that I didn't want to change anything.

In total, I spent 48 minutes on the phone with Comcast. A solid chunk of that was on hold listening to ridiculously loud jazz music. And, in total, they had me change nothing, but they fixed everything.

We are way too reliant on these ridiculous machines. Me especially.