I AM VERY MAD AT INTERNET STUFF

"PatBateman" (PatBateman) 05/11/2020 at 18:48 • Filed to: shitpost, Internet!, internets

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Our internet connection had been pretty slow all weekend. I thought nothing of it, since the whole damned world is trying to stream some Netflix and Disney+ goodness. This morning, it was still running slow as Christmas. Tried resetting the portal, tried restarting the router... Nothing. The second Xfinity person to try to help me finally said that the router was probably toast and needed to be changed out.

So I hauled ass to the Comcast store, swapped out the router, changed my service to the 1024mbps package, and raced home.

MIND YOU, I AM WORKING FROM HOME TRYING TO SERVICE MILLIONAIRES AND THEIR FINANCIAL NEEDS WHILE MY KIDS ARE ALSO HOME TRYING TO DO SOME SEMBLANCE OF SCHOOL ON THEIR COMPUTERS FML.

Get home, set it up, doesn’t work. Call Xfinity, beg for help. They help. Get everything FINALLY set up, able to call a client right before 3 PM to do the trade he’s been asking for all damned day.

That’s 7 hours straight of me trying to just get the internets to work.  That’s 7 hours straight of me being at the very edge of sanity, the very edge of dropping every single curse word in front of my daughters, the very edge of throwing multiple wifi routers into the street and beating them with a bat Office Space-style.  You should all be proud that I didn’t actually destroy something.

Fuck the internets.

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 18:53

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Never go full Pat Bateman please

Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 18:56

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Aww, he’s all angry Wrangly.

Did you ask them to kindly kill the old modem with fire ?

phenotyp > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:00

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Oh hey I know that feeling

pip bip - choose Corrour > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:00

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You’re angry

I can sense it 

Thomas Donohue > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:04

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I feel your frustration....which is why I switch backed to Verizon Fios after less than a year with Comcast/xfinity. Comcast went out nearly four times a month, sometimes for a few minutes, sometimes for a few hours .  I work from home, so that was not a good scenario.

Verizon ( which I had for 12 years before that but got sick of the high price) has never had any issues. (It’s also much cheaper once I was gone for six months and re-signed with them)

Curiously, can’t you use your phone/WiFi hotspot for ‘millionaire financial trades’ instead of waiting for a fix to your cable modem?

PatBateman > ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability 05/11/2020 at 19:07

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I do have an axe in the back yard...

hmm....

Wacko > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:07

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This cost me about 100$ cnd per month

Rural Canadian internet suck ass

PatBateman > Chan - Mid-engine with cabin fever 05/11/2020 at 19:08

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My actual request, verbatim, was, “I’d like you to smash this router into pieces, melt it down, and fire it out of a cannon.”

PatBateman > phenotyp 05/11/2020 at 19:09

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I actually recorded a 0.19mbps speed.  I almost used my ipad as a discus right then and there.

PatBateman > pip bip - choose Corrour 05/11/2020 at 19:09

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I thought I was hiding it well...

PatBateman > Thomas Donohue 05/11/2020 at 19:11

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So, we live in a nice big new subdivision in an area of Houston that one might consider “rural-urban interface”. Close enough to the city that we get all the services, far enough out that coyotes still run down the streets occasionally.

Our choices for high speed interwebs is limited to say the least.

PatBateman > Wacko 05/11/2020 at 19:12

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The 1 Gig package that I got today is $132/month.  Es muy bueno.

PatBateman > Wacko 05/11/2020 at 19:13

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Also, Eff that Ess.

facw > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:15

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Comcast was here today too. For some reason they needed to send a tech out to swap a cable box with a bad fan? In any event, their tech broke the internet connection and then left without seeing what was wrong. Thankfully the modem just needed to be reactivated for some reason (I assume because Comcast hates modems they don’t own?)

In any event, if you are doing any mission critical stuff from home, you should have tethering or a wifi hotspot as a backup, and your company should be paying any fees associated with it.

PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120 > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:17

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There’s a reason they wanted to dump the Comcast ( Comcraptic ) name and re-brand themselves as Xfinity....which doesn’t really work if they don’t improve their way of doing business. I hated them and their caps and all the other bullshit.

