Venting (skip if you hate techno babble)

If you've emailed me since Friday and are still looking for a response, please resend your message.

Your earlier messages probably met a sad end yesterday. I have been with this local ISP since 1995 and I've grown attached to my email addy. Even though I now get internet access through the world's most huggable cable behemoth (Comcast), I can't bear to part with the old address (well, really I just can't bear to change my email at every website I have ever registered with). Anyhoo, I lost access to my mailbox mysteriously on Saturday so I did a little troubleshooting on my own to make sure it wasn't on my end. The mail server was accepting my password but it wouldn't let me see any of the mail headers. The error looked something like this:

ERR [SYS/PERM] Unable to process From lines (envelopes), change recognition modes or check for corrupted mail drop.

After several attempts over several days (it's a small company plus it was a holiday weekend), I finally got a phone tech to see that 1. I do know how to use email, 2. it's not the password, 3. it's not the spam filter (where did that come from??) and that 3. the problem is with the box. Finally, last night a tech calls back and says the mailbox was corrupt (duh!) and they had to delete it (arghh!) and set up a new one (finally!).

And here's the best part: just as I was talking to the last tech, the power goes out in the house. The world's most huggable power company (Pepco) had shut down our power because they were trying to fix this wee little problem of water trickling into our fuse box from their line. So I'm standing in the dark, listening to the guy who just deleted four days worth of my unread email. But wait! There's more. I get off the phone (I was unfailingly calm - I save all my rage for this blog), the power comes back on and I try to boot up my desktop. No go. Unplug, replug. Nope. Unplug, replug of the UPS. Nada. Cursing. Nothing. The power cut off had apparently killed the power supply, though how that happened through the UPS is yet another mystery. Considering my recent run of luck, I will leave that mystery alone and just replace the power supply. I wonder what will break next...