Krysta's Top 13 Songs for Samhain (Halloween)

Krysta's Top 13 Songs for Samhain (Halloween)
Goth, Rock, Metal, Industrial, Trance, Dance, Dark, Emo


13 - Ministy - Every Day is Halloween



12 - Lords of Acid - VooDoo-U



11 - Type O Negative - Christian Woman



10 - Gossamer - Run



9 - Samael - The Cross



8 - The Electric Hellfire Club - Bela Lugosi's Dead



7 - London After Midnight - Where Good Girls Go to Die



6 - Rob Zombie - Dragula



5 - My Life with the Thrill Kill Kult - The Velvet Edge



4 - Rob Zombie - Living Dead Girl



3 - Rasputina - Transylvanian Concubine



2 - Evanescence - Bring Me to Life



1 - Lacuna Coil - Falling Again



Not every song actually had a video. Some appear to have been either too old or too obscure or possibly both. I tried to find the ones with the best sound.

Olivia Newton John - Magic

DSL Working Again (Final Recap)

It's now past 8pm est and my DSL is still connected.  I think it's safe to say that it is in fact now working again.  FINALLY!

Let's go back over the situation one last time.  Approximately five months ago my DSL started to randomly disconnect.  It only happened a couple times a week at first so it wasn't bad enough to be bothered worrying about yet.  It got progressively worse.

After about two months it had gotten to the point where it was becoming unbearable.  And so came the first of many calls to EarthLink.  At this time I had EarthLink DSL which had worked flawlessly for about 10 years, and had EarthLink dial-up for about 3 years prior to that.  I never had any real problems.  Had a few modems break that they promptly replaced.  Not much else.  This was the first serious problem which I had to contact them about.  Well, I was asked to do all the usual.  Clear my web cache, reset modem, reboot pc.  Nothing changed.

After several calls and many weeks I had tried everything imaginable.  They had sent me a new modem, I checked for anything that could be interfering with the signal, redid wires inside house, tried my modem with and without PC connected at all the wall jacks and phone box and got the same issue no matter what I did.

By this point it was happening frequently enough that I was able to notice a VERY distinct pattern.  At 8pm est every night my DSL would disconnect.  The internet light would go out and the DSL light would flash red for about 2 seconds then flash green for 2 more second before going solid.  The internet light would then flash green for 2 to 5 seconds before going solid and I'd be reconnected.  Exactly five minutes later that exact same thing would happen again.  And again every 5 mins repeatedly until 7am est.  This was happening every night like clockwork.

EarthLink finally sent an AT&T tech out to check the lines, but it was during the day!  When they worked fine!  Naturally everything tested out perfect.

Every time I called I got someone that didn't understand what I was saying.  All their customer service is outsourced.  And that in its self is not bad.  Except that the people they had answering their calls were idiots and clearly did not speak English or understand me or the problem.  I am the least racist, sexist, biased, etc. person you'll ever meet.  It wasn't their nationality or language that bothered me.  I just speak English and when I call for help on a product or service that I use I expect to get someone that also speaks English... fluently, AND understands the technical part of what I need help with.  If I spoke Hungarian and called for help on a cosmetic product I'd expect to get someone that spoke Hungarian and wore make up to help me.  If I spoke Chinese and had an issue with my car I'd expect to call and get someone that spoke Chinese and was a mechanic on Japanese cars.  Is that too much to expect?  Ok, I guess so, but that's still what I "needed".

Four months, 15+ phone calls to EarthLink, still no help.  My final call I was told that there was nothing left for them to do and that they refused to open another trouble ticket since it would simply automatically close itself since there was nothing left they could do.  They had planned to simply leave me with DSL that worked 50% of the time and continue to charge me far too much for it.

It was at this point I finally gave in and decided to change to AT&T.  I figured if I have a problem outside somewhere with the lines the best company to have would be AT&T since they own those lines.  I have AT&T home phone and Cel phone so it made sense despite the hassle of changing email addresses for 13 years of internet, shopping, and gaming sites and programs.  So Sept. 2nd I put in an order for AT&T Highspeed DSL Xtreme 6.0.  THREE weeks later I finally got the setup pack with equipment, modem, filters, dvd, so forth.  I set it up, logged in, that night, SAME THING.

So, I called AT&T, late, got outsourced, however they were smart.  But they couldn't do anything since they were just the late night phone help.  I did not know that at first.  They tried to help, but failed.  I was told they'd call back the next day when the tech department was open, they did not.  I called back the day after that and tried again, it was late, they tried to help, and failed again.  I was told to call back the next day myself.  I did, coincidently that day they had an outage in my area and said they couldn't pinpoint my problem until that was fixed.  Two days later I called back, late but not as late as prior calls.  Again they tried to help and failed but told me someone would call me the next day.  This time around they did, and they tried to help but failed as well.  They said call back in a day or two after they had time to run tests.

A week or so had gone by at this point.  I called in the evening this time and got someone here, in the USA, New Orleans to be specific.  They understood what I was saying and had theories right off.  They talked to the tech and tech talked to me.  It was believed at this point to be either the very old, but not working, street light behind my house, the wiring in the walls, or something called a dslam box in my neighborhood.  I was told however that the dslam box has been having problems for "many months" but that the equipment was expensive and it was not known when or if it would be fixed any time soon.  That was what we all had assumed was the main issue.  However, to cover all my tracks I called FPL (Florida Power & Light) and put in a request to have that light fixed and/or repaired.  And I had them send a tech to test the line anyhow.

First person I spoke to said latest a tech in my area works is 5pm.  Second person said 6pm I said ok fine let me set up an appointment then.  When I actually got to the person to set the appointment time though they said they have someone that can come between 5pm and 8pm.  I was like WHAT!  Cause all this time I had been told no techs could be sent during or near the time my problems have been happening.  So, I set it up and had him not to come as late as possible.  He did, he came at exactly 8pm.  He swore he saw the problem in the box immediately and started to redo some wiring.  I stood there watching him and trying to help with flashlight and stuff till nearly 9pm.  He finished, I was so excited and hopeful.  I came inside, SAME PROBLEM.  Nothing was fixed.  I told the man and we both felt bad and made sad faces and gave up basically.  He left, I came in depressed and sat here thinking what the heck am I going to do next.

For about two hours I watched the DSL modem disconnect every five mins. same as it had been for 5+ months now.  I did a little bit of what one might call praying, keeping in mind that I'm not Christian and I'd rather not get into the details involved in what I did here in this blog.  Then I got caught up watching NCIS and House.  Around 11:15pm I noticed that I hadn't seen the modem go off in some time.  I also realized that I hadn't really been paying THAT much attention to it due to TV shows.  But at that point I started to watch it more closely.

Somewhere around 4am or 5am I passed out but at that point it was still working and had not disconnected.  It has also now been a complete hour since I started writing this post and I am also still connected.

I may never know what really happened that made it start working anymore than I will ever know what made it stop working right in the first place.  What I do know is that it IS now working.  After five months I can resume my facebook posts, my EverQuest raids, my gaming, my chatting, and everything else I have been unable to do for half the day, every day this whole time.

I'm happy, which in itself is an odd an unusual feeling for me.  It'll pass...