This is plenty fast for now and at $50/mo I’m okay with it .  Apparently we’re supposed to be getting a bump to 240Mbit/s at some point in the near non-COVID future.

zipfuel > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:24

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Just had a similar experience: I didn’t know solid state modems could “go bad” typically shit works or it doesn’t.

I also learned cable modems with Intel Puma 6 chips generally suck (to the extent there’s a class action) and get overloaded easily.

Anyway we are back to tolerable performance at least.

zipfuel > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:27

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Oooh good idea, I may launch my old POS cable modem skyward on a water bottle rocket...

gettingoldercarguy > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:46

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Cran apple actually

ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 19:51

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Xfinity is nice in the middle of nowhere midwest tho. Thats for $40/month

PatBateman > facw 05/11/2020 at 20:05

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I can technically work off my LTE-enabled iPad in the event of an emergency, but I didn’t have any emergency trades that needed to be performed. It was all about getting back up and running ASAP instead.

Plus, I need the kids to do their stinking work, so the router had to be fixed quick.

PatBateman > zipfuel 05/11/2020 at 20:06

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I’m getting ready to go for a 1.5 hour  jog/walk (just ate, can’t run too much, will barf).  When I get back though, it’ll be shower, put the kids to bed, and then fire up the FireStick and watch some mind-numbing Rated R shit to test out that connection.

PatBateman > PyroHoltz f@h Oppo 261120 05/11/2020 at 20:08

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I was running at 75mbps for $102.  My 1024mbps package I got today is $132/month.  I was getting GYPPED.

PatBateman > zipfuel 05/11/2020 at 20:09

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Do it, SR20.

PatBateman > ItalianJobR53 - now with added 'MERICA and unreliability 05/11/2020 at 20:11

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Pretty good deal.  I was paying $102 for 75 mbps (but it was usually at 50 mbps).

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > PatBateman 05/11/2020 at 21:14

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So... what was the trade? 

PatBateman > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 05/12/2020 at 09:34

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Nothing exciting.  Sell order out of a managed portfolio to raise him a few thousand dollars for personal expenses.  

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > PatBateman 05/12/2020 at 11:18

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Gotcha. Have you been making any moves personally, or just sticking with index funds and regular bi-monthly purchases?

oldmxer > PatBateman 05/12/2020 at 12:39

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zactly, the man has control, just cut off internet, humanity is built around it, no going back now that we have seen the other side

PatBateman > davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com 05/12/2020 at 13:09

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It’s tough for me to do my own personal investing, actually, because I have to adhere to the SEC’s Best- Price Rule (I can’t buy a stock/position at a better price than my clients).

While I’m not allowed to give investment advice online and/or anonymously (I’m not Tyler Durden at Motley Fool, he’s an idiot anyways), I will say this: If you ask yourself if you’d be happy five years from now dumping money into the stock market, what would be the answer?

PatBateman > oldmxer 05/12/2020 at 13:11

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A friend of mine growing up hit it big when he was younger as a club/restaurant owner and is now independently wealthy. He just spent his 40th birthday hiking in a remote national forest with no cell coverage.

That sounds fantastic.

davesaddiction @ opposite-lock.com > PatBateman 05/12/2020 at 14:30

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Ah, interesting.

Very good question. My brother’s a CFP and is definitely in the slow & steady camp, and Mrs. addiction and I have been very fortunate, have saved well the p ast 15 years and are debt free and on a very good path, long term, but it sure is tough to look at the current conditions and not see lots of opportunity to make some pretty fantastic returns in the next few years.

I won’t be surprised if things get worse before they get better, especially considering the unemployment rate (I’m sure we’ll see more businesses fail, sadly) and how so many are getting much more cautious with their spending. I have no problem playing the longer game, but obviously there’s real risk any time you’re investing in individual stocks.

The answer to your question: for a certain amount of money, it won’t have a serious bearing if I lose it, but I may feel some regret for not taking advantage of the fear in the market currently driving down values.

For example, we could have bought back in to my wife’s company stock a month ago for less than half its value today. I mentioned it to her, but she was red-lighted at the time (medium wig at a public company) . We could buy now, and it’s a third what it was at the beginning of the year, but there are other pressures at play besides the current situation with the virus. I definitely would’ve gone for it a month ago, but probably will err on the side of caution for now (unless we see another strong dip).