Today’s theme has been transition. Not a major transition in life, though that’s pretty much an everyday occurrence at my age, but a change of internet service, which in perspective shouldn’t loom as large as it seems to.

My old internet provider (which shall remain nameless) is cravenly withdrawing service from my area in a few weeks. So I went over to a cooler, more fashionable ISP, which shall also remain nameless, because if they want a plug they can pay for an ad.

They sent me a box with a modem, and told me about an app I could install on my cell phone, which would – they assured me – walk me through the installation process in about 20 minutes.

I knew it was a lie, of course. Surely they knew it was a lie too.

I floundered with the process for a while before figuring out they were telling me how to hook it all up through a coaxial cable. But I had no coaxial cable. I’ve never had cable in this house.

They don’t make it easy to contact an actual human being through their customer service page, but eventually I bulled my way through. That person, who communicated through online chat and seemed to be equipped with a pre-assembled list of positive affirmations (“I’m on this!” “I won’t fail you!”) soon deduced that I needed a technician to come out and drill a hole in my house. Amazingly, one was available today.

Long (and dull) story short, I now have cable internet. I had hopes of much faster speeds, but so far it seems about comparable to my old DSL service. I could get something better if I were willing to pay for it, of course, but that’s crazy talk.

In other news, I discovered yesterday, to my rapturous delight, that you can watch the old Ian Carmichael Lord Peter Wimsey productions from the BBC on YouTube. The first episode of “Clouds of Witness” is embedded below, for your convenience and cultural enrichment.