I blame my lack of posting on my stupid-ass cable-modem provider, AT&T Broadband. More on that later.

I've been pretty grumpy all week, and I think I've figured out why: For the longest time -- almost a year -- everytime something less-than-pleasant came up about my life, I'd just distract myself with Australia. Economy going to hell? Who cares! I'm going to Australia, where the US dollar is actually pretty strong. Death and terrorism? Hey, not in Australia. Job precarious and not all that fun? Ooh, look, Australia! House needs work? Hell, I'll think about that after Australia.

And I went to Australia. And it was great. And then I came back. And this was all waiting for me. Crap.

So I was in a bit of a funk for a while (I mean, come on, people -- I was gone for three weeks. Couldn't you have had the courtesy to fix everything while I was gone? Sheesh.) Then on Thursday, I went to see Harry Potter with Angie, Jordan, Lotti and John, and was reminded how damn cool my friends are, and how much fun we can have, and how good it is to be home. I was also reminded that we should never let Lotti have her head in any place with exceptional acoustic amplification propertes (i.e., a parking garage), and that John is just as, if not more, crazy than Lotti, and that Angie is the queen of the non-sequitor, and that Jordan and Angie have a sense of direction and we should always follow them. (We split up at the elevators -- me and Lotti and John going one way, Angie and Jordan another. We're still walking when we hear Angie yelling something, but the echo caused by the parking garage is such that we can't understand what she's saying. After much yelling back and forth, and a bit of a walk on our part, we discover what she was saying was "Your cars are right here!" Right next to Ang and Jordan's. Oh.)

Harry Potter -- I hadn't let myself really anticipate anything, and hadn't read any of the reviews, and refused to let anyone tell me about the movie. That was a good plan -- I could be surprised and delighted by the stuff they executed well, rather than disapppointed by the stuff that didn't get in. The Quidditch match! Hogwart's! Hermione! (Damn, she was PERFECT!) Snape! (Alan Rickman, you are a GOD!) Hee hee. I was a happy camper.

Having said that, I was bummed that they cut out Hermione's challenge when they were looking for the philosopher's stone (Yeah, I know, here it was called the sorcerer's stone, but hell, I'm enough of a geek to like the original better). The whole point was that each of these kids had something that only they could contribute -- I doubt anyone else in the school could fly like Harry, or play chess like Ron. And in the book, the challenge that Hermione excelled at was a logic puzzle -- one of these potions will let you pass, and one of them always lies, and one always tells the truth, and the second for the left is related to the green one, or something like that. So you needed to think your way through it logically, and wizards suck at that, apparently. So Hermione was that perfect -- maybe only -- person in the school who could do that, because she was born of Muggles, and grew up knowing how to think on her feet, not just memorize things. Whereas the challenge they did have her work out was something that anyone who paid attention in class could have done. Hmmm.

But that's a quibble -- for the most part, the movie kicked ass.

Then I had the adventure of trying to fix my damn cable modem -- again. Now, the last time a tech came out, he said that if it happened again, I should try to swap out my ethernet card. It happened again, and I called for a new ethernet card. They said sure, come and pick it up at our exceedingly inconvenient office on the northwest side. Oh, and we close at 6, so good luck making it in after work. Look, I said, since I've so many godawful problems with this, couldn't you messenger me the card or something? No, they say, we don't do that. Ever? Ever. Can I speak to a manager? He'll just tell you the same thing. Fine, I want him to tell me that, then his manager, then his manager, then the frickin' VP of customer service if necessary. The guy on the phone grudgingly took my message, and I fumed for the rest of the day.

Next day, noonish, the manager calls and says sure we'll deliver the card -- one of our techs will be in your area. Thank you. Bastards.

So I get the card. Huzzah. I wait for Wendy to come home to install the new card, because, well, I'm a wimp. Duh. She gets home late, opens up the case (as I cringe and try to keep the cats away), and says "Hang on a second, you don't have an ethernet card." Hmmm. Seems I had been using an adaptor. Well, score, I now have a card. We (meaning Wendy) plug the card in, hook everything back up, and wait for the modem to work. No luck. We futz with a few more things. Still no luck. Dammit. We put the computer back together, plug everything back in, and get on with our lives.

Two days later, I turn the computer on and get the dreaded "Monitor test" screen. Arghh! I panic, call Wendy, make her come up and push buttons. Nothing doing. I am pulling my hair out, as this happened to me at work, and we ended up swapping out the CPU. I don't have a spare CPU lying around, so there was wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Wendy went downstairs to query her cadre of geeks. Nope, didn't work, didn't work, didn't work. I am going fetal -- I really don't want to have to replace anything. Finally she calls and says disconnect the monitor from the CPU and we'll take it from there. OK. That's the big purple cable, right? No, wait, that's for the Zip drive. then it must be ... oh, hell. Unplugged. Sigh.

So yes, I have committed the cardinal sin of calling tech support before I made sure things were plugged in. I am an idiot.

I'm back. AT&T Broadband still sucks. They had a month to get it right, but no.......

So: Got back Friday night about 7 p.m., staggered into Wendy's apartment seeking food (as I was pretty sure i didn't have any up in my apartment), babbled about my trip while she made me a peanut-butter sandwich. Life was good.

Staggered back upstairs, dealt with the cats' separation anxiety (they're still following me around the apartment), and collapsed into a sodden heap by about 9 p.m. Woke up at 3 a.m., went back to sleep til about 8 a.m.

Went into the office to (1) make sure my stuff was still there and (2) see if anything hideously important had come up on e-mail. Relieved on both counts.

Girls' (and Boys') night In at Kat and Bob's, where we got to admire Kat's swollen tummy (she's scheduled to give birthon Monday) and their preternaturally gorgeous children. Liz and Dave from L.A. were in town, so that was cool. Ate, drank, played Celebrities, laughed. Life was good.

Very, very tired. Sigh.