Sam, the Time Warner cable guy, just departed leaving me with a brand new modem and I'm so excited! My old modem had the temperament of an old cat, "if you come near me, I'll lose my signal...I promise."

Sam walked in and immediately started laughing at my old and faulty cable modem which was discontinued soon after it was released. Although, he was impressed with my splitting job but shocked that I don't have a television and that the cable is for my computer only.

Sam said that cable signals can go down at any moment, the hard wire is extremely sensitive and "if a pigeon were to urinate on a wire, the cable would go down". I inquired why Time Warner had not embraced the wireless technology for their service, he said "you mean like Direct TV? I have Direct TV and I love Direct TV." Not knowing the specifics of Direct TV, I could only shrug.

Then he hooked up the brand new modem which is a quarter of the size...every bit of space helps!

After replacing the modem, he was trying to get a hold of a Time Warner dispatcher in order to register the new modem for online use. He didn't have the little orange Fed Ex-like computer because Time Warner's computer system, the Mallard, has been down since yesterday afternoon??

I had to clarify that information with Sam, "my computer's online service is provided by Time Warner and their computer system has been down since yesterday afternoon?"

And since there are 60 Time Warner location vehicles in Manhattan and only three dispatchers per area, my area beginning at the Southern tip of Battery Park City going all the way up to 23rd Street, Sam had no choice but to patiently wait his turn to speak with a dispatcher to register the modem.

While waiting Sam spoke about; the internal negative effects which AOL has had on Time Warner, other people's apartments & how he has seen everything - he said "use your wildest imagination and I've seen it", Spiderman 2 - which he liked better than the first one and Sam also gave me some advice on technology.

Sam is now off riding his Time Warner location vehicle into the humid streets of NYC to rescue his remaining nine clients.

Was browsing through blogspot when I stumbled here