pseydtonne | From the new pad in Melrose

The furniture is mostly where it belongs, although I have no idea where to put my lounge chair. The cable triumvirate that I sell all day (digital cable, cable modem, local & long distance phone) took half an hour to install yesterday morning, although I then spent twenty minutes on hold with the cable modem tech in Winnipeg because of a registration glitch. Calmcats, unlike AT&Love, does not put fliters on the cable lines not going to the modem. I've seen no problems, either. This makes life easier.

I'm getting fine speeds. I decided to find out the rough distance for DSL, just to see what would've happened if I weren't such a fan of the coaxial snake. According to the rough test from dslreports.com, I live 14,470 feet (2.74 miles) from the central office (CO). That's nearly three miles, a sizeable distance for a city of only 4 square miles. The CO is named MLDNMAEL, the report said. That would be the Malden office, which is directly behind the parking lot for my office. Now I can compare that distance to my commute to work. I am certain I'd only get 768/128 if I'd been a DSL victim. I'm getting 1713/214 of the advertised 1500/256 as of this morning's cable modem test. For midday, that's groovy.

I shouldn't say rough test, actually. When I worked at Genie-in-a-Bottleneck, I would have to call someone in a subdivision of Hertical (you know, the renamed Baby Gong) and get a measurement with an accuracy of hundreds of feet. To have those numbers for free is a coup.

This apartment is wonderful. If only I understood fuse boxes -- I'd always had circuit breakers before. One of the outlets, and only one, blew during a storm the other day. I thought I'd replaced the right fuse, but I still have no juice there. I can't understand the metal readings.

Anyway, it's time for showering, shaving and working. I felt so relaxed yesterday. I was having an easy day on the phones until evening. Let's cheer for another smooth day of talkable but not talkative customers.

-nice to see y'all, Dante