Ask MetaFilter questions tagged with frustrating

My apartment internet sucks. Halp!

mllrstvn — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 19:51:44 -0800

My apartment complex's "incentive" free internet is awful. Is there anything to be done? Okay, so I've lived in this two hundred unit apartment complex for a little over a year. I like it here alright, but it's sort of pricey. With that in mind, I decided to go and talk to the leasing office about moving out about a month before my lease expired. In reply, they commented about how there were such great new features for the upcoming year, including free cable, free internet, and free trash pick up. The savings on these three services gladdened my spirits, so I extended my lease by a year.

During the last month of my lease, I received a flier indicating all residents would be getting the free services mentioned above. No technical details were disclosed, though the flier had lots of capitals and exclamation points. Gosh, they were excited about the FREE!!!!!! services.

Soon after my new lease kicked in, I awoke to find my cable and internet not working. I went ahead and called the cable company, and they reported that my apartment manager called and terminated my cable and internet service. At the time, I thought this was a rather nice move on his part. I went ahead and switched my laptop's wireless over from my personal router to the newly-functioning community one, and ...

Oh lord, it's slow. So, so, so slow. The exact download speeds vary from time to time, but they never, ever exceed .75 MB/s and frequently dive to less than a third of this. The community router regularly lags out or disconnects, often taking a while to allow me to reconnect. Needless to say, my time on the internet is significantly less enjoyable than it was previously; instead of streaming videos, for instance, I have to wait for the buffer to fill, watch a bit, and then let it fill up again. At times, simple emails take minutes to load. It's hellacious.

Were I to end my question now, I'm sure most would say I should talk to my apartment managers or buy my own internet service. Unfortunately, neither of these options have been exactly productive.

When I went in to talk to the apartment manager about the significant speed difference and that the "free internet" he used to keep me around for another year is frustratingly substandard, his reply was, "Well, with 200+ users, it's bound to be slow! "

I attempted to resume my previous internet service, but apparently since I canceled my contract (that is, my apartment manager called and did so), I'm no longer able to pay the same rate for which I initially signed up and will instead have to pay around double. Further, I'll have to pay a whole new host of installation fees. I've asked the manager whether the complex would be willing to pay for these, and he's unwilling.

So, Metafilter, I come unto you. Is there anything else to be done, or do I just suck it up and pay the fees and higher rate? I feel downright ripped off, especially because money is already tight. If I had known the quality of this "incentive," I surely wouldn't have stayed for another ... elevenish months. :(

Thanks for your thoughts.

I'm confused why my girlfriend has so suddenly lost all feelings for me?

HBomb — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 16:31:15 -0800

Girlfriend has suddenly lost all feelings for me and doesn't know why. We've been dating for 2years (I'm 23, she's 21) and she recently called the day before my birthday to tell me that she's suddenly lost all feelings for me. We've been in a long distance for about a year now and we call each other everyday. I respect her and treat her very well.

She's even told me she doesn't know where it's coming from or why and she's equally frustrated as I am about it. (I know she's not cheating on me) She's had similar feelings in the past and they usually go away after a day. But this time it's been going on for 3 days.

I just don't know what to do, it's frustrating to the both of us. Has anyone else had similar situations? How did you get through it? Why does this happen? I know we're in a long distance relationship but com'on, to suddenly lose all feelings in one day for NO reason?

How can I book specific flights?

jimw — Wed, 09 Jul 2008 20:41:58 -0800

If I know exactly which flights on which airlines that I want for a two-airline, two-hop international trip, how do I book them? My employer was happy to book my flight through the corporate American Express account for an upcoming trip (LAX to RIX through CDG), but decided to throw my wife to the wolves. Now we are trying to get her booked on the same flights, but travel agents we have talked to (including American Express's consumer travel agents) can't seem to duplicate the route.

The two airlines involved are Air France (actually a Delta codeshare on my ticket) and airBaltic. It is airBaltic that has stymied some of the agents, and the Delta/Air France flight for others.

Are we just having bad luck with travel agents, or is this something they just can't do? Any recommendations of agents that can work this magic would be appreciated.

Alternatively, if we just book the two round-trip flights (LAX-CDG and CDG-RIX) for her through each airline's website, are we going to run into trouble getting her luggage all the way through?

PC iPod + New Macbook = Headache

Hollow — Sat, 15 Mar 2008 14:30:06 -0800

PCtoMacFilter: Is there an easier (faster) way to get my 37 gigs of music stranded on my PC formatted iPod onto my new Macbook than copying it to a PC with 3rd party software, burning it to dvds, and then ripping the dvds onto the Mac? Apple says "no," but please tell me they are wrong.

Can't print and use internet simultaneously

Your Time Machine Sucks — Thu, 15 Jun 2006 04:08:00 -0800

Network follies. Airport + wireless ethernet bridge + gigabit switch + printer + Mac + PC = any single network service works until I try to use another one. An apartment and an office are in two separate buildings which are physically right next to one another. The apartment has DSL and an Airport base station.

The office has a wireless ethernet bridge (Moto WE800g) which receives the Airport signal and repeats it to the office via an ethernet cable. The signal tends to be around 30% which is not horrible by 802.11b standards.

In the office, there is a gigabit switch with the following things attached to it:

1. the ethernet cable from the wireless ethernet bridge
2. a Mac
3. a PC
4. a Laserjet

The printer has a manually-entered IP address (past experience has shown that DHCP is an iffy proposition with this ancient beast). The Mac and PC are assigned their IPs by the wireless ethernet bridge via DHCP but they always end up being more or less the same numbers (but if I manually assign them those same numbers, nothing works at all).

Any one network service can be induced to work, but it breaks all the others (i.e., you can print from the PC or the Mac, but you can't print from the PC and use the internet on the Mac at the same time; if you started printing first, the Mac's IP will reset itself to a self-assigned address). I have a spare hub that I'm not using at the moment and that's about the extent of my extra equipment I could bring to bear on this problem. Can I get everyone playing nicely together? Thank you in advance for any help!

Finding suits for short, portly men is hell, I tell you, pure hell.

Medieval Maven — Sat, 22 Apr 2006 18:54:17 -0800

Okay, for whatever reason, I cannot find this information to save my life: In men's suits, what is the typical length for a "short" (as in not regular or long) suit jacket? For a regular jacket? Is there a range of typical lengths? I know, by the way, that some suits are made custom, but there are also plenty of suits that are bought off-the-rack, and that's really what I'm interested in.

Bonus points: Send me to a resource that has a veritable cornucopia of this information -- arm length to jacket length to chest width . . . and I will send you cookies.

Extra Bonus Points: If you have a suit with a 46 short or "not too long" regular jacket, 46 inch waist with a not-too-long inseam, and you would like rid of it, lemme know. Email is in the profile.