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Cheap fuel and cheap goddamn electronics!


June 01, 2007 - 4:21 p.m.

I finally found a solution to the problems we've been having with the combination cable-modem/wireless router we've had for a year or so. I took it out into the middle of the road and chopped it into little pieces with a hatchet.

Folks, if any offers you a Linksys WCG200, the offending combination cable modem and wireless device, laugh at them or run away fast. The thing is buggy, non-upgradeable, slow and flaky in operation, and Linksys has basically done nothing to fix it. Most amusingly, several people who had chronic problems with the thing shipped their units back to Linksys for repair. Linksys' "repair" was to ship them back two separate units: a brand new standalone cable modem, and a brand-new standalone wireless router. No word on what they might have done with the returned WCG200.

Anyway, I am going out after work tonight and getting a new cable modem (yes, a Linksys, because most of their gear is actually very good, unlike this piece of crap) and attaching it to one or more of my existing 54-megabit wireless routers. I have several around here, so I guess it's time to find their power adapters and light them back up again.

In other news, we had a nice smokeout last night. One of the counties that contains our favorite bars and restaurants ended smoking in bars as of June 1, so last night we went out armed with multiple packs of cigarettes and a box of CAO cigars, and made a night of it. My head is still a little puffy now, but it's worth it just to have done it. Suzanne is once again quitting, and I will probably cut way back.

I filled the TDI up again this morning. I really topped up the tank, and it took 23.5 gallons, but the best part was that this was diesel at $2.83 a gallon, unchanged for weeks now. Since diesel and home heating oil come from the same general feedstock, and since the home heating season is over, diesel prices have stayed the same while unleaded gas around here has gone up about thirty cents a gallon.

This means by getting 50mpg and paying thirty cents less per, I'm saving literally hundreds of dollars a month compared to what I'd have spent on gas for the late, dead red Passat. That would have cost me $150 a week in gas, where the TDI costs me $65 about every ten days.

Nyah.


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