Kirk 1, Verizon 0 (or maybe the other way around)

Well, the great verizon debacle finally came to an end yesterday after three more tries and denials. I got through to an incredibly unpleasant woman who told me that it would be $80 a month for DSL + one static IP. That seemed steep, especially considering I had just gotten off the phone with a pleasant fellow from RCN (on the first try no less) who had informed me that through RCN I could get Broadband for $20 and a static IP for $20. When asked what made Verizon's IP address twice as good as RCN's, the lady said "That's just what it costs. If you don't want it you don't have to get it." While I admire her honesty, one would think that they would want my money. Apparently not the case. I have to say that I don't look forward to the rigmarole that will be canceling Verizon DSL, but I will be happy to give them less money each month. And, I won't have to pay some incompetent hosting company for a sliver of a crappy server.

For the record, finding a decent hosting setup is incredibly painful. To get a decent heap on a server, you have to pay more than $80/month. How many servers can you buy for that over time?? And if you do the shared hosting options, it costs $20/mo and you get 96-160MB of dedicated heap. That's a pittance. Ridiculous. There has to be a better way. At any rate, hopefully configuring things on my server with a static IP address won't be a gigantic nightmare!

"We're sorry. The lines are full."

So I tried to get Java hosting for my little startup that I am working on. I found out that they didn't support JDK5. Wow. That was only released like 4 years ago. Anyway, they didn't remedy the problem in a timely fashion (I can install Java 5 on a server in about 10 min), so I canceled. I want to get business DSL and a static IP address at home. It's about the same price as my current account, and I can write most of it off. So, I have to call Verizon right? Except 5 times now (3 last night and 2 this morning), I have gotten this message that says they are too busy to help me. And not just to let me know that I should wait on the line. No - their automated person hangs up on me! WHAT THE HELL IS THAT? I am willing to wait! I would like to wait patiently on speakerphone until someone has the time to help me. But NO. I have to keep on calling. Kudos Verizon. I am going to try RCN now to see if they have human beings who won't hang up on me. I hate the internets sometimes. Scratch that, just Verizon's control of the internets' wires near my house.