Can you hear me now? Good.

Hopefully this is the final installment of "LA move bitch-fest 2006". I thought I'd share with you the love that I've received from just about every service vendor in Los Angeles since I've arrived here. If it weren't for the LADWP (utilities), the City of Angles would be 0-fer my move. So hopefully (please hopefully) I won't be writing any more rants about this fucked up situation.

Verizon phone service working when we get here? Nope. Check.
Time Warner Cable working when the technician hooks it up? Nope. Check.
Verizon DSL working when they say it will? Nope. Check.

Well, the latest on the move from hell is that Verizon DSL promised I'd be up and running on August 17th, a speedy 7 days after I ordered. They ship you your DSL modem via UPS, so Brown can do something for you. Well the Verizon phone rep forgot to put my apartment number down, so Brown just turned around and took my modem back down to lovely Gardena california. A little hop, skip and jump down the 405 on a Friday. Yippee. At least the supervisor on the phone was nice enough to give me a month free DSL for my trouble.

I go pick up the modem from UPS, come home and open the box like a 5-year-old on Xmas morning. Since there are no paper instructions and only an installation CD, I pop the CD in. I'm being talked to like a 5-year-old by the voices on the CD about how to install a splitter into my phone jack, then the CD doesn't allow me to progress to the next item: How to install DSL filters. Nice. I know how to do this. I know I can. I've worked with technical stuff once or twice before. Piece of cake.

The phone splitter goes into the outlet. The DSL filter goes on one side, the other side gets plugged into the DSL modem. The ethernet cable gets plugged from the modem into the compter and VOILA! Nada. Well not exactly. There was a flashing light next to the part that said DSL. Probably not a good sign.

Onto call #2 with Verizon DSL, and the tech support guy starts talking to me like a 5-year-old. I cut to the chase and tell him I installed the wiring like I did on my last DSL modem, but the DSL light is flashing and my web browser is telling me I'm not connected to the internet. Long story even longer, I finally get to talk to the supervisor and he tells me that my DSL isn't hooked up yet. Brilliant. Now how the hell did he figure that out? Oh yeah, I called and told him that. Thank god for stellar customer service.

When we finally get our DSL working 3 days later, it seems slow. So slow that I decide to run CNET's speed test on it. Not the 3 MB / sec I ordered, not even 1.5 MB they offer: A snail-like 613 K at best. I should have known better than to order Verizon DSL after LLMB reader #2 told me he tried 'em and got slow speed DSL too. I'd try to get cable internet, but ah shit... I won't go back there again.

Now I'm switching to Earthlink. FUCK VERIZON. Can you hear me now? Good.