So here's my fabulous excuse for the lack of posts on this blog of late: no internet access!
My love to ComCast for their complete lack of assistance.
Things we tried:
1. Endless calls to tech support at all hours of the day and night.
2. Pinging and iprepairing and everything else from the C:\ prompt (fun!).
3. Service call (episode 1).
4. Changing the network card (episode 1).
5. Reformatting the hard drive (episode 1).
6. Changing the cable modem.
7. Service call (episode 2).
8. Changing the network card (episode 2).
9. Reformatting the hard drive (episode 2).
10. Several episodes of crying, screaming, throwing things, and calling ComCast to ask for a supervisor.
Don't get me wrong, ComCast's people were largely nice, cooperative, and competent. Some of them, unfortunately, were clearly allied with the dark side. However, all's well that ends well, I guess. I still need to reinstall a bunch more programs, but that's ok.