Please tell me there's a rational explanation for this:

I logged onto my personal laptop this evening after work and tried to access my blogging software to look over the comments and maybe post a blog post. I should say, I *tried* to log on: this website wouldn't come up. Neither would the one at my new address. And, oddly enough, when I tried going to my web host's website I couldn't get their site to come up either. However, my school's website came up fine, bloglines came up with no trouble, I even went to read posts at some of my favorite blogs. Zip. Zilch. Nada. Everything was peachy-keen. I had even been logged on to my company's VPN for the majority of the day without any trouble.

So, being fairly familiar with how the Innernet works, I said to myself, "self, your website must be down!"

I wondered if, perhaps, my domain name had expired and my hosting company hadn't auto-renewed it (this happened last year). And I'd just received an email from them this morning saying my payment had posted so I knew it wasn't that I was behind. So I sent off an email to their support folks, explaining the situation. They are quick with the responses, over there - I don't think they ever go home - and they told me, "Your site is up, we can see it!"

So I scratched my head and looked at Rennie for a while with (I'm sure) a puzzled look on my face, and then replied to that email, saying, "yeah, but I can't get to it! Why can't I get to it? I can't get to it from EITHER computer in my house!" And Mr. Helpful Tech Guy responded a few minutes later - irritated with me, no doubt - saying "Go to this site: www.alertra.com and put in your domain and see what it says."

So, being the dutiful web mistress that I am, I went over there, stuck in my web address and it came back with OKs from all around the globe. So everyone on the planet - except perhaps those poor souls in China whose Innernet is censored - is able to see my weblog except ME. JUUUUUSSST great. So I responded to his mail with the email-equivalent of sputtering and asked why it was up and yet I couldn't see it?

Guess what he said. Go on, guess: He blamed it on my ISP! Yes, COMCAST. Even though I could access EVERY OTHER site on the Internet except mine and theirs, it was a problem with the ISP.

Frankly, this sounds like a load of malarky to me, but heck, I'm no expert. I did, however, remember that we have MetroFi here in Portland, now, so I logged on to the Innernet through them and I can get to my website just fine! I'm fortunate to live in an area that gets service and it appears to be pretty quick, even.

But I just don't know what to say about this problem with Comcast or how to explain why I could access every other site on the Internet except my own. It doesn't make any sense to me. Anyone have an explanation? Thinking about it is making my head hurt...