Modem Operendi

Or perhaps it should be "Modem Non-Operendi".

The modem on Desktop Bob, the big computer, is being...fractious.

Friday night, it simply quit. One moment, Someone was online wreaking havoc in the worlds of vampires and the Mafia, the next? Nothing. Nada. Screen freeze, then complete inability to connect to the Blue Nowhere.

Now every time we try to log on with Desktop Bob, the big computer, we are told that something or other cannot receive something or other else. As far as I can tell, it's trying to say the the Internet won't talk to Desktop Bob, the big computer, or perhaps Desktop Bob, the big computer won't talk to the Internet, or it may be a mutual snubbing.

In addition, I can't seem to convince Desktop Bob, the big computer, that he even has a modem. I may be doing it wrong, but when I ask him (nicely, too, without even a single threat of magnets or firearms to encourage him) to seek out his modem he contemplates his navel for a while them comes back and says he doesn't have one and would I like to install one? When I say yes, yes I would, he offers me installation options that may as well be in Esperanto for all I can comprehend them.

Yesterday a program popped up telling us we had more viruses in storage than the CDC, asking would we like to scan. Sure, why not? It listed a number of rather scary looking bugs it supposedly found on the hard drive, the offered to eradicate them. Score! Desktop Bob, the big computer, would soon be adrift in the Blue Nowhere again!

Umm...or not...

See, as soon as we clicked on the "clean up this plague riddled computer" button, we were taken to a website selling the clean-up service...for a lot of dough. Casa de Crazy is rather short on dough of the spending kind right now, although we can produce bread dough a-plenty on fairly short notice. I found it interesting that we couldn't get online in any other way except to this site trying to sell us stuff.

Today, I dinked around with poor Desktop Bob, the big computer, and discovered that although I had let our McAfee lapse (because remember that thing about dough?), it was still willing to do a scan and tell us what bugaboos we had that were born prior to the last update.

A long while later Desktop Bob, the big computer, was feeling thoroughly examined and McAfee reported...erm...nothing.

Well...shite...

Nothing else is malfunctioning...just our ability to get Someone into the Blue Nowhere via Desktop Bob, the big computer...and I'm at a loss.

Could the modem have simply given up the ghost? Is it an interface problem? Why does Desktop Bob, the big computer, think he's connected via our home network, yet won't let us online? Why does it tell us "Internet Explorer cannot display the webpage"? And when we click to diagnose the problem, why does it say "The remote device or server won't accept the connection"? Why does this sort of thing always happen to electronic devices in my employ? And why can't I win the lottery and hire a live-in geek to fix these things for me when they inevitably happen??

For now, Someone has to share Bob the Wonder Computer with me. Bob the Wonder Computer is feeling old, slow, and cranky and has a touchpad mouse that thwarts Someone's attempts to caress cooperation out of it, but the wireless modem is working fine...for now...

Don't even get me started on how the Evil Genius feels about all of this...I'm surprised they can't hear the howls up on the International Space Station!