Update... Or Not

I'm on my laptop at an internet cafe, attempting to torrent last Monday's episode of Heroes. It's not going well. It's been about an hour, and it's only 23% done. This is frustrating. Despite the fact that the wifi is free here, I don't really want to be sitting here for terribly long. After all, I have to make soup tonight~! ^_^

So, yeah, internet cafe still. We should have internet at the flat a week from tomorrow. The runaround we've been given when trying to get an ISP has been crazy. From the beginning:

We did some "research" involving a free newspaper and decided to go with Virgin.

Virgin told us we need a land line to get DSL. We called BT to get a land line and ask them about their internet packages. Virgin was half the price because did didn't come with things like a PVR, which BT's package did.

The land line takes 48 hours to become active, and Virgin won't talk to us until then.
After 48 hours, we went back to Virgin, and they told us that it'll take another 48 hours to become fully active, and to come back then.

Chris buys his iPhone and discovers that customers who have mobile with his carrier get a deal on broadband. And, unlike with Virgin or BT, you can pick up the equipment at the store, rather than having it mailed to you (which takes 5-14 working days).

We go talk to this carrier (O2), and buy a modem/router. We're given instructions on what to do when our land line becomes completely active. All's good. Right?

Wrong. Once our land line is supposed to be fully active, the O2 stuff isn't working. We call BT--the land line is in fact fully active. We call O2--turns out, the area in which we live is oversaturated, and, until they get new equipment installed, they can't take any more customers here. WTF?! There goes our 10 pounds/month deal for 16 meg DSL...

Back to Virgin, who will charge 18 pounds/month for up to 8 megs. Now, however, they want three years' worth of UK credit history, which none of us have. WTF?! There goes that...

Back to BT, who will charge 25 pounds/month for up to 8 megs with unlimited downloads (a must). This also gets us a bunch of stuff we don't need, like a PVR box for the television we don't own.

We go and return the modem/router we bought from O2, and, just to double-check, we pop into a Virgin store. They're confused by the three years' credit history requirement, and call customer service themselves. The same customer service line that told us we don't qualify told the Virgin sales rep that the credit history is not in fact required, and we're good to go.

We sign up for Virgin, and we're told that it should kick in by next Monday. The equipment will be mailed to us in 5-14 working days. So, providing that nothing else goes wrong, we'll have internet at home next Monday at the earliest.

Did that exhaust you as much as it exhausted me?

Ok, so I'm tired of typing (between this, e-mail and MSN, I have been typing for the past hour and a half straight), so I'm going to forego the rest of the update and just go home. The Heroes torrent can keep going tomorrow.