A tale of Internet pain and woe

[Doom-Child]

So it was an honest mistake, and I'm sorry. I never should have tried such a stupid trick, and I really only have myself to blame for the stress and emotional instability I find myself currently in. I just thought, you know, why not? Isn't that why this sort of thing is in place?

Let me back up.

I was under what is evidently a mistaken impression. I thought that the Internet was in place to transfer data. Plain and simple. Nothing political, nothing economical, nothing spiritual, not even anything human. Just data. Ones and zeroes composed in such a way as to allow us to create illusions that hold iconic significance.

It seems that the lawn gnomes from across the street have been sneaking into my apartment, chloroforming my roommate and I, and then fucking our ears until we bleed.

It all started when I heard someone mention a demo for Savage. I hadn't heard much about it. I still haven't, thanks to the aforementioned misconception. I was referred to a demo. Holding a general disdain for anyone who writes reviews for a living, I didn't bother to look to any of the standard outlets of horseshit drivel (indeed, I haven't the foggiest where I'd go to obtain such things anymore). With a link to the Savage website, I was off.

I found the file page without much trouble, and located the list of mirrors for the demo. It seemed like a list of the usual suspects, Fileplanet, Filefront, Gamershell, IGN, etc. I've never gotten over my traumatic experience with Fileplanet, and I refuse to install extra software just to download a freaking demo, so two links went out the door.

I'd had good luck with WorthPlaying in the past, so I cruised by and tried to download. I was greeted with the friendly message, "Get the Savage Demo [win32] Off Worthplaying (140mb)". I didn't realize this was legalese for "FUCK YOU AND YOUR BANDWIDTH THEFT, YOU ELECTRONIC JOHN".

Aside from opening another popup window (Cripes, didn't these people ever hear of linking?), I was confronted with three US-based mirrors for download. Being a "Number One" sort of guy, I clicked, and sealed my fate.

I should inject here that I'm on DSL. Reasonably decent DSL. To be clear, I would recommend this DSL to my mother, and I try to steer her clear of bad technology ideas. As such, a transfer rate of less than a kilobyte per second from a major file-hosting service at 4 in the afternoon is most assuredly not acceptable.

The second mirror link pointed me at Filefront. I was in err when I thought that web admins had gotten beyond the childish tactic of lying about available content and then sluffing off users to another website in hopes they don't notice, but again, I must have been mistaken. How naive. Let me be brief (too late) and say that I despise Filefront nearly as much as I abhor Fileplanet.

In short, it took seven different file-hosting sites to give me the file. Of them, four didn't bother to tell me the servers were down, one had no mirrors, and the other two took longer to serve the file to me than my legendary Shit of '94.

As a final note, the irony that Worthplaying was eventually the victor in this epic struggle of the file-hosters is exacerbated by my final transfer rate: 1337 KB per second.

DC

[Weakmind]

What are you apalogizing for? What did ya do?

[Bloodshedder]

Do you even read any posts that you come across? He's talking about the pain of trying to download files on the Internet. I share his pain.

[Goat]

wish i had broadband

[Weakmind]

Oh, sorry, don't do that

[Doom-Child]

And it shows.

To follow everything up, I should point out that the final transfer mentioned resulted in a corrupted file. I was too busy raving into my keyboard to notice.

As a sidenote, I'd like to dedicate this rant to deadnail. I'd like to think he taught me everything I know about ranting, but it would be a bald-faced lie. Being fucked in the ear by lawn gnomes was most of it.

DC

[Quast]

I posted a blog just like this on saturday...yes, i feel your pain.

[Ed]

I hate the internet. 1999 was the 'net's last good year, and that's a stretch.

/points to any website

/points to the 6656 pop-ups blocked in a month via Goggle Bar

/points to Ad-Aware running as I type this, 99 new objects running

Like everything, greedy american business men have stuck their members into every avalable oriface of the internet, cutting it's once endless potential down to meerly a money-making machine.

[Scabbed Angel]

Ed said:

I hate the internet. 1999 was the 'net's last good year, and that's a stretch.

Yeah especially with Y2K and all. . .

[Chopkinsca]

boo hoo. I can't get files quickly off the internet... I'm going to kill myself now.

[DOOM Anomaly]

I remember when my old stepdad had the internet it would make funny phone sounds when he went online. :D
But for 3 years we've had cable internet seeing our house uses it a lot, and by house I mean me. :D I myself would wither away without the internet or of a really slow connection, I am too nerdified to live otherwise. :D But my connection is slowed down a fair bit, I know it is not as bad as it could be so I know I have to be grateful. Though I am sorry to hear of such woes. It would be neato if the internet got a super advancement and then everyone had super fast connection and it would never slow because only they would be using that one dee-lee and it would make a seperate one for everyone and so it would be like there is only one person on the whole internet provider; because there is! For that one branch of it; you! :D
Yes, I love to wish and dream. :D

[Quast]

DOOM Anomaly said:

I remember when my old stepdad had the internet it would make funny phone sounds when he went online. :D

heh...Back in the day I guess...jeez. Damn, I used 56k for years...only getting DSL (and cable now) last summer.

[Remilia Scarlet]

Ed said:

/points to any website

/points to the 6656 pop-ups blocked in a month via Goggle Bar

/points to Ad-Aware running as I type this, 99 new objects running

Is it just me, or am I the only one not experiencing the problems I constantly hear about? I've had the Google toolbar for a few months and have only blocked 323 popups, have had little spam since I stopped using AOL, have had no viruses, no connection or download problems really (just a minor on here or there that's to be expected), not very much Spyware, and seem to be doing what I've always done.

[Quast]

DJ_Haruko said:

Is it just me, or am I the only one not experiencing the problems I constantly hear about? I've had the Google toolbar for a few months and have only blocked 323 popups, have had little spam since I stopped using AOL, have had no viruses, no connection or download problems really (just a minor on here or there that's to be expected), not very much Spyware, and seem to be doing what I've always done.

You're not the only one. my pop-up blocker has blocked almost 1000. No virii here. Though my firewall saw a senna-spy attempt a couple weeks ago.

[Hyena]

Doom-Child said:

It seems that the lawn gnomes from across the street have been sneaking into my apartment, chloroforming my roommate and I, and then fucking our ears until we bleed.

I think it's great how you somehow managed to fit that into the story with no explanation. :)

[exl]

Ed said:
I hate the internet. 1999 was the 'net's last good year, and that's a stretch

The internet used to be uncluttered? God, what have I been living in.
Seriously though, the only thing those pesky file mirrors\hosting thingies (ie. FilePlanet, FileFront and the stuff DC mentioned) are good for nothing. I refuse to even download off those sites, even if it is a file I really, really need. I'm just waiting for the day that commercialisation on\of the internet is forbidden or at least put on a leash world-wide.


It's gonna be a long wait.

[Doom-Child]

Hyena said:

I think it's great how you somehow managed to fit that into the story with no explanation. :)

I think it's great how you don't notice how much it really does fit.

DC

[SyntherAugustus]

God I wish P2P clients were more reliable.

[Doom-Child]

I just wish the fucking Internet wasn't BROKEN.

DC

[DooMBoy]

Smashed is more like it. The internet is a corporate cesspool, a money making scheme with evil pop ups lurking in the shadows, just waiting to steal your bandwidth and drive you into an uncontrollable fury, making you want to smash your fist through your monitor. What's even sadder is that this is addicting, people.
Ahem, I appear to have rambled, hopefully I added something coherent to the conversation at hand :)

[Fletcher`]

The intranet is the devil and you fucking know it.

[Ichor]

DooMBoy said:

Smashed is more like it. The internet is a corporate cesspool, a money making scheme with evil pop ups lurking in the shadows, just waiting to steal your bandwidth and drive you into an uncontrollable fury, making you want to smash your fist through your monitor. What's even sadder is that this is addicting, people.
Ahem, I appear to have rambled, hopefully I added something coherent to the conversation at hand :)

I see you still haven't quite recovered from that terrible experience the other night. I mean, if a map can drive you insane, then it must truly be the worst map of all time.

[DooMBoy]

Heh, I remember that map. It's all your fault, Ichor! ALL YOUR FAULT.

[Hyena]

Doom-Child said:

I think it's great how you don't notice how much it really does fit.

DC

Uh, if anyone has the slightest idea what that lawn gnome thing has to do with anything, please let me know. Kthnxbye.

[DaJuice]

I just wish there was more porn on kazaa. I must have downloaded every file at least 5 times, it makes me sick!

[Doom-Child]

Hyena said:

Uh, if anyone has the slightest idea what that lawn gnome thing has to do with anything, please let me know. Kthnxbye.

It's an exaggerative statement made to show the just how ridiculous the rest of the experience was. h4w.

DC