OK, picture this. You're at work, you're bored. You work for two hours. Your morning break comes around. You decide to go to your favorite place in the whole universe: RinkWorks. For some reason, though, your internet connection on your work computer is kind of slow today. You get to RinkWorks, though, so that's just dandy. Upon opening the main page at RinkWorks, what do you see? Lo and behold, the long awaited POAT! has finally been released. Now you are finding it hard to type or control your mouse because you are shaking from the excitement. A new AGL game! What could be better? You decide to do two things: First you sign up to start a game of POAT. Second, you open a new browser window and go check out RinkChat to share your rejoicing with other RinkyDinks. OK, enough second person narrative. I'm sure you all know who I'm talking about by now.

I celebrated with those in RinkChat for a few minutes, but my connection was VERY slow. I eventually gave up on RinkChat in hopes that it would speed up my connection for POAT. No such luck. Eventually, I found out that the telephone company that provides the backbone for our local DSL internet (to which my company subscribes) had some sort of major problems. At about eleven o'clock in the morning (MST), average packet loss to a group of ten or so major service providers was sitting at 62%.

I tried to play POAT for the next five hours or so. I got a lot of work done during that time, of course, since each action required about five minutes of attempting to connect, and the attempts usually failed. I spent approximately THREE HOURS trying to examine the plastic cup I found in the cockpit. Although I was interested to find that the cup has a hinged lid attached to it, I do not feel that this discovery was worth the THREE HOURS it took to achieve. (Of course, had I tried to mess with the controls or go back to the cabin, those events would have taken THREE HOURS, so the point is moot.)

As the day went on, my internet connection fluctuated, and gradually got worse. By 4:00, we had no connection whatsoever to all but four of the ISPs, and those four had 98%, 98%, 98%, and 99% packet loss (as we saw them). Oh, and I lost an hour at lunch because I had an appointment to go give blood. (I have never felt so bad about volunteering my blood-- Who cares if I have O negative blood and the supply is almost wiped out-- POAT was released today!)

I finally got to leave work at 4:30 MST. I came home, and turned on my computer. At this point, I was overjoyed to see that unlike my DSL connection at work, my cable modem connection at home was still lightning quick. Ayako quickly noted that I was connected to AIM and let me know that POAT was up, and I chatted happily for a minute or two. I then opened Internet Explorer so I could a) Start playing POAT, and b) Post this message.

It was not to be.

About two minutes into reading the Forum posts I had missed during the day, I got the infamous Blue Screen of Death. I pressed the Any key, and it went away-- and nothing seemed to have closed. Pleased with my small victory over the evil empire (sorry Brunnen-G) I continued my reading. Blue Screen of Death, Enter Stage Right. This time, however, IE was shut down. Of course, my immediate response was to come running back to AIM and complaing to Ayako. No sooner had I done this than my good friend, the Blue Screen of Death, came for another visit. This time, however, he would not settle for a simple bribe of Any key. No matter how many times I pushed the Any key, he would not leave. I even moved my Any key label and tried several other keys... Nothing. I then called on my friends, the Three Finger Salute gang, but they could not subdue Mr. BSD. Finally, I went for my last line of defense: Lethal Force.

Pushing the reset button on the front of my tower WAS successful in restarting my computer; however, ScanDisk found nothing wrong. I quickly got back online, let Ayako know what had been happening, shut down AIM, and came straight here to read the remaining posts and type this one. And here we are.

Now, I have other commitments to fulfill which will *SIGH* prevent me from playing POAT for most of the evening. I am beginning to believe that I will not complete POAT until 2032, mainly because I won't get to START until then. (Well, technically, I have a start. Soon, I will investigate the pile of rubbish... MwuhahahaHAHAHAHAHAHAHAhahahaHAhahaHAHAhahaaaahhh...)

Don "The 'EXTREMELY FRUSTRATED' Monkeyman" Jackson

PS: To the grammar and computer lingo purists out there: If your day was like mine, do YOU think YOU would care about getting your grammar right or discussing the phenomenon of packet loss in appropriate terms? Didn't think so. ;-)