I'm tired of things not working. Sick of it. Frustrated to the Nth Degree. Exhausted beyond sense.

I thought things were getting better once I'd finished the problem-solving, customer-support calling gauntlet with the Vaio and the PowerMac, particularly once Apple Support called to say that the latter had been fixed and was ready for pick up in Bridgewater

But then on Thursday, just as we're getting ready to leave for New Hampshire, I open the unexpected, rectangular box that had been waiting on the front porch, and discover that it's a Vaio. Someone else's Vaio. That's right -- the computer, complete with help documentation -- had been shipped to our house instead of it's owners. Or at least we think that's what happened; Sue's checking it out today to make sure it's not her computer (there's very little chance that it's hers -- she sent it out on Tuesday of last week, and it should have taken at least a day to get to California via FedEx).

And then in New Hampshire I helped my brother-in-law with what should have been the relatively simple task of setting up a wireless Netgear router with his DSL modem. We got everything configured fairly quickly, and activated encryption only to find that the connection was ridiculously slow when trying to connect to Yahoo.com or Ebay.com (which, of course, are the two sites my sister uses most). I tried all manner of troubleshooting, but couldn't find the solution ... ultimately I left it to my brother-in-law to call Verizon and try and figure out what the problem was.

Somewhat dejected at being unable to solve that particular problem, I drove home with Sue and Jordan, and after about eight hours on the road, arrived home in Easton in the midst of a massive thunderstorm. Once inside, and with the storm thankfully retreating into the distant, I fired up my trusty G3 iBook ... and found that my own wireless network was freaking out. Signal strength fluctuating wildly, spiking to full strength, then dropping offer entirely every few seconds. And that's where I left it. Disgusted and too tired to fight that particular fight, I closed the iBook and went to bed.

Unfortunately, the problem's still waiting for me. I check it out this morning, and even after re-booting the DSL modem and the wireless router, the iBook was still having a conniption trying to contact the network. At this point I'm thinking that the storm may have fried one of the network devices, but I won't know for sure until I get home with my work PowerBook and try to have it connect.

But of course, that'll have to wait until late tonight, after I pickup the PowerMac in Bridgewater, and given Sony a call about a certain errant Vaio. Is there an end in sight to this technological quagmire? Will the Gods of Geekdom ever relent? And will I ever get to spend a night without hearing Sue say