My dog ate my (fill in the blank)

A couple of weeks ago, An power company fault took out my PC's motherboard, and the AC/DC converter for my modem. Lucky I had a spare and was able to get online with a 1-port unit. Yesterday afternoon, I noticed that I was getting UT3 connections in the 300+ms range. And last night, it was worse at ~500ms. I hope it's better for the Thurs. night frag-fest. Apologies to all the good friends in warfare and vctf if I don't make it. There was a train derailment in one of the nearby `burg's, and it seems that often, a network provider will lease (cheaply) the land as it also usually makes a bee-line for other cities. Haven't heard if this is the reason, but it did seem to happen in the time frame. Also, it might be a good idea to use this topic as a whole new forum for the "sorry, I got (drunk | high | off-my-meds-and-psychotic) last night and (pee'd | threw-up | whatever) on my (so-and-so) equipment messages. Thoughts?