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When I say this day got away from me, I know I'm repeating myself. But this time it's really true, I swear!
First of all, I was up half the night, worrying about having to call tech support today. Then I slept most of the morning away, so my day didn't even start until almost eleven o'clock. Then I really didn't do anything for a couple of hours except watch the Little League World Series. So it was one in the afternoon before I even started trying to install my new DSL service again.
I went through all the connections first, just to make sure it wasn't my fault. I even used different cables, in case that had been the problem. But I got to exactly the same place in the installation with exactly the same error message, including the instruction to call tech support. So I finally did it.
This is the phone company we're talking about here, so there was an intricate labyrinth of menus and options to explore. One of the options was to cancel DSL service, and after the week I've been through, I was slightly tempted. Finally I got to a non-recorded voice. I wasn't sure at first I was talking to a person until he told me his name was Jeff. Disembodied voices don't usually have names like Jeff.
I told him the problem and he walked me through steps that involved changing the connection cables (again) and checking the Device Manager to determine that the network card was, indeed, functioning (and it was). He must have had a check list, because he finally got around to asking me which cable I'd used to connect the modem to the network card.
"Not the one that looks like a regular phone line?" he wanted to know. Well, yes, that's the one I used. Was there something else I should have used?
It turns out that there is indeed a special cable, and it looks almost like a phone cord, but with larger plugs on the ends. I had no idea, and I'd received no help from the documentation or the CD-ROM. I almost got no help from Jeff, until he got to that point on his checklist.
"We've just solved the problem, haven't we?" I asked.
"I think so."
And in fact that was the problem, and that was the solution. After that the rest of the installation went so smoothly that I didn't even know we were finished. I was connected, and I waited for his next instruction. "You're done," he said.
Uh, okay Jeff, thanks.
And wow! How do people with DSL not stay online all day long, no matter how stiff their necks get? There's so much you can do, and you don't have to worry about the phone bill, because it's all included, and you don't have to worry about the line being clear, because it doesn't interfere with the fax (in my case) on the same line.
And fast? The first thing I did was check out the media sites and watch a music video in full screen mode. For the record, it was "Complicated" by Avril Lavigne, but that was only because it was the only song I recognized out of their list. Then I watched the trailer for XXX and the Big Brother 3 video (I won't pay for the live feed, though).
My imagination must not have much range, because I started running out of things to do pretty quickly. Maybe I didn't need DSL so badly after all. It sure is fun, though. | 
