Today after lunch I came upstairs to check IRC and see if anything interesting was happening, and I noticed I was disconnected. I went downstairs to reboot the DSL modem, figuring it was acting up, and the DSL light was blinking red. So I grabbed our fax machine (the only phone-capable device I have laying around) and there was no dial tone – outside to crack open the demarc and there’s no dial tone out there either.
Turns out at least one of our neighbors’ phone is out too. The phone I could care less about, but not having the DSL really puts a hurting on us. I called up AT&T and filed a trouble ticket, as did the neighbor, and they said they’d be out Tuesday. I wasn’t exactly expecting emergency assistance, but Tuesday’s friggin’ ridiculous. Lucky our neighbor saved us the trouble and yelled at some poor customer service rep until they agreed to send someone out tomorrow – hopefully it gets fixed fast, because meatspace is terribly boring when it’s all you have. 
We decided to spend some time outside hacking out some of the shrubbery that makes our place look like a jungle. I put the kids to work helping me out, and we got a pretty sizable pile out on the street which I’m sure the city workers will be thrilled to see (considering they probably have one of the most cushy jobs in the entire county, they sure bitch a lot). We’ve still got a ton more as well, but I’m figuring on doing more tomorrow.
Maybe I’ll post some pics of the pile